Mooney precautionary landing after baggage hatch opens in flight
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He's not looking at the GoPro in flight.
He's looking out the rear quarter of the aeroplane.
On the ground roll is another matter.
He's looking out the rear quarter of the aeroplane.
On the ground roll is another matter.
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Decision making lesson 101 - forget TDODAR, introducing:
Panic
MAYDAY!!!
Dive to VNE
Fine the prop
Richen the mixture
Coarsen the prop
Lean the mixture
Fine the prop
Richen the mixture
Select an inappropriate part of the field to bounce across
Maintain VNE
Drop the gear as you come into the flare
Maintain VNE
DO NOT slow down
Test the suspension
Scrape your pants out in the portaloo
Upload to YouTube
Join Date: Aug 2000
Location: Near Stuttgart, Germany
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Hello!
First of all: Analysing accidents and incidents is not about blaming someone or telling him what he could have done better. Instead it should make us think what we can learn from it for our flying (and for our instructing in case that we also instruct) so that a similar event will not kill us or our students.
He made a good initial decision: Get this plane on the ground.
And that's the real problem: They were saved by luck alone. Normally nosegears do not withstand the kind of "landing" he performed (seen it happen often enough...). Had the nose gear given during those bounces at 100+KT and the aircraft overturned as a result they would not have survived.
He had control all the time. If you watch the video you can see that the control wheel moves in all directions and the aircraft reacts normally to the controls. No vibration, no flutter, nothing. The elevator was not blocked at all. During those bounces he moves it almost at full travel both ways. And there can't have been excessive control forces either because in the video we can see him fly with one hand whilst pointing out landing sites to his passenger with the other hand.
Maybe. But see below.
No. But DODAR and CRM might prevent the tail from coming off in the first place. What we (with "we" I mean all of us who have had some CRM and (recurrent) simulator training) have been taught and re-taught is that after an initial reaction, appropriate or inappropriate as it may be, one should sit on his hands for half a minute and think (instead of purely reactig) about what is going on. And then reiterate.
In this case: What will cause my tail to come off the plane: Rather time or rather strain? What causes the strain? Aha! Airspeed squared (even a PPL holder should know that)! So reducing the airspeed a little bit will reduce the strain a lot, thereby buying plenty of precious time. Instead he maximises the strain by flying (and landing) at maximum speed in accordance to his initial decision to minimise the time in the air. Another lucky outcome for them because had the tail been weakened by the impact of the metal piece, then his Vne dive would almost certainly have ripped it from the plane...
And what do I learn from this? That I will from now on teach my students the basics FORDEC or DODAR even if it is outside the syllabus and will be done in my unpaid free time. I do not want to see a video like this posted by one of my students. Ever.
Regards
Max
First of all: Analysing accidents and incidents is not about blaming someone or telling him what he could have done better. Instead it should make us think what we can learn from it for our flying (and for our instructing in case that we also instruct) so that a similar event will not kill us or our students.
He made a good initial decision: Get this plane on the ground.
And that's the real problem: They were saved by luck alone. Normally nosegears do not withstand the kind of "landing" he performed (seen it happen often enough...). Had the nose gear given during those bounces at 100+KT and the aircraft overturned as a result they would not have survived.
He had control all the time. If you watch the video you can see that the control wheel moves in all directions and the aircraft reacts normally to the controls. No vibration, no flutter, nothing. The elevator was not blocked at all. During those bounces he moves it almost at full travel both ways. And there can't have been excessive control forces either because in the video we can see him fly with one hand whilst pointing out landing sites to his passenger with the other hand.
In this case: What will cause my tail to come off the plane: Rather time or rather strain? What causes the strain? Aha! Airspeed squared (even a PPL holder should know that)! So reducing the airspeed a little bit will reduce the strain a lot, thereby buying plenty of precious time. Instead he maximises the strain by flying (and landing) at maximum speed in accordance to his initial decision to minimise the time in the air. Another lucky outcome for them because had the tail been weakened by the impact of the metal piece, then his Vne dive would almost certainly have ripped it from the plane...
And what do I learn from this? That I will from now on teach my students the basics FORDEC or DODAR even if it is outside the syllabus and will be done in my unpaid free time. I do not want to see a video like this posted by one of my students. Ever.
Regards
Max
Join Date: Sep 2005
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Yes, my mistake. It was an excellent show of airmanship! Bravo, bravo.
Decision making lesson 101 - forget TDODAR, introducing:
Panic
MAYDAY!!!
