Has any one heard?

[Oddball]

heard on wednesday night on the way to work (i think) that a plane had crashed off the coast of france, has any one heard any thing about this incident?

[leiafee]

Yes, it was a Baron out of Coventry, heading for Gurnsey.  Two dead, one survivor.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/guernsey/7206219.stm

Very sad.  And rather disturbing that a twin ended up in the drink.  Another one to watch the AAIB reports for.

[Baradium]

Yes, it was a Baron out of Coventry, heading for Gurnsey.  Two dead, one survivor.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/guernsey/7206219.stm

Very sad.  And rather disturbing that a twin ended up in the drink.  Another one to watch the AAIB reports for.

Not really all that exciting that a light twin goes down.   They say the remaining engine on a light twin when you lose one takes you to the scene of the crash for a reason.

A baron has more power than many, but a number of light twins have very little climb performance on one engine.  Twins are also perfectly capable of the same type of mistakes that can cause a single to go down otherwise.

The thing with twins is that if you don't have the power to maintain altitude, but try to anyway, you can get yourself in big trouble.

I'm interested to know what the possible causes are, but not really disturbed that it was a twin.

[leiafee]

It disturbes me because I've never really liked that "the second engine is there to take you to the crash site" cliche!

[undatc]

Back in October UND had a Seminole go down in Southern Minnesota.  Still no official word, but the unconfirmed rumor from the FSDO is that the student was under the hood, and either a real engine failure, or simulated on one engine occurred, the student failed to correct and the plane inverted and went in.

As Ryan said, one engine is tricky on small GA.

[Baradium]

Back in October UND had a Seminole go down in Southern Minnesota.  Still no official word, but the unconfirmed rumor from the FSDO is that the student was under the hood, and either a real engine failure, or simulated on one engine occurred, the student failed to correct and the plane inverted and went in.

As Ryan said, one engine is tricky on small GA.

Stalling single engine will cause the plane to roll over and likely go into a flat spin...

[undatc]

Stalling single engine will cause the plane to roll over and likely go into a flat spin...

Thats what the theory is at the moment, or at least the rumor is.  Nothing official yet though.  My roommate is  CFI for UND so I hear most of the good stuff first.

[airtac]

It disturbes me because I've never really liked that "the second engine is there to take you to the crash site" cliche!

There are a number of cliches like that to which there is a grain of truth, the fatal accident rate for twins losing an engine IS higher than singles losing an engine.   I believe this is true because in a single, the decision to land has already been made for you when the engine quits, whereas in a twin, there are usually options available to the pilot other then landing straight ahead and these options can usually only be exercised if the pilot is proficient in their use---which comes from regular training and practice.
Professionals such as airline or airtaxi pilots practice these "what if" drills constantly per company and agency requirements as will corporate pilots flying for a good company interested in flight safety.
Training and preflite preparedness are the cornerstones of safety in most light twins which lose as much as 90% of their performance when they lose 50% of their power.
Professionals sometimes complain about the frequency of check-rides but they, in truth, realize the necessity of constant practise and how it relates to a pilot's longevity.
Everybody makes mistakes but training will minimize errors in judgement and complacency.
The safety record for light twins is abysmal simply because many pilots forget that doubling the number of powerplants also doubles the chance of an engine failure and the pilot must be trained for that event.
I've had 1 catastrophic failure, 1 fuel starvation, and 1 elective shutdown in my career and in each case it was a non event simply because of training.
----------------------------------------------------- TRAIN LIKE YOU FLY AND FLY LIKE YOU TRAIN ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ask someone like Baradium who flies scheduled routes into some of the toughest weather imaginable and marginal airports available  how much they train, it will surprise most folks---
To sum it up, "it ain't easy being ready but if you're ready, it's easy"

[Rooster Cruiser]

Stalling single engine will cause the plane to roll over and likely go into a flat spin...

This is known as "VMC roll", where during flight with one engine inoperative the airspeed deteriorates to below Minimum Control and the rudder no longer has enough authority to counteract the assymetric thrust of the good engine.

I've had 1 catastrophic failure, 1 fuel starvation, and 1 elective shutdown in my career and in each case it was a non event simply because of training.

Interesting parallel in our careers, Airtac.  I have had the same.  I just wish I could say they were all non-events!     Oh well, two out of three ain't bad...   

[undatc]

This is known as "VMC roll", where during flight with one engine inoperative the airspeed deteriorates to below Minimum Control and the rudder no longer has enough authority to counteract the asymmetric thrust of the good engine.

Now that you mention the airspeed aspect of it, that makes a lot of sense.  The winds that night were out of the Northwest and pretty high if i remember correctly.  A Mesaba jet reported extreme turbulence just north of MSP too.  High winds, one engine =extremely low air speed.  What is really amazing is that the CFI on that flight had tons and tons of hours in the Seminole and if i remember correctly was a member of the flying team also.

* Edit, sorry forgot to mention that their route of flight was from MSP direct GFK, which is a North-North West heading.

[TheSoccerMom]

Okay I have to throw in my $.02 worth. 

First, since none of us was IN any of these airplanes, we don't KNOW what happened.  And yes, twins do have a poor record in engine-failure scenarios.  Airtac is right on -- you're gonna land the airplane, you'd just better be flying the pig on the way to the spot.  Twins can give pilots a false sense of security, because, yes, when it quits in a single, there's no "milking it" or "wishing" it further along the face of planet earth....  which pilots will do in a twin.  An engine failure in a single is a much, much easier situation for making the "decision"....  not much grey area there.  It gets real quiet, real fast.

But, in a multiengine, having that ONE still running makes it mighty hard to mentally shift gears, and set up a descent to a not-too-desirable landing spot.  So pilots have often tried to STRETCH their glide, often with the fatal results (mentioned already) that come from the decaying airspeed and the resultant stall and/or spin.  It's not the airplane's fault -- it flew right up to when it DIDN'T.

So, as Airtac aptly explained, training training training is the only solution.  You must know your airplane and what it can (and CAN'T) do! 

Rough winds and bad air will make for a poor day of flying, but in terms of airspeed, will have no effect -- just the groundspeed is affected in a high wind.  Bad turbulence will warrant never approaching the minimum airspeed for any maneuver;  however, this just goes back to knowing your airplane's limitations.

I don't have the manual anymore, but the twin I used to fly lead on fires in, at extremely low levels in rough terrain, had a single-engine service ceiling of something PATHETIC like 6700' MSL.  (Or, even worse..  just can't remember.)  Pretty nice, when you figure a normal density altitude during fire season is probably pushing 10,000' MSL, and the terrain itself is HIGHER than the S.E. ceiling..... 

Translation:  When the engine quits, the pig ain't gonna fly, no matter if you are current as hell, and sharp as a tack, and think you're Chuck Yeager. 

If you're lucky, you may have a spot of uniform timber to head for, or..  maybe not.  Either way, you're going down.  Many of the pilots argued against wearing Nomex for burn protection, because an impact at minimum flying speed probably wasn't going to be that survivable anyway!  So..  why sweat to death in the meantime??  So the argument went.

You never, never go down in the bottoms of those canyons without thinking about an engine quitting.... 

I've had two singles quit, one landing was in a horse pasture in 14" of dry snow, and the second one was on a road, right behind a loaded logging truck, who fortunately just HAPPENED to be going a hair faster....  so tucking in behind him worked out JU-U-U-UU-U-UST right.  If that had been in a multiengine, no doubt we would have tried to make it to the airport -- just one mountain ridge away -- but we still would have had to judge the situation by the performance (or LACK thereof) we were getting.

They will fly right up to where you've put them in a situation where they can't anymore. 

 

P.S.  There's nothing that makes sailplane pilots giggle more, than listening to powered pilots go ON AND ON about engine failures....   

 

[undatc]

Rough winds and bad air will make for a poor day of flying, but in terms of airspeed, will have no effect -- just the groundspeed is affected in a high wind.  Bad turbulence will warrant never approaching the minimum airspeed for any maneuver;  however, this just goes back to knowing your airplane's limitations.

Absolutely right.  Hence why I only have a PPL and 56 hours, and your in the cockpit.  For some reason I had forgotten the differences and how it effects aircraft.

[AirScorp]

Greatly put Mom! As I've never been instructed, I didn't really know all that 

Just one question: What's dry snow? Ash?

[undatc]

Greatly put Mom! As I've never been instructed, I didn't really know all that 

Just one question: What's dry snow? Ash?

Dry snow has an extremely low moisture (by that i mean liquid) content.  Think of powdered sugar (kinda) but a lot more fluffier.  You can actually fly in it VFR without icing equipment if you have the ceiling and vis.  UND does it all the time here.

[AirScorp]

So it's still snow huh? With all the firefighting talk I tried to make a meaning to that direction, hence the ash