Grand Van down at Eros and Helicopter at Okapuka
 

Guys and girls,

Just heard terrible news via several grapevines, that a Grand Van has crashed at Eros airport, Windhoek, near the horse stables.

Dont know more than that.

Stierado :(

Very sad day again for Eros...

ZS-OTU, One pilot dead. 3 more injured...
On its way to Angola with building materials...

Rest in Peace, you'll be missed in Luanda...
:sad:

Something like 3 dead.

Taking off runway 19.....

The press says 4 on board, 2 killed. RIP


http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...Caravan1-3.jpg


Picture curtesy of the Republikein.

Van
 

The van took off just before 7 with 4, including the pilot. inside info have it that the plane could have been overloade and the gusty winds early in the mornig could have had some role to play. this is unconfirmed. 2 people passed away however. One on the seen and the other at Katetura hospital.

Sad day once again for Namibian aviation. Thoughts & prayers go out to all.

Thoughts go out to the families. That must surely be more than gusty winds and overload ?

Rising terrain in all directions when off of 19 at FYWE, necessitating some maneuvering before heading off up north...

Just for general info:

Taking off RWY 19 at Eros is seriously not ever to be recommended, exept if the wind is blowing at a headwind with a constant speed and direction of 12knots or more and the air is stable. I guess in a C208, even if loaded to the MTOW, RWY 01 will always be the better option to choose, as the runway length is sufficiant for this type of aircraft even with a considerable amount of tailwind.

Sad news and I hope that the above reasons did not play a role in the crash because then it could have been avoidable.

All the papers have the story today:

www.az.com.na

www.republikein.com.na

www.namibian.com.na

Sad news :(

PS Not to jump into any lengthy discussions here, but Propellorpilot I think the Grand Van has a 10kt tailwind limit for performance

Grand Van down at Eros
 

Sad news indeed. I agree with Propellerpilot though. Rwy 19 must be accepted with careful consideration. Some mediums can even takeoff Rwy 01 with a good load flapless. I hope that operators and the DCA are taking there mishaps seriously!

The only two METARs for EROS I can find for the 15th:

SA 15/11/2009 13:00->

METAR FYWE 151300Z 23010KT //// VV/// 32/01 Q1017=

SA 15/11/2009 12:00->

METAR FYWE 151200Z 36012KT 320V020 //// VV/// 31/01 Q1018=

Unless this was significantly different at the time of the crash, it's not very clear to me why RWY 19 was used....

Sad news, anyhow :(

From the A.Z. article:

''Augenzeugen zufolge sei die Caravan sehr lange die Startbahn von Norden nach Süden hinuntergerollt, einen Teil der Strecke mit „bereits angehobenem Bugrad“, bevor sie abgehoben und langsam an Höhe gewonnen habe, dann aber nach rechts abgedreht und plötzlich abgestürzt sei. Dem Ministeriumssprecher zufolge habe der Pilot kurz vor dem Absturz mitgeteilt, dass er Schwierigkeiten habe, an Höhe zu gewinnen.''

Translated as best I can without twisting the meaning:

''According to witnesses the caravan rolled very far down the runway from north to south, part of the distance with the nosewheel already in the air, before lifting off and slowly gaining height, but then banked to the right and suddenly plummeted down. According to the ministry's spokesman the pilot had transmitted that he was having difficulties gaining altitude, before crashing.''

172, the takeoff was at 07:00 local, was it not?

Doodle, I couldn't find the time of the accident, and as I said, these two METARs are the only historical ones I could dig up. If you know of the METAR at the time of t/o that might shed some light on the event.

If anything can be inferred from these two, then that the wind was pretty variable.

I'm not finding any METAR for the early morning, either. I remember reading that the wind was said to have been gusty, though. That agrees with your thoughts.

RWY19
 

A very very sad accident indeed, and my condolences to all family touched by this. There are always questions that needs to be answered!! What was the experience of the pilot?, and by the sound of things weight might have been a issue!!!!. Will be appreciated if someone can give me more info about the operator (who did the pilot work for?). Hope this is not a classic case where a relatively low experienced pilot was expected to fly hopelessly overweight for his boss and actually took the chance and in the process killed three other people too!. According to the reports one passenger was on his way to Rio Longa which is owned by Henk Burger which also owns Wings Over Africa, have not heard good things about them at all. :=

''According to witnesses the caravan rolled very far down the runway from north to south, part of the distance with the nosewheel already in the air, before lifting off and slowly gaining height, but then banked to the right and suddenly plummeted down. According to the ministry's spokesman the pilot had transmitted that he was having difficulties gaining altitude, before crashing.''

