Witness to aircraft in flight 1 minute before accident
I am a pilot of 40 hours experience and let's just say I am in no way hugely knowledgeable on twins, but I did happen to see PGW in flight approximately 1 minute before its hard landing in Canley Vale. I work at a school in Fairfield West along Hamilton Rd, and I have contacted ATSB about what I had seen that morning when I got out of my car. I wanted to let you all know what I had seen too as I thought, this is either a training run on one engine or he is in some trouble, or that he was wanting to get a slap on the wrist from CASA for being below,1500 feet in a residential area!
Please note that my view was from the left side, behind, at about a 45 degree angle, and from the ground.
Gear was up.
Wings level and no flaps retracted.
Left engine sounded unfeathered slightly, and right engine was off as I could see the prop and it was not spinning.
Weather was clear.
Height at the time I saw the aircraft was about 500 ft and descending at about 100ft per minute (The sink rate seemed quite flat but he was not able to hold the height on that one engine for some reason.
It is my opinion though, and please feel free to put your two cents worth in on this, but I think that either he had a fuel supply problem or a fuel pump problem of some sort. Although the left engine did not sound like it was spluttering at that time i noticed it and maybe some of you are correct in saying the a PA-31 does not fly well on one engine.
I think the pilot made an error in judgement by trying to make it back to YSBK instead of landing as soon as possible on the one good engine. In hindsight the pilot may not have known that the plane was not going to lose height such as it did.
Let me know your thoughts....