BE55 Wheels-up
 

Baron operated by Proflight Air services Zambia did a wheels-up last week in the lower Zambezi National Park, Jeki airstrip.

A/C reg: 9J-MJS
POB: 1 CREW, nil pax
a/c: write off, +- 18000 hrs airframe, ex BA trainer.

No injuries.

Can you confirm that 9J is the Zambian register ?

THX Tt

Yes, 9J is Zambian.

I flew this a/c a few years ago, so I'm sorry to hear about this, although it was about time the old lady retired.

Glad to hear that there were no injuries.

Zambia has had its fair share of incidents and accidents over the last 24 months. I have my own opinion as to why this is, but I think its best left unsaid.

Cheers

JF

9J-MJS was a 1968ish BE55 Baron and was formerly owned by BA at Hamble, UK registration G-AWAE. She was old but great to fly, certainly looked after me for many hundreds of hours even after a 50 minute, 6 up stretch following an engine failure, hitting an impala landing at Lukuzi, several manual extensions of the gear following electric motor failure (boy, how the knuckles bleed) and more. Taken me to Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania, South Africa, DR Congo etc over 8 years of flying her. Sad for this to happen, but like JockFlyer said, she was getting a little long in the tooth (18000hrs plus) and at least there were no fatalities.
Anyone know why the gear up happened? Pure forgetfulness I guess?
Yep, a real shame.
NP.:{

There are two clubs...those that have:oh: :oh: and those that have the potential:} :} Not the first and certainly won't be the last

Rumour has it that the pilot landed at Jeki without any gear problem but the flaps wouldn't retract after landing, he then said to his pax that he want's to do a test flight before returning to Lusaka and they must stay on the ground.

He fired up and did a circuit at Jeki trying to retract the flaps which still would not, he came around for landing and off course the ''unthinkable'' happened.....

draw your own conclusions.

:bored:

This may be the wrong thread to post this - are these guys needing a replacement - got one standing around looking very lonely.

Does anyone have contact details for these guys?

Mmmmmm,

Just thinking out loud here, but what did he expect to happen to the flaps on the flight test, that wouldn't happen on the ground? Perhaps he hoped the air pressure would help to force them up?

Take off with 2 stages(short field landing config) of flaps isn't advised on the Baron, as you will be airbourne before VMCA.

However, if you decided that you were going to get airbourne, wouldn't it have been better to return to lusaka where there would be emergency services and maintenance, and he could have arranged another a/c to pick up the pax?

Hindsight is great for looking at these things, but aren't they a little obvious?

Anyway, that's enough of me being a skygod.

Sermon over, Cheers

JF

Bravo190, where have all the pigeons gone???

...pigeons on my shoulder Bond, yeshh....NO SMUCK out here!!