King Air down at Essendon?

[Acrux326]

I watched the second film in the links below over 30 years ago during a flying safety officers’ course. Some days you just shouldn’t get out of bed and go to work. Although the accident captured in these YouTube videos was caused by a flap failure on final at Heathrow (details in the Wikipedia link) the situation became much the same, asymmetric out of control at low height and in this case, irrecoverable once it got going. There are numerous other cases of really bad outcomes where all you can do is feel sorry for the guys and gals involved eg a wing breaking off in turbulence due to metal fatigue, an uncontained fire on the flightdeck, maintenance not done properly, etc. In hindsight and we do have the benefit of hindsight when reflecting on the Essendon accident (it’s not an incident) whereas the PIC last week had just seconds before everything turned pear-shaped, when normal flight is impossible, pulling back both throttles to idle and crashing ahead roughly wings level with the gear up in the best place available is all you can do. You have to be ready for that every day or, don’t go flying! Once when double asymmetric just after gear retraction hot and heavy I had to dive below runway level into a valley to get to engine out climb speed. Yep, I never briefed that one nor practised it in the sim! Recovered in ground effect manoeuvring to avoid two towns. Saw something similar at the movies years later. That’s why the guys on the 380 out of Singapore earned their superannuation that day. Sometimes, anything can happen. Maybe the owners of those offices beside runway 35 at Canberra should reflect on that in their spare time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzPTg86r9aw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLZYR2d-WO4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Heathrow_BKS_Air_Transport_Airspeed_Ambassador_crash