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Old 23rd Jan 2018, 21:05
  #78 (permalink)  
PeteMonty
 
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Originally Posted by Shaggy Sheep Driver
Is it a co-incidence that the accident occurred where the track of the aircraft intercepts sudden tree-covered high ground?
This is exactly why I stated that it COULD be CFIT just after finding the crash site from the air. I completely agree that the most likely occurrence is normally what has indeed happened but at the same what did happen is what did - no matter how convenient/inconvenient.

I flew to the crash site from the Coventry direction a couple of days ago and can confirm that the tree line is considerably higher than the place the aircraft impacted. So it remains possible that they clipped the tress and then pulled up, lost control and came down in the place it did but I cannot see that it flew into the ground where it did for the reasons stated in my earlier posts regarding the nature of the impact damage. Of course that is assuming it was still heading for Glos and hadn’t turned around.

BEB – this aircraft did not cartwheel. There is no damage on the fin which would get at least distorted in a cartwheel if not removed altogether. When these aircraft cartwheel they tend to actually look worse than this but the occupants often walk away. This is because the extremity structures act as crumple zones and absorb a lot of the energy. Also cartwheels normally occur in failed landing attempts and so speeds are relatively low. Look up the crash report and photos on G-COVB and you will see what I am talking about. Two elderly occupants extracted themselves and were calmly waiting for the emergency services to arrive despite the aircraft looking in worse shape than this one. It is all to do with the amount of energy and how that is dissipated.

I have been trawling through crash reports for days now trying to find one where the prop tips have been bent one back one forward and I have finally found one. It still won’t let me post URL’s on here so you will have to search for ‘N32396 NTSB’ for the NTSB report and Google image search for ‘N32396’ should get you pictures. According to the eyewitnesses (multiple pilots) it was seen to spin in. It has the same looking impact damage as WAVS. I’m not saying WAVS definitely span but it must have hit the ground with a largely vertical component in nose and wing down attitude to impact the way it has as laid out in my earlier posts. I think others have mentioned a lack of ‘vertical damage’ but what they really mean is damage along the longitudinal axis of the aircraft. A spin is rarely nose down (some will be some wont) especially on PA28’s which tend to spin flatter than say a firefly or chipmunk or etc and like I say the accident report and photo above are of a PA-28 that span in so that proves that a spin accident can look like this.

So yes this COULD have been caused by CFIT but if it was then the initial ‘into terrain’ was only a contributing factor to the final impact and not the impact you see in the pictures. The end impact was a result of loss of control.

One other point of interest is that Glos ATC allegedly immediately called the emergency services. If ATC’s called 999 every time they lost contact with an inbound aircraft there would be a lot of 999 calls… So they don’t. They have overdue procedures etc that take considerably longer. This says to me that they knew more due to radio calls received – again suggesting NOT CFIT (as there isn’t time to call ‘I’m about to hit something I’m not aware is there’). The other PA-28 that was in the area does a 180 degree about face at the exact time ATC say they lost control so I suspect there was a mayday or similar call from WAVS that meant Glos ATC immediately called the emergency services on losing contact and the other PA28 turned to see if they could assist.
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