Cessna 210 incident

[illflyit]

A Cessna 210 arrived at EGJJ yesterday, with a some what shorter than normal port wing. Outbound from Ireland but not sure which field. So, has anybody found the missing 3 ft or so???

I do have a picture or two, but am not sure how to post it. Sorry.

[welkyboy]

This C210 is an US Registered Allison Turbine version operated by PacNet, it was en route from Brittas Bay (S of Dublin) to Lisbon with 4 POB, 2 were engineers going to Lisbon to fix a B767. The pilot reported to London Info that he thought he had a bird strike on departure and was loosing fuel, the aircraft subsequently diverted into Jersey where it was discovered that 4 FOOT of the port wing was missing including the wing tip tank and half the aileron, everything outboard of the centre hinge of the port aileron had gone!!!
The amazing thing was that the aircraft flew for 2 hours in that condition and the pilot didnt have any control difficulties, possibly the extra weight of the wing tip tank on the starbord wing overcame the lack of lift of the port wing. It appears the aircraft hit a tree or some other object on take off as the strip is only 600 metres long and the aircraft was at or over MAUW.
There are 4 very lucky people out there, luck of the Irish I say.

[ChrisVJ]

I always assumed that too.

Yesterday I was at the Abbotsford Airshow and a chap flew a very amazing display in a Cub clone without an aileron, ( you know the kind of thing, "Who is this guy? Must have stolen a plane? My God, bits dropping off.........")

[Ex FSO GRIFFO]

LUV them C210's and their ability to FLY....

4 ft of wing missing eh? Bet THAT got their complete and undivided attention!

Have many hours in them, and must be one of my favourite 'singles'.

God bless Mister Cessna's designers...

:ok:

[Charlie Fox]

Pictures here (http://uk.photos.yahoo.com/cmfalloon/)

[illflyit]

http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/illsaywhen/album?.dir=9797&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos

This happened on landing at EGJJ last Sunday.

http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/illsaywhen/detail?.dir=/d9a1&.dnm=6fcc.jpg&.src=ph

[Maude Charlee]

How on earth can you not notice 4 foot of your wing was missing on a Cessna single? Must have been some pretty heavy IMC from takeoff. :rolleyes:

[Cat.S]

Bird strike! Perhaps they were nesting at the time?

[Final 3 Greens]

Pterodactyl strike?

[aerobatic_dude]

Doesn't look like 4FOOT of wing missing there.

600m is ample runway for that Turbine 210. Over MAUW with 4POB, umm I don't think so.

[OA32]

There is about 3-4ft of wing missing an inch further along and he would have lost the port aileron. Pilot vacated and said it was a bird strike, then changed the story about 4 times, I guess the reason they carried on was the money involved, later on that evening a HS125 from Biggin came in to take them down to Lisbon. Yet another case of stupidity vs. money, there is almost no way they didn't notice what had happened, any sensible pilot would have diverted to nearest field.

[dublinpilot]

Where was the money involved?

Are repairs significantly cheaper in Jersey? I know they don't have VAT in Jersey, but I never noticed much more than a 10% difference on anything on the 'high street' there.

(Genuine question!)

dp

[aerobatic_dude]

Maybe Jersey was the nearest field, they were en route to somewhere in Europe if I heard correctly. I know the pilot, and trust me. He made the correct decision if everyone was uninjured and the aircraft was OK.

[TwoDeadDogs]

Huh! He did in his hole make the correct decision! I know the field he flew out of,also. His fully-loaded takeoff was probably close to limits,he smacks a tree and instead of landing back in or diverting to Shannon, he decides to fly a very long leg over water, not to mention entering someone else's airspace with a damaged aircraft. Did he for one second, think about the passengers' safety?
what was that one about the bag of luck and the bag of experience again?
regards
TDD

[hedgehopper]

"Doesn't look like 4FOOT of wing missing there. "


Checkout the report in the
Jersey Evening Post (http://www.thisisjersey.com/news/news1.html)

(this link will only work today)

Hedgehopper:ok:

(edit text added from JEP)

Landing on a wing and a prayer
By Harry McRandle

AN Irish pilot flew for nearly two hours with over five feet of the aircraft's left wing missing before diverting into Jersey on Friday afternoon.

An Airport stand-by was called at 4.50 pm when the pilot reported having difficulties, including no readings from his auxiliary fuel tank. However, that fuel tank which began the flight in the wing-tip was later found on the ground in Ireland. The plane landed safely at the Airport at 5.10 pm.

Remarkably, the pilot was able to fly and steer the five-seater Cessna 210 after it was reported to have struck the top of a tree shortly after take-off from the Brittas House airstrip, about 18 miles east of Shannon.

There were three passengers on board the Pacific Network Air craft, two of whom were understood to be engineers being taken to Lisbon to repair a Boeing 767 on the ground there.

Measurements taken today show that 5 ft 3 in were lost at the back of the wing and 4 ft 3 in at the front. Investigators from the Irish Air Accident Investigation Unit are looking into what happened and a spokesman said that they had located debris from the private plane near the airstrip. It is also believed that the US Federal Aviation Authority may become involved