The No 59 tram from Airport West to the CBD parallels Matthews Avenue as is it travels South towards Niddrie. Passengers seated on the left of the tram can just see the threshold of Essendon Runway 08 on the left and Cameron Street on the right. Houses are situated most of the way on the west side of Matthews Avenue stretching from the suburb of Airport West to Niddrie. I travel the route often on my way to Niddrie Public Library and as we pass Essendon Airport, it brings back memories of an aircraft accident that cost the lives of a young family.
It was into some of these houses on the night of 10 July 1978, at 1853 hours, that a Partenavia P68B crashed with three crew aboard. It had departed from Runway 26 with the intention of executing a simulated engine failure after take off followed by a circuit and landing. The simulation was by cutting the mixture control of the starboard engine at 200-250 feet above ground level at the same time the wing flaps were retracted from setting 15 degrees to UP.
Seconds after power was re-introduced on that engine the Partenavia adopted a six degree nose down flight path until colliding with houses on Matthews Avenue. The aircraft caught fire immediately which resulted in the deaths of several occupants of the house. The crew of the aircraft survived.
The cause of the accident was that the aircraft became grossly out of trim at a height which did not permit time for the crew to effect recovery. The manner in which the out-of-trim condition occurred was unable to be determined and the possibility of a trim system malfunction cannot be eliminated. However, the more likely explanation is that the command trim switch was activated unknowingly.
See the following accident report:
https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/24632/197802547.pdf
Inadvertent elevator electrical trim use when practicing an emergency is a an event most flying instructors may have met at some time in their instructing career. This usually happens when the electrical elevator trim button is situated on the control wheel and the pilot's thumb may be resting close to the switch. It can happen in times of stress and is not noticed until a severe out of trim is felt.
For example, a case occurred recently when a go-around was attempted in a Boeing 737 flight simulator. The stabilizer trim switch is thumb operated on the pilot's control wheel. As part of the go-around procedure, full power may be applied and at the same time the aircraft is rotated up to an initial pitch attitude of 15 degrees. The flaps are then normally retracted from landing flap to 15 (close enough to be the equivalent of half flap in a general aviation type aircraft.
The combination of under-slung engines delivering high power and the pitch up to 15 degrees gives a very marked pitch up moment well beyond 15 degrees if allowed to happen. Pilot action to contain the rate of pitch up includes forward pressure on the control column backed up by appropriate forward selection of stabiliser trim to contain the forces applied to the elevator. A Cessna 172 or most light singles have a similar pitch up characteristic when full power is applied in the landing configuration.
In the case of the Boeing 737 incident in the simulator, the pilot under instruction held his thumb forward on the stabiliser trim much longer than necessary and the result was the aircraft eventually bunted over and dived into the ground. The stabiliser trim wheel of the 737 makes a loud clacking noise when operated (a design feature to alert the crew). At the time of the go-around the aircraft was on autopilot. When the pilot disconnected the autopilot, a warning siren sounded which he failed to cancel.
The noise of the siren was so loud that it disguised the clacking noise of the moving stabiliser trim and this was missed by the student. This all happened together in a time of increasing stress caused by the late go-around. It shows these sort of unexpected events can occur in any aircraft type.
A similar thing happened to a Boeing 737 of Flydubai Airlines that crashed during an IMC go-around at Rostov-on-Don, Russia, in March 2016,that killed all on board. See link below
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flydubai_Flight_981