Dive to VNE
Fine the prop
Richen the mixture
Coarsen the prop
Lean the mixture
Fine the prop
Richen the mixture
Select an inappropriate part of the field to bounce across
Maintain VNE
Drop the gear as you come into the flare
Maintain VNE
DO NOT slow down
Test the suspension
Scrape your pants out in the portaloo
Upload to YouTube
Decision making lesson 101 - forget TDODAR, introducing:
Panic
MAYDAY!!!
Dive to VNE
Fine the prop
Richen the mixture
Coarsen the prop
Lean the mixture
Fine the prop
Richen the mixture
Select an inappropriate part of the field to bounce across
Maintain VNE
Drop the gear as you come into the flare
Maintain VNE
DO NOT slow down
Test the suspension
Scrape your pants out in the portaloo
Upload to YouTube
One needs to know all the variables before they can criticise this pilots actions. Nitpick all you like but the fact remains that His actions saved everybody onboard and kept the aircraft in one piece while doing it.
We have no idea about aircraft handling with the damage or how it would have handled at a different speed or configuration. No idea about how W&B was affected. Yes he could have done things a million different ways but the fact that his decision worked should count for something. Sully could have glided it onto a runway if he had reacted immediately, it doesn’t make what he did wrong. Similarly, in hindsight we can scrutinise every detail of what this guy did but in the end of the day he as the commander of the ship used his emergency authority to do what he did and saved the aircraft and its occupants. Job well done in my book.
Moderator
Similarly, in hindsight we can scrutinise every detail of what this guy did but in the end of the day he as the commander of the ship used his emergency authority to do what he did and saved the aircraft and its occupants.
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First of all congratulation on being an instructor. We are all in Awe🤦♂️
I may have handled it differently (or the same). The point is I (WE) DO NOT HAVE ALL THE INFORMATION so I cannot say i would do it this way or the other.
You claim that you don’t intend to criticise and At the same time say that they survived due to “luck alone”. The fact that he diagnosed the problem, weighed his options, decided to land in a particular field and executed that decision was not luck. He may have rushed some of his way through it but it was planned and executed with a successful result.
you suggested that slowing down would be a good idea right? While this will reduce the Load on the airframe, do you have Any idea how it would affect things like The balance and controllability at low speed? How are you so confident that slowing down wouldn’t have caused an unacceptable and unrecoverable loss of pitch authority or induce an unwanted and uncontrollable roll? Would you suggest That he climb up to altitude and test these things while hoping that the aircraft won’t fall apart in the meantime? Or should he just change the aircrafts speed and configuration from a known controllable state to an unknown state at low altitude and hope for the best.
There are plenty of example in the history of aviation accidents where the best outcome would have been to simply land it, anywhere. We are paid the big bucks because sometimes we have to make those big decisions. There may not necessarily be a procedure for the particular situation. I’m sure this guy was not trained on how to handle a situation like this but managed to see the big picture - my aircraft has structural damage, I have controllability issues, I need to find a field to land while I still have control. The fact that he didn’t try all the “good idea” stuff posted here and simply decided to put it down is what may have contributed to the outcome.
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I suggested that it might have been worth considering, especially if further structural damage was feared.
I’m sure this guy was not trained on how to handle a situation like this but managed to see the big picture - my aircraft has structural damage, I have controllability issues, I need to find a field to land while I still have control. The fact that he didn’t try all the “good idea” stuff posted here and simply decided to put it down is what may have contributed to the outcome.
The event has happened and nobody died, that's good. At this point readers of this thread can decide if there is anything to learn from this that they can apply to there own flying. I think that there are numerous aspects of this event that could have been done better all of which I think have been adequately described in the posts. The fiddling with the camera at the expense of dealing with the emergency is obviously a big one but the one that stands out for me is the pre-flight inspection that failed to catch the door.
i see many examples of incidents and accidents that start with a failure to do the un-sexy boring tedious procedures completely and properly every time, like the pre-flight inspection. That doesn't mean you have to do the equivalent to fan annual inspection before each flight, but what it does mean is that you have a system, you know and understand what you are looking for on the inspection, and you do it right every time. Early in my commercial flight career I was told that I should never get in an airplane without at least walking around it and doing a "nothing open/hanging/dripping" check , even if I had just got out of the airplane. On 2 occasions this has caught an issue that could have had significant flight safety implications.
I know the above sounds preachy and I the first to admit I am not perfect, but this is area that I concentrate on. If the baggage door had not opened this event would never have occurred and I believe that this pilot missed an opportunity to break the incident chain.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record as well as thread drift. I have often banged on about the fact that approximately 80 % of engine failures occur because of the actions or inaction of the pilot. Many of these are procedural failures which if followed would have prevented the engine failure in the first place.
i see many examples of incidents and accidents that start with a failure to do the un-sexy boring tedious procedures completely and properly every time, like the pre-flight inspection. That doesn't mean you have to do the equivalent to fan annual inspection before each flight, but what it does mean is that you have a system, you know and understand what you are looking for on the inspection, and you do it right every time. Early in my commercial flight career I was told that I should never get in an airplane without at least walking around it and doing a "nothing open/hanging/dripping" check , even if I had just got out of the airplane. On 2 occasions this has caught an issue that could have had significant flight safety implications.
I know the above sounds preachy and I the first to admit I am not perfect, but this is area that I concentrate on. If the baggage door had not opened this event would never have occurred and I believe that this pilot missed an opportunity to break the incident chain.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record as well as thread drift. I have often banged on about the fact that approximately 80 % of engine failures occur because of the actions or inaction of the pilot. Many of these are procedural failures which if followed would have prevented the engine failure in the first place.
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There are far too many examples on forums when an aircraft has made a forced landing and been reduced to thousands of pieces and forumites immediately say, good job, well done, well handled etc etc...seemingly by rote.
Some (most) are the exact opposite.
Some (most) are the exact opposite.
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And how many times the CVRs/DFDRs testify that the pilot was a joke, mixing up the operating and failed engines etc. For me it's all about risk management. The risk of control issues vs. the risk of high-speed bumpy landing. And then there is the risk of stuff falling out from the airplane (potentially hitting and killing someone on the ground).
I wish that I will have more serenity to evaluate the situation before diving to the ground, but can't blame the pilot diving to the ground.. And it gives us a good insight into how we can imporve the actions, should something like this happen to us.
Example of control issues, trim-runaways, limited control movements show that most of us gets scared a little, when it happens to them in flight, while most of us is very wise and brave when we watch this in our armchair.
Absolutely. Pointing-out that he appears to have come close to turning a surprise control limitation into a fatal cluster-****, does not imply that I think I would have done any better. But it does help me to think through how I would respond and perhaps be a little better prepared should I encounter something similar.
And this is another reason why I never fly with a go-pro, no matter how attractive the pax.
An obvious point but I hope for his pride that the door catch/hinge actually failed - otherwise time spent setting up a camera when he could have been double checking hatches and latches would be particularly regretful.
An obvious point but I hope for his pride that the door catch/hinge actually failed - otherwise time spent setting up a camera when he could have been double checking hatches and latches would be particularly regretful.
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It seems that securely latching of the baggage compartment door is of active concern within the Mooney community. Here's a link to a discussion thread:
https://mooneyspace.com/topic/18150-...l-flys/page/2/
There have been several events when Mooney baggage doors came open soon after takeoff; however, the event that is the subject of this thread apparently occurred some significant period of time after takeoff. This particular incident may have been due to a problem with the latching mechanism itself and not due to an incomplete preflight. Does anyone have a diagram or other information on the baggage door latching mechanism? Is the latching mechanism different from model to model?
Cheers,
Grog
https://mooneyspace.com/topic/18150-...l-flys/page/2/
There have been several events when Mooney baggage doors came open soon after takeoff; however, the event that is the subject of this thread apparently occurred some significant period of time after takeoff. This particular incident may have been due to a problem with the latching mechanism itself and not due to an incomplete preflight. Does anyone have a diagram or other information on the baggage door latching mechanism? Is the latching mechanism different from model to model?
Cheers,
Grog
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In-flight cameras are indeed a risk for distraction, but not more than a worried or a hurried passenger, i.e., manageable
I personally like to fly with cameras, because I often fly to unfamiliar destinations, so the cameras give me an immense help in debriefing the flights to the smallest detail.
It's just a matter of preferences, or risk / benefit evaluations.
I personally like to fly with cameras, because I often fly to unfamiliar destinations, so the cameras give me an immense help in debriefing the flights to the smallest detail.
It's just a matter of preferences, or risk / benefit evaluations.
I've just watched the unedited video again. I didn't see him give any attention to the camera until after landing. I use a GoPro, which is started before taxi, and cannot be accessed in flight. What he crossed on landing looked like an old perimeter track. He may not have landed on the best grass area, and wouldn't have had the option to go around on the first big bounce. But PPRing for information was not an option.
I don't criticise him.
I don't criticise him.
