Jab down near Cooktown

[Guest J430]

Anyone know anything about a Jab that was allegedly put down on a small road near Cooktown? Apparently only very minor injuries which is good, the plane was damaged a fair bit.

 

J

 

 

[Kaz]

I believe the mayday call reported an engine failure.

 

 

[Guest brentc]

Did it allegedly land in trees when it missed the road?

 

 

[Kaz]

I only know about the Mayday call report...

 

 

[Guest aircraft1]

A PILOT and his wife are lucky to be alive after their light plane crashed into bush near Cooktown yesterday.

 

Cooktown police Sen-Constable Luke Tulacz said the plane clipped the trees on one side of Archer Point Rd, which caused it to veer and crash into the bush on the other side of the gravel road.

 

"It completely destroyed the plane," Sen-Constable Tulacz said.

 

"They are very lucky considering the terrain at Archer Point."

 

The couple were making the return leg of a day trip from Mareeba when they issued a mayday message that their plane was having engine trouble in the tail winds about 20km south of Cooktown.

 

The plane was thrown off course and quickly plummeted to the ground about 8km from the intersection of the Cooktown Developmental Rd and Archer Point Rd.

 

Sen-Constable Tulacz said the couple, from New South Wales, were returning from inspecting a property near Cooktown when the accident happened about 2.30pm.

 

The couple were rushed to Cooktown Hospital for treatment.

 

The husband, 48, suffered vapour burns to the lower half of his body from leaking aviation fuel.

 

His wife, 47, escaped with minor injuries and eye irritation from the fumes.

 

The man was still in hospital last night but the woman was discharged late yesterday afternoon.

 

Sen-Constable Tulacz said tourists at Archer Point could see the plane was in trouble and rushed to the scene when it disappeared from the sky into thick bush.

 

He said the crash was still being investigated.

 

Cooktown police, Queensland Fire and Rescue crews and Queensland Ambulance rushed to the location after the pilot made a distress call that he had to ditch the plane.

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Glad to hear evryones ok.. we all know how easily these things go the other way...

 

Report says they had to ditch...hmmm, thought that meant a landing in the water....

 

 

[spacesage]

Looks like a Jab with a 19 serial.

 

 

 

[Yenn]

Funny one this. A mate of mine at Rodds Bay got a phone call at about mid day. Said it was from Chris a friend of his who had had engine problems while over water at Cooktown. He wanted to know what the correct spark plugs were for the Jab 6 cylinder motor.

 

This may just be a coincidence or something else. I doubt that the pilot of a demolished plane would be interested in plugs, unless shock was involved.

 

I assumed that the plane was on the ground when the call was made.

 

 

[Guest J430]

OK...lets have a good old speculate.

 

Spark plugs.....all of 'em causing trouble at the same time?

 

from the photo it looks like a J200, ut its hard to tell in the photo, and lets say its a 200 not a 230 and is likely to have been pre the header tanks.

 

Now inspecting property in the Cooktown region, maybe orbits with the wing held down and lots of rudder, slipping to get a good view.

 

This was done a few years ago near proserpine with a Cessna 206 I think. Nearly killed all 4 POB. Slip sent fuel away from the pick up point and air is sucked in the line. At a lowish level you will no have time to get fuel thru again and restart.

 

Even if that is not what happened, its worth remembering!

 

J

 

 

[flie43]

Yeh, gotta watch that rudder

 

Terry

 

 

[spacesage]

Lots of rudder in a Jab is "Not reccomended" form the manufacturer I believe.

 

I dont think this was structural failure, but apparently they were on their return leg from a trip away.

 

Crash landing just short of destination, could this be shock cooling? Causing engine failure. They had plenty of fuel according to reports.

 

 

[Guest airsick]

Could it be a simple engine failure?

 

 

[Guest J430]

Flie43

 

Thats a clever comment.....between you and me! I think you owe me $20 for the AVGAS that went out the breather!!!!

 

As for structural failure, if the Jab is built properly, there is bugger all chance of tail rudder or wings falling apart, unless in a violent storm. They are stronger than many well known certified a/c.

 

Airsick could be right however very very few well maintained engines fail for no good reason. Most of them are missing a vital fluid!:black_eye:

 

I would love to get the honest truth about these things from the RAA or anyone so that we can all learn from the unfortunate events of others!

 

J:wave:

 

 

[Guest aircraft1]

Lets all gather around and second guess, it would be good to get some real information from someone on the ground but with fuel going everywhere it wasnt fuel starvation, no oil on the aircraft so it wasnt an oil leak. Best to ask the pilot or rescuers OR a local RAA pilot thats been to the scene.

 

In another few days the thread will be dead as we move onto next weekends 'crash'

 

Whats the latest with Mxdxx's crash (pilot de-identified) at Narromine, that went quiet really quick as we moved on ?

 

I guess all the talk about everyone else is ok, provided your not talking about ME !

