John E, I tend to think you are closer to the probable cause than the ATSB speculation. One thing I could add re the Crane’s engines. The engines transient response was slow. A very experienced Crane pilot at SA, Jim Kay,who did a lot of the certification and marketing flying, would refer to the JFTD-12 transient response as “pull and wait “. There was a lot of push-back from SA to P&W on this issue and the -5 engines were slightly better in that regard. The problem was that the engine was basically a J-60 turbo-jet redesigned to add a power turbine ( sorry,P&W for the oversimplification of what was,at the time,a spectacular effort ) and the control system mods were limited. It is not too unrealistic to propose the possibility that a crew in a hurry put themselves in a position where the slow transient response of the engines caught them. In either 1967 or 1968, when SA was doing commercial S-64 marketing demonstrations pretty aggressively,we had a 64 in Colombia supporting some oil business work,and a botched approach into the rig site where they were based resulted in a total loss and the death of the rear seat pilot ( head injury,no helmet-and that provoked fallout that you can imagine ). Similar circumstances to the one in discussion now: empty aircraft, crew perhaps in a hurry, good weather,no aircraft faults found after the fact.
Last edited by JohnDixson; 17th Apr 2020 at 14:31.
Reason: Typo