Plane crash in Utah filmed from cockpit.

[AdamFrisch]

Everyone safe, including little baby - thankfully! Remarkable calmness by all involved. Plane is soda cans, though.

LiveLeak.com - Small plane passengers record their own crash landing

[Pilot DAR]

Complete speculation on my part, but maybe the pilot had no intention of attempting to land, but rather just to low fly in a wide open area. Like a glassy water landing, he suddenly had no idea how high he was, and whether he was going up or down. The flash of the shadow of the wing just before the crash seemed way too brief to be what one would see during a flare, particularly during a cautionary landing onto an unbroken surface.

Added to that, particularly on older 100 series Cessnas, the nosewheel hangs down a long way, and further than the mains in cruise. If you fly the plane onto the surface without flaring, striking the nosewheel first is a certainty. Seeing as the wreck had no nosewheel at all, I suspect that's what happened. A flared "landing" onto the snow still might have bent the nosewheel back, but not likely torn it right away.

Yeah, the surface would not support a wheel landing, I think that was secondary. A long time ago, when I was very much less wise, I flew the same way up a frozen lake in a wheel 182. I suddenly realized I had no idea of my AGL, and climbed. To this day, I don't know how close I came, but I never forgot, and never did it again (out in the middle http://www.avcanada.ca/forums2/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif )!

[Halfbaked_Boy]

Complete speculation on my part, but maybe the pilot had no intention of attempting to land, but rather just to low fly in a wide open area. Like a glassy water landing, he suddenly had no idea how high he was, and whether he was going up or down.

Only safe on a sunny day around midday, and never lose sight of your shadow!

[Cusco]

Complete speculation on my part, but maybe the pilot had no intention of attempting to land, but rather just to low fly in a wide open area.

What bolleaux:

If you listen to the guy filming (the passenger) he says 'we've just been told we've got carburettor ice', so it's reasonable to suppose that this was an engine failure followed by a successful crash landing with no injuries.

Note also the complete absence of engine noise in what I take to be a 172, the presence of wind noise and the (muffled but reasonably clear) commentary on a mobile phone camera.

I rest my case.....

Cusco

[Pilot DAR]

Ah. perhaps I am wrong, the computer on which I watched the video did not have audio, so I obviously missed information. My mistake for uninformed speculation....

Though, it did not look like a forced approach.....

[Ultralights]

plenty of nice solid roads down there....

[Contacttower]

It looks like after suffering an engine failure it was difficult to judge the flare height on the snow and they hit before the pilot was expecting it.

Possibly one scenario when you would want to know your minimum sink speed rather than best glide and just fly it in glassy water style...not completely sure what would be best because that might provide quite a firm arrival versus flaring but one's visual perception could play all sorts of tricks on you and you might end up stalling and dropping if you tried to flare and did so too high.

[Pilot DAR]

It is a reality that the "glassy water" technique of landing, which would also be very appropriate to unbroken snow, is not possible in a power off approach. The whole premise is that you're going to drag the plane along with power, in an attitude where touchdown is safe at any point along the landing path - 'cause you don't know where it will be. When you land "glassy" probably about 10% of the touchdowns will be well before or after you expect them.

A water flying hazard is planning to touchdown in the rippled area of the water, and overshooting onto the perfectly glassy area. You my still have lots of space to land ahead, but your approach must instantly change from power off to power on. Usually, a go around is the best way to handle this, because there is a huge risk of unintended touchdown while you reconfigure the aircraft.

Unbroken snow is really no different in this regard. The best hope you have if things line up, is to land in a direction where the pilot can see the shadow of the plane on the snow - sun from your 5 O'clock position. That will work fairly well, if you can set it up.

If, as I might have missed, for not listening to the audio track, this was a forced landing, it was a very difficult environment, which the pilot might not have anticipated. But the facts of the lack of visual cues to the pilot are the same in any case. Avoid low flying over featureless surfaces, if at all possible. Fly near shore, trees, animal or snowmobile tracks, anything which will give you a visual cue as to your altitude.

[Contacttower]

It is a reality that the "glassy water" technique of landing, which would also be very appropriate to unbroken snow, is not possible in a power off approach.

Yes obviously you wouldn't be able to get the very shallow approach angle without power, the descent rate would have to be higher. All I meant by using the "glassy water" analogy was whether one should just set up with a constant slow descent and accept the descent rate on impact or try and judge the height and arrest the rate of descent by flaring at what may or may not be the right height above the ground according to one's visual perception.

[Pilot DAR]

and accept the descent rate on impact or try and judge the height and arrest the rate of descent by flaring at what may or may not be the right height above the ground

I imagine that this is something which is poorly, or never taught. I hope Big Pistons will see this and comment, I'm sure he would have wise thoughts. For myself, I'm going to assert that if you are unable to certainly establish your height above the surface you should not flare. Not flaring is not good, but stalling or spinning in is worse. You are better to contact the surface under control, faster than intended, that's the way the restraints are designed to work, and the video is evidence of that.

Interestingly, the other day I was removing a radio from a crashed 172D, in which there had been two "walking wounded" level injuries. I noticed that the pilot's inboard seatbelt attachment fitting was ripped right out of the floor. But I guess it absorbed nearly all of the forward crash force before it ripped out - so it did it's job, just with zero reserve capacity....

[Runaway Gun]

Pilot appears to have touched down with flare - rather excellently in my opinion.