 

 

[Guest J430]

The original question was did anyone know anything about it!

 

In the absence of any news.....we gather round and speculate.

 

If the RAA never give you any information that can be learned from and the pilot does not belong to this site and offer an honest account, you will never know for sure.

 

Fact is we would all like to know so we can learn from others misfortunes. Trouble is not many times do the facts get released.

 

even from speculation we end up sharing information and theories that may not relate directly to the actual incident, but are interesting and maybe educational all the same.

 

J:wave:

 

 

[Guest airsick]

Whats the latest with Mxdxx's crash (pilot de-identified) at Narromine, that went quiet really quick as we moved on ?

Apparently we aren't allowed to talk about some accidents. But this one is okay.

 

 

 

[Captain]

In the absence of any news.....we gather round and speculate.If the RAA never give you any information that can be learned from and the pilot does not belong to this site and offer an honest account, you will never know for sure.

 

J:wave:

J

 

 

 

You don't think you might be a little premature in sticking a knife into the RAA as above. It is not correct that they "never" give such info, and overall I believe that the RAA does a 1000% better job at disseminating accident info than does an equivalent organization.

 

 

 

But maybe give them a little more than 3 days.

 

 

 

Based on the posts in this thread, it appears that all we really have to go on is a pretty sketchy photo and some press reports. And based on every press report that I have been involved in over the years, I can advise that in every case they got the facts wrong.

 

 

 

So all of this speculation is barely that and would better be called blind guesses. I'm usually in favour of discussions on all accidents, but we need more to go on in this case.

 

 

 

How about we speculate that the carbon fibre prop on the Rotax 914 in that Jabiru may have de laminated due to a crankshaft failure caused by high humidity when using experimental ethanol fuel produced from rice at Ord River in 2006.

 

 

 

G

 

 

[Admin]

Discussing accidents is ok but as I keep saying NO FINGER POINTING!

 

 

[Guest J430]

How about we speculate that the carbon fibre prop on the Rotax 914 in that Jabiru may have de laminated due to a crankshaft failure caused by high humidity when using experimental ethanol fuel produced from rice at Ord River in 2006.

OK lets go.............................

 

The RAA do not yield very much info at all. I know the problem with fatals etc, police not ATSB ....however the incidents and accidents part of the mag is hardly in depth is it. Its nothing more than a summary.

 

I have learned far more on here than from the mag.

 

Maybe compared to the other organisations like the gliding of hang gliding org's but compared to the ATSB (i know big$$$) its pretty well non existing.

 

J

 

 

[Captain]

OK lets go............................. The RAA do not yield very much info at all.

 

J

J

 

 

 

This is a very worthy subject for debate and to save the poor bugger in Cooktown from having it all happen on his thread, I have posted a reply at http://www.recreationalflying.com/forum/showpost.php?p=44755&postcount=29

 

 

 

Hopefully you will be happy to continue the debate there.

 

 

 

Regards G

 

 

[Guest brentc]

Unfortunately these things take a long time. I heard only last week that the fatal accident in Goulburn (the crank-shaft failure one) a while back hasn't even made it to the Coroner's court yet.

 

 

[TechMan]

The RAA do not yield very much info at all. I know the problem with fatals etc, police not ATSB ....however the incidents and accidents part of the mag is hardly in depth is it. Its nothing more than a summary.

Sometimes RA-Aus doesn't get more than one or two lines on an incident/accident report form.

 

Yes, you are right, the pilot notes are generally an accurate summary of what happened. Generally, if the cause of the problem is known, it gets published as well.

 

Regards

 

Chris

 

 

[Yenn]

Have a look at my earlier post on this topic. When I saw my friend with the phone today I asked what happened and he tells me that the pilot had bought plugs in Cooktown because he had a misfire earlier that day. The accident hadn't happened then, all that had happened was that the pilot had a misfire while coming to Cooktown. He then replaced the plugs and took off, with the known consequences.

 

It raises a question. Would you fly an aeroplane which had just had a problem without thoroughly investigating the problem and then when you think you have fixed it, would you take off with passengers without a test flight?

 

I am not saying that is what happened, but I am asking the question. I only know what I have been told, but I doubt the ability of someone to fix a problem if they did not know which plugs should be used. Usually a plug can be identified even when it has been in service for 100 hours, so what plugs were in it originally?

 

 

[Guest High Plains Drifter]

Bit of idle speculation there Ian (Yenn)

 

I've had Lame's pull pots off my spam can engine and do nothing more then ground run the engine to check specs are met - signed off fit to fly. That is an accepted practice in GA.

 

 

[Guest brentc]

Would you fly an aeroplane which had just had a problem without thoroughly investigating the problem and then when you think you have fixed it, would you take off with passengers without a test flight?

Sounds remarkably similar to the sequence of events that happened to the Allegro last year that crashed and killed 2. They just kept trying until it ended tragically. These guys were lucky to get away with their lives based on what the aircraft looked like.