Having close to 2k hours in the Van, I remember all too well those days loaded near MTOW, and after a long t/o roll the aircraft barely climbing. Its a horrible feeling, the way the plane would just hang there after rotation, keeping your fingers crossed, hoping she'll climb... My deepest sympathies to all involved.

Sad sad accident.

Piapito - be careful bringing people and companies into this that you don't know much about :oh:

Looking at the pics, something does not seem right: Flaps are retracted. The Van lying about a mile or so from the end of the runway, and the pilot struggling to get height after takeoff, the flaps should surely still be at takeoff position?

Well spotted, Axe123. Rated van-drivers, are there parameters within which you'd elect to go flapless and accept a longer ground-roll, for a better climb once airborne? (is this a legal option according to the AFM?)
Mind you, you'd expect a body to want some flap out when faced with a low, heavy and slow 180-degree turn fairly soon after airborne..

Heavy Van, no flaps = Are you crazy!:eek: She will battle!

20 Flaps climb to at least 300 ft AGL, accelerate through 90 kts, then flaps 10. Accelerate through 100 kts and minimum 500 ft AGL, flaps 0. That is how I was trained and is the way I train new Van pilots.

I tend to agree with Nyathi here, I was also trained to select flap up once stable at 100kts min, and 500ft agl. You are able to decrease some of the drag by selecting 5 degrees flap, and "step climb" I have only done this in cases where it was hot and high conditions, with a heavy load.. very sad to hear about this unfortunate incident! Condolences!

A Caravan needs its flaps on take-off. If you retract them early it gets really exciting, really fast.

Go fly a Caravan for a while and then come back and tell us how its done

Let's not get bogged down in the usual mudslinging, for once :rolleyes:

So now that we have established from the rated van-pilots that there is no procedure for taking off sans flap so as to climb out better, we may have an additional indicator of what caused this latest disaster.

Eros Van
 

AXE123

I'm not accusing anyone, and I just might be more informed than you think, but the fact of the matter is that a Van went down wich was obviously heavy and no engine problems were reported, this led to the death of innocent lives. You can only use flap or retain your current flap setting if you 1 or both of the following, AIRSPEED and EXCESS POWER.
If you dont climb with flap you dont have one of these, more flap will kill you and raising it increases your stall speed. There was not allot of options for the poor pilot, but how did he get in that situation, prevention is better than cure.:rolleyes:

@Stierado - so what is the logical conclusion if the Van is limited to 10kts tailwind ? No takeoff.

BUT - I doubt that there would have been a tailwind greater than 10 knots so 01 would have been the runway to take, especially when flying out at MTOW.

As we can read - the wind was probably just a small contributing factor to the real problem. The reason why I mentioned it, was to give the all pilots that read in this forum and that don't know FYWE a hint to keep in the back of their minds: if you ever have to fly out of Eros in conditions described above, take RWY 01 unless the tailwind component is greater than 12 knots. And if you are in doubt, ask the collegues, that have been flying there for years. If the engine was up to performance, then this is just another accident at Eros that can be attributed to human performance...and could so have been prevented.

Clearly with close-in obstacles the criterion is angle, not rate of climb? Isn't that where flaps come in?

As I recall 105Kts was the speed for flap retraction and initial climb, and as a colleague discovered much to his chagrin, a Caravan really does not want to get airborne at all with no flap selected, and I suspect that even if it did it; a) wouldn't want to climb and; b)certainly wouldn't accelerate. = a big mess a mile or so off the end of the runway...

ie - try a take off with no flap and your first problem is a vastly increased ground run, and then either accelerate in almost level flight to 105Kt before climbing, or try and fail to climb at high alpha and 80Kt, and mush it in.

As the photo suggests the accident aircraft seems to have had no flap deployed one might reach a logical conclusion..?

I am told that the aircraft didn't mush in but stalled and spun in.

Fits with the pics. There is no apparent horizonal progress made by the aircraft after initial impact, and the damage is consistent with a steep angle of arrival.

Nonetheless, very sad indeed.

AS was said by PP, if you have not flown out of Eros it is pretty hard to imagine the scenario. Rwy 19 is a last resort as is the 27/09. The only ````runway is 01.
Sloping high ground in all directions except North. Pilots that are familier and get indoctrined into flying in FYWE will all know this. Even if there is a 5 kt wind favouring 19 the turbulance over the Komas Hochland will make your life a real misery.

This has been proven time and time again guys, and we still see this happening in Eros.

My thinkning is excactly this, the Van was performing, he was in WB, when he got airborne he turned right, this is where the mountain wave pushed him back down, combination of bank angle and loss of airspeed fighting to stay away from the ground, caused the aircraft to drop a wing and stall in.

Why I think this, it has nearly happened to me and I was lucky to learn and survive.

I have flown a single piston to a high performance turbine out of Eros and never ever tried the same trick again. 3 years there taught me a lot of respect for that airport.

It is a very charming and happy place Eros airport and a perfect GA airport, but if you fly there at least chat to the locals and get the Gen.


R.I.P to the guys and condolences to the familys in this tradgey :(

FYI, that is a very common limitation for Part 23 aircraft. Twin Otters are also limited to a 10 knot tailwind component for takeoff.

The wing is most efficeint when it is clean, in relation to lift vs drag.

We sometimes take off with Flap 0 during high temperatures and although we accept the increased take off run (obviously done at long runways only) we gain by not needing to level off (or hardly any level acceleration) and accelerate to Venr.

It is a technicallity to avoid being limited by 2nd segment climb performance, but we have charts for every airport which gives temp vs wind on a particular runway and tells us what is the optimum flap for those conditions.

Perhaps the investigation will shed some more light on the situation rather than debating principles of flight.

I spoke to the ATC on duty and they mentioned that the pilot did not say anything. They watched as the aircraft back-tracked and only getting airborne opposite the new tower (7/8 down the runway). They had the gud feeling that something is not right. But lets wait for the investigations := We saw that the other aircraft accidents were mainly due to technical errors.

I remember that is what the majority of pilots (an retired ones) said after the RWY19 crashes in 2008. Should this not be mentioned in the accident reports as a safety recommendation? Has anybody ever done a risk analysis on this? ATC's will keep on using RWY19 during southerly winds, no matter how strong

Helicopter down too at Okapuka
 

Now there is a helicopter is down at/near Okapuka

Vlieg eis nog een

Instructor survived and taken to hospital, student did not make it thou :(

the Namibian: One killed as chopper goes down

Flugschüler auf der Stelle tot

@ suitcaseman
 

I'm not a professional pilot, but only have a degree in what you'd call "basic aerodynamics".

==> WRONG: his input does make sense.

Maximum ROC - flaps up will show you the maximum ROC you can get, if the flaps are retracted. It does not mean you will get the maximum ROC because your flaps are retracted.

Maximum ROC - flaps T/O will show you the maximum ROC you can get, if the flaps are in T/O position. Again, this does not mean you will get the maximum ROC because your flaps are in T/O position.

Note: you will never get as good values for your airplane in real live, simply because the POH values are flown with a new aircraft, a new engine, under nearly perfect conditions by a testpilot, who really really knows his job. Therefore, in reality, you would get climb rates which are lower than stated in the POH, because of aircraft age, engine age and your (everyone's) inability to fly perfect.

==> WRONG again.

You are right about the similarity of the Lift and Drag formulas. But drag is calculated using the coefficient of drag (CD). Therefore the right formula would look more like followed:

Drag = CD 0,5 rho v2 S

where CD is the coefficient of drag, rho is density, v is velocity and S is (wing) surface (projected).

I will keep the next one simple:

Fowler flaps would increase both S and CD, resulting in more lift. More lift means more drag, you're clearly right on that.

BUT:

Quote:

---

The increase in lift is less than the increase in drag

---

==> WRONG again.

