B17 crash at Bradley

[H Peacock]

Just seen the video of Nine-O-Nine taken when she was struggling to fly downwind. Gear down, nose looking rather high and looking very slow. Such a shame they didn't commit to a closer runway!

[GeeRam]

Originally Posted by H Peacock

Just seen the video of Nine-O-Nine taken when she was struggling to fly downwind. Gear down, nose looking rather high and looking very slow. Such a shame they didn't commit to a closer runway!

Sadly only one of many mistakes made that day.

[rnzoli]

WIth these exceptionally rare warbirds, there is special kind of get-there-itis, which downprioritizes controlled yet survivable crash landings, in favor of trying to achieve normal landings beyond reasonable risk taking.
We recently had a DC-3-like vintage aircraft flying back to base from an airshow with about 60% of the rudder fabric missing (it tore off shortly after takeoff).
No passengers, short flight home, but a few of us were wondering, that with so little rudder control, an engine failure could have been lethal, unless they land it en-route on a reasonably flat field.

[munnst]

Question for B17 pilots.

Would cleaning up (retract gear, flaps etc) and flying away have been preferable or even possible in such an emergency?

[GeeRam]

Originally Posted by munnst

Would cleaning up (retract gear, flaps etc) and flying away have been preferable or even possible in such an emergency?

The question is more why did they have it down so early (among many questions)

This is someone's take on the events and worth a watch.

You Tube

[capngrog]

I agree with Scott Purdue in the above video, that the big question is: "Why wasn't the power cut when the airplane hit the approach lights?" The airplane was apparently at the point of stall when it hit the approach lights, was way below vmc and there was 9500 ft. of clear runway ahead of them. Did they try to go around? I posed that question in my post #182 of 09 Oct, 2019, titled, "Attempting to Go Around?" Why would they attempt a go around under these circumstances? I doubt we'll ever know the answer to that question.

Regards,
Grog

[rnzoli]

I was suprised about that sharp right turn, I only realize now how badly they deviated from the runway direction. (80 degrees or so, nearly perpendicular).
When the airplane touched down, hitting the right wingtip in a slight right bank, the pilot, whose hands were possibly on the throttle at that time, may have inadvertenly moved the power levers forward. Especially if they weren't wearing shoulder harnesses.

I find the go-around attempt a bit improbable. Not having enough power to maintain proper airspeed should have discouraged the thought of a G/A completely. The hard landing and potential wing damage should have also discouraged the go-around even more. The view of the aircraft, turning uncontrollably towards nearby buildings and away from the runway centerline should have been the final warning to cut power and brake hard and use a lot of left rudder to stay out of bigger trouble. But the aircraft appears to continue to right turn for quite some length, with no sign of trying to turn back left.

Yeah, all speculations. Maybe I am biased by a DC-3 accident during a sightseeing flight in the 60's, where a perfectly operational airplane crashed, simply because the crew was not strapped in, and one of the pilots (most likely the captain) had the brilliant idea of showing the passengers what zero G's are about.....

[rnzoli]

By the way, if you look at figure 15 of the UAV report, it claims that there is an additional tire mark from the tail wheel.
The problem is: it is outside of the right MLG tire marks!
What are the chances that the right tire punctured when hitting the lights and the marks are actually created by a flattened right tyre, also pulling the aircraft to the right?
https://data.ntsb.gov/Docket/Documen...-FINAL-Rel.pdf

[Pilot DAR]

The problem is: it is outside of the right MLG tire marks!

That definitely caught my eye too! More to the point is that it seems so perfectly parallel to the main wheel skid mark for so far. The plane was severely yawed, and something was keeping it yawed at exactly that angle. It was halfway between a ground loop, and returning to being aligned with the path of motion, very unusual, I can't imagine being able to make a plane do that, though asymmetric power could be an element. I don't know if a B17 tailwheel locks or not. If it were locked, and making a skid mark like that, the tailwheel would have been really trying to align the plane. If the tailwheel was free castoring, it may just have been along for the ride, while a combination of ground loop forces, application (or not) or rudder, and perhaps asymmetric power were factors.

There have been times while training a tailwheel pilot, that I've had to remind them to pull the power off after touchdown....

[ehwatezedoing]

Originally Posted by rnzoli

By the way, if you look at figure 15 of the UAV report, it claims that there is an additional tire mark from the tail wheel.
The problem is: it is outside of the right MLG tire marks!
What are the chances that the right tire punctured when hitting the lights and the marks are actually created by a flattened right tyre, also pulling the aircraft to the right?
https://data.ntsb.gov/Docket/Documen...-FINAL-Rel.pdf

Too much imagination
I am pretty sure this tail wheel's mark outside the mains can be explained by a sideway skid of the airframe.

Think of it as two overloaded brains loosing control of an aircraft getting below vmca.
If you want to extend, they probably didn't even touch the power to go around. Rather than just left it were it was when they were initially trying to bring it to the threshold... Before getting caught by vmca (I'm almost tempted to say vmca becoming vmcg)

[rnzoli]

Just an illustration how much sideways skid this means. Apparently doable, but what seems unusual to me is the drift to the right, while turning right at the same time.
Usually vehicles tend to turn one way and drift the other way in the process. In case of a ground loop to the left, nose turns left, tail swings right, and the aircraft will tend to drift right.
Here the drift is to the same side as the turn. Someone must have tried to steer the aircraft to the left with the rudder, but instead of turning left, the aicraft continued to turn right due to the asymmetric thrust. What a huge struggle this has been....
With regards to why the high power setting, I read the testimony of the mechanic. His last memory is that he sits onto the turret, but he is not strapped in. Survivors reported that the landing on the MLG was hard and everything "flew forward". The mechanic came to his senses in between the pilot and co-pilot. In this case, his body may have accidentally hit the power levers, too.

B-17 approximate drift

[tdracer]

I finally got a chance to watch the above video. Rather damning yet somehow understandable. The predisposition to assume the fault was with engine 4 when engine 3 failed was really the primary cause - with everything else unfortunately following (wasn't that also a factor in that turboprop that crashed in Taiwan a few years back?).

I'm finding myself very conflicted. As I've noted previously, I'd flown on Nine-O-Nine about 12 years ago, and greatly valued the experience, but I'm dismayed by the lack of accountability and oversight that lead to this crash. Coincidentally I just received a donation request from the Collings Foundation.
Part of me wants to make a donation to preserve the sort of experience I received on Nine-O-Nine, but part of me is reluctant to support the apparently shoddy operations that lead to this crash...

[capngrog]

Originally Posted by rnzoli

When the airplane touched down, hitting the right wingtip in a slight right bank, the pilot, whose hands were possibly on the throttle at that time, may have inadvertenly moved the power levers forward. Especially if they weren't wearing shoulder harnesses.

I agree that it would be quite possible that the Pilot Flying ("Mac"), could have inadvertently moved the throttles forward. While it is just speculation on my part, I think the pilot had his hands full with the yoke and would have been standing on the left rudder pedal, making it quite awkward to handle the the throttles simultaneously. Additionally, the abrupt right turn would have thrown him to the left side of the cockpit, away from the throttles (shoulda used the harness). It seems that power was being held at a high level on both nos. 1 & 2 at the initial encounter with the approach lights, and no. 3 was operating but down on power. Of course, by that time, no. 4 was fully feathered. The relatively low time (B-17) co-pilot may have failed to react due to the lack of any sort of CRM and the likelihood that the Captain had already been stressed (upset) by the morning's activities, which included two balky engines, and a "flight engineer" unfamiliar with the sketchy procedure used to "blow out the mags".

Wow, talk about speculation on my part, that's a whole bunch of "possible", "could have", "I think", "seems", "may have" etc.

As you pointed out, a conscious decision to "go around" after all that had previously occurred on the flight makes no sense; yet, the power on three of the engines was up at impact. My question remains: "Why wasn't the power "chopped" when the airplane hit the approach lights?"

Oh, concerning the speculation on the B-17's tail wheel, it does have a locking tail wheel, like the DC-3/C-47. The NTSB Docket Report indicates that the locking mechanism was damaged sometime during the crash sequence.

Cheers,
Grog

[Pilot DAR]

the B-17's tail wheel, it does have a locking tail wheel, like the DC-3/C-47

Thanks, I have no knowledge of B-17's. That said, When I was trained in the DC-3, I was told to assure that when I let the tail down after touchdown, I had the plane aligned with the runway, 'cause once the tailwheel was firmly on (presumed locked), that was where the plane was going to go. I never did any single engined work on the runway, so am unfamiliar with the forces involved, but rnzoli's really helpful image makes the forces at work here very hard for me to imagine. If the plane were ground looping, it'd be headed the other way out of [into] the turn! But, for me, most puzzling is the distance covered where the tailwheel path was so parallel to the mainwheel path. To see the tailwheel path veer out, and back in again (or ground loop completely) is not so hard to imagine, but running parallel for that distance is.

[ThreeThreeMike]

​​​​​​The concept of the LHFE combined with the value of sharing the story of those proud aircraft and the accomplishments of their crews is noble. I have flown in Nine-O-Nine and other Collings Foundation aircraft, and greatly valued the experiences.

After reading the recently released NTSB docket, it's difficult to reconcile the ideals represented by the Collings Foundation's efforts and the reality of what occurred.

[rnzoli]

There is one way to reconcile the conflicting feeling about this: hard work towards noble causes doesn't guarantee appropriate compliance. These are 2 totally different things.
Considering that individuals and organizations working towards noble causes are very highly respected, they tend to receive less criticism than others, leading to weaker oversight too. So the risk of going downhill in safety compliance is very very real risk.
This is a trap that so many highly respected people walk into. You do something really great and the appreciating applause completely overdominates and suppresses the tiny voices of worry or doubt.
I am sure the pilot, Mac, was a hugely respectable man, with an unparallelled wealth of knowledge and a lot of hard work towards the noble cause everyone appreciated.
But this also gave him the "untouchable" status too, with high trust and lower oversight from the Foundation and his colleagues at the Foundation, including his co-pilot and his mechanic that day.
In aviation such status is of dubious value and increases the risk of death. .
As Scott points out in his video: at 19:42: "The important lesson to learn is that this can happen to any one of us, at any time, if we aren't working on it."
I think the foundation still deserve support, but everyone who donates should point out that better oversight on the chief pilots and chief IA mechanics must be implemented and maintained. And we should remain vocal about perceived incorrect practices, lack of engine run-ups, the logic of intermediate takeoffs, missing passenger briefings. Speaking up, just culture don't go against the "noble cause". They go against practices which threaten the work towards the noble cause. A big difference to remember.

[capngrog]

rnzoli;

I think that you have written an excellent description of what happens to an organization that has achieved the status of a "Sacred Cow". That organization (or person) is viewed as being above constructive criticism or even above mild comment on what could be improved. This phenomenon is not just limited to aviation enterprises.

Back in the day, when it was my job to give "constructive criticism" to various organizations/individuals, I would often be met with the philosophy of: "We've been doing it this way for years. What could happen?"

At this point I would not give any support to the Collings Foundation until it is known that their basic philosophy of complacency has been replaced "from the top down". For example, naming a nineteen year old (23 yrs. old at the time of the accident) as the Chief Pilot just because he's related to the owners is inappropriate in my book. How any Chief Pilot (of any age) can ride herd on 50 or more volunteer pilots (of varying experience/qualifications) from all across the country is beyond my comprehension.

I hope the Collings Foundation survives this; however, I have my doubts.

I could go on and on, but I won't.

Regards,
Grog

[ThreeThreeMike]

Thank you, rnzoli.