Originally Posted by
Ret Sabala
what has to be asked is why? Why did a pilot with around 17,000 hours make such a silly mistake?
I did notice that the pilot only had 500 hours on type. Was he a jet guy that moved into the turboprop world and not particularly knowledgeable about them? Perhaps he had seen, as many have, the Pilatus Porter doing its thing straight down using beta inflight with a PT-6 and assumed the similar was possible with any free turbine engine.
Just a theory but someone could think that the warning not to do such a thing is more of an aerodynamic/high sink rate risk than a risk to destroying engines. I only knew about the real reason for the dangers by reading accident reports in which the same thing has happened.