If this were the case, flaps would be pointless at all. Until a certain point, flaps increase the coefficient of lift MUCH MORE than the coefficient of drag, therefore increasing lift MORE than drag, which ultimately results in a better L/D-ratio, which reduces stall speed, take-off run etc...

You can see this if you look at a Lilienthal polar diagram, where CL versus CD is pictured.

Quote:

---

Sink occurs when it is retracted due to the aircraft not being at the “best rate of climb speed”.

---

==> WRONG again.

Sink occurs if lift is not greater or equal to the aircraft's weight. Not being at the aircraft's "best rate of climb speed" (cY) does not necessarily mean the aircraft descends. It simply means that the aircraft will not climb with the best rate of climb, but with a climb rate which is lower.

Finally: ==> TRUE, and TRUE!

==> Maybe you should have looked elsewhere or longer.

From an engineers point of view and in the interest of aviation safety, you should not be instructing or flying at all, until you increase your very "basic" knowledge of basic aerodynamics.

Cheers, Mac

AHA-guy said.

'If this were the case, flaps would be pointless at all. Until a certain point, flaps increase the coefficient of lift MUCH MORE than the coefficient of drag, therefore increasing lift MORE than drag, which ultimately results in a better L/D-ratio, which reduces stall speed, take-off run etc...'

I disagree with your statement that you have the best L/D ratio with flaps down.

The reason we use flaps for take off is as you mentioned, we get an increase in lift, lower stall speed, shorter take off run - which has an effect on the ASD, otherwise we would require very long runways all over the world, also they obviously help slow planes down for the approach and landing.

(can you imagine how long the runway would need to be if a 747 took off and landed without flaps, bearing in mind the ASD and LDR)

The manufacturers accept the increase in drag for all the 'positive' gains, mentioned above, however, the best lift to drag ratio is still obtained with a clean wing, hence CLmax (best L/D ratio) is always with a clean wing and that is the best ratio of lift versus drag.

The 3rd segment climb is the accleration segment from climb, through flap retraction speed to final climb speed and the setting of MCP. It all seems a littel irrelevant when speaking about an accident that happened with a single engine, fixed gear aircraft.
Of some relevant interest perhaps might be the consideration of TEM/POH or Threat Error Managament.
At a recent instructor conference in Pretoria, much was made by the CAA (and by extension ICAO) of the concept of TEM and the absolute necessity to adhere with the specific POH.
Possibly and to speak with hypothesis, from the sounds of it, this accident could exemplify the possible points which the CAA were trying to illustrate in their recent seminar. An analysis of the threats posed by the conditions of the morning, such as runway, weather, take off flight path plus the errors possibly which might have been allowed to compound those threats such as loading, judgement, haste, pilot experience, ATC reports combined with a calculative thought as to what were the correct figures for take off extracted from the specific POH - or was reliance placed instead on a Mark I eyeball.
Those who have access to even a generic Caravan POH and who are familiar with the a parameters of the specific morning will be able to work out figures quite easily. Once those figures are to hand, it becomes part of Airmanship as to whether you consider your flying machine too beaten up to be able to perform according to the figures so exrtracted. A contingency is your call as the PIC and you may always imagine using wet or contaminated runway figures.

dont go on hear-say
 

Dear Piapito

You should know that pilots cant afford to go on hear-say and should never ever work on anything else that the hard facts.:cool:
So here are the facts:
1 The pilot worked for Aviation@work in RSA
2 The pilot had more that 1000 hours
3 The pilot weight and calculated and planned his own flight
4 The wind blowed in an western direction, which means that the pilot turned the nose of the aircraft right out of the wind - even though he had problems with lift
5 The pilot and the aircraft were chartered and not operated by Wings over Africa which is owned by Henk Burger
6 DCA recently regarded Wings over Africa as the aviation company in Namibia with the best Safety, quality and operation procedures in place.:ok:
7 Most important of all: the pilot were told by other pilots NOT to use runway 019 - and still made a consious decision to do just that.

I have now found the full set of METARs for FYWH (alas, they don't seem to exist for Eros). I have flown from Eros, but cannot remember how the wx conditions there correlate with FYWH.

IF (and locals will be able to comment) the wind conditions are similar between the two, then in my mind there was no pressing need to take off from 19. He would have had a couple of knots tailwind taking off from 01. No big deal.