Looks typical of a CFIT, they were probably doing around 200 knots.

I disagree. It looks like a stall / spin to me - high vertical rate of descent. negligible forward speed. Wreckage is not spread over a long trail as would be a fast, level impact, but is pretty compact and still recognisable as an aeroplane. A very broken one, of course.

My suspicion is that, during a go-around from the DH, someone applied full power and prematurely reduced the flaps; by habit or accident. The MU-2 seems to require a lot of flaps.


Right wing flaps seem to be a bit extended but far from fully extended:

https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1493/2...08e036d07f.jpg


Left wing flaps seem to be somewhat more extended than the right wing flaps:

https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1507/2...c80a2a3c_b.jpg

Stall / spin most probable indeed. Eyewitness saw the plane coming down with an almost 90 degree bank.

Indeed.

The MU-2 gets its cruise speed performance through having a narrow, low-drag wing - think of it as a miniature ATR. At pattern speeds you have to have the flaps out, and not retract them too soon on a go-around. That's part of the special training required.

If you are new in type, and used to more normal craft of a similar size/power, and revert to habit in a stressful situation ("Gotta reduce drag - flaps up!"), you can easily join the ranks of MU-2 statistics.

Flaps could have been in transit at the moment of impact, and ("almost 90 degree bank") one wing "broke" before the other, so that discrepancy (if not just a photo illusion) may be an outcome, not a cause. The investigators will have clues that we don't have yet - flap handle position and flap position indicator, from the cockpit.

That being said, there were plenty of other challenges on this approach. Freezing temps, low vis, low ceiling, precip, terrain that rose higher than the cloud base, no GS guidance.

CBC reports that TSB investigators taking wreckage to Ottawa. They want to get to the GPS memory.

The canadian equivalent to the NTSB said

- GPS will be inspected
- 91 meters between initial and final impact points
- Wings almost horizontal at impact
- "légère assiette cambrée" I guess means small pitch (up or down ??) at initial impact.
- debris over 150 x 150 meters

Original french text:

... Le BST a pu confirmer qu'un appareil GPS muni d'un enregistreur vocal se trouve bel et bien dans le cockpit, mais il n'a pas encore été récupéré par crainte de l'abimer.

... L'épave et les débris sont circonscrits dans une aire de 150 mètres par 150 mètres. Selon les analyses du BST, l'aéronef s'est immobilisé à environ 91 mètres du point d'impact initial, au milieu d'un champ du village d'Have-aux-Maisons. Heureusement, les maisons environnantes n'ont pas été percutées.

« Les évaluations préliminaires semblent indiquer que l'aéronef avait une légère assiette cambrée et que les ailes étaient presque à l'horizontale au moment de l'impact. Il faudra faire une analyse plus évoluée de l'assiette au moment de l'impact. On croit aussi que les moteurs fonctionnaient au moment de l'impact », a précisé M. Turenne. ...

Écrasement aux Îles: le pilote devait suivre une requalification ce week-end | DAPHNÉ CAMERON | Faits divers

He probably said "légère assiette cabrée", not "légère assiette cambrée", and it was transcribed incorrectly. "légère assiette cabrée" => "slightly nose high attitude"

Thanks. I hate the word camber :mad: ;)

From CBC :

He added the plane's engines appeared to be operational at the time of the crash, and its wings were relatively level when it made impact with the ground.

"We know it wasn't going straight down," Turenne said. "There was a bit of rolling on the left side."

Over the coming days, the TSB team will begin preparing the wreckage to be moved to its laboratory in Ottawa. Turenne said that will facilitate attempts to retrieve the plane's GPS device.

It is believed to be lodged in the cockpit, Turenne said, but the instrument panel is too heavily damaged to access it.

The ​MU-2B is not equipped with a black box, but its GPS device does have voice-recording capability.

"We can't guarantee that all the information will be available," Turenne said. "It is not a device designed to withstand impacts."

From a Lapresse article:

Le pilote de l'avion qui s'est écrasé mardi, Pascal Gosselin, a été formé pour piloter les appareils Mitsubishi MU-2B il y a un an, mais il devait suivre sa requalification ce week-end, a indiqué vendredi matin le Bureau de la sécurité des Transports du Canada (BST)

Translation:
He was supposed to be requalified this weekend (probably April 2nd).

I don't know if it was expired at the moment of the crash but it was certainly near its end.

Sounds like a case of missionitis.

Some old bush airways slogans come to mind
" We will get you there or die trying"

de facto

and you base this on ..... what?!

MU2...a sweet machine. One must respect wing loading and Vmc. Not a ride for those who ponder.

Google Translation:

"He looked up and , through the fog , saw what he did not want to see . " I looked and I saw him fall , as when doing a "flat" on the water, on the belly . " He immediately had 9-1-1.

The plane crashed in a small valley on the rise . "It was a rebound, he bowed , fell and " poufff " I saw a smudge . After , there is nothing that moved "

:(

How to pack a landing gear, measure fuel, defuel, and move a carcass a la TSB ;) (video in french but self explanatory)

Écrasement d'avion aux Îles : tout est ramassé avant d'envoyer la carcasse à Ottawa | ICI.Radio-Canada.ca

Someone crashes in crap weather on a non-precision approach and - because it happened to be an MU-2 - every internet-expert crawls out of his or her hole to explain how dangerous the airplane is. *chuckle*

You know what's really dangerous? Spending most of our careers flying between 10,000ft runways with an ILS at both ends...

Excerpt from wikipedia:

Safety concerns

Concerns have been raised about safety; there have been 337 fatalities from MU-2 crashes.[11] As of October 2005, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has begun a safety evaluation of the aircraft and decided that the aircraft has met its certification requirements - it is safe when operated by properly trained pilots who operate properly maintained aircraft. The FAA is in the process of mandating training specific to the MU-2 as it has in the past for other aircraft. When such mandated training was required outside of the U.S. the MU-2 accident record was vastly improved.

Because the MU-2 offers very high performance at a relatively low cost, some of its operators lack sufficient training and experience for such an advanced aircraft. The MU-2 has performance similar to a small jet, yet early pilot licensing required only a simple endorsement from much slower twin piston-engined licenses. The large number of MU-2 pilots who were inexperienced at high speeds and high altitudes seems to be the cause of the high crash rate. Once a type certification was required for an MU-2 license the accident rate dropped to normal levels.

A design feature of the MU-2 is its high cruise speed while having a low landing speed. This is accomplished by using full-span, double-slotted flaps on the trailing edge of the wing. These flaps give the MU-2 a wing area comparable to a Beech King Air in landing configuration while having a wing area comparable to a light jet while in cruise mode. The full-span flaps meant that over-wing spoilers were employed instead of conventional ailerons. These spoilers are highly effective, even when the MU-2 wing is stalled. Some fatal accidents have occurred because normal engine-out procedures for light twin aircraft are not effective when flying the MU-2. The commonly taught procedure of reducing flap following an engine failure on take off leads to a critical reduction in lift in the MU-2 due to the highly effective double-slotted flaps. When pilots were taught to retain take-off flap and to reduce climb rate in the event of an engine failure, MU-2 accident rates were reduced to almost nil.

From an FAA press release:

The FAA began an aggressive safety evaluation in July 2005. The evaluation is performing a detailed review of accidents, incidents, airworthiness directives, service difficulty reports, safety recommendations and safety reports. It also is examining pilot training requirements, the history of the aircraft's commercial operators and possible engine problems. The goal is to identify the root causes of MU-2 accidents and incidents and determine what, if any, additional safety actions are needed.

In early 2008, the FAA issued a Special Federal Air Regulation (SFAR) directed at MU-2B operations. Pilots flying this aircraft after that date (current MU-2 pilots would have a year to come into compliance) were required to receive type-specific initial training, as well as recurrent training. It also required that a fully functional autopilot be available for single-pilot operations, and that FAA-approved checklists and operating manuals be on board at all times. Also unusual for this SFAR, pilot experience in other aircraft types cannot be used to comply with MU-2 operational requirements - for instance, the requirement to perform landings within the preceding 90 calendar days before carrying passengers is altered by this SFAR to require those landings be made in the MU-2.[12]

As of March 29, 2016 there have been 3 fatal accidents involving the MU-2 since the FAA SFAR (Title 14; Part 91, SFAR Number 108) was implemented.

The safety concerns make the MU-2B sound to me like the aviation equivalent of a Porsche 911 Turbo: capable of safe, high performance in the hands of someone skilled and focused, but unforgiving in the hands of someone not used to its demands. A lot of 911 Turbos were sold to Hollywood producers, and many of them ended up going off-piste in the Hollywood Hills. :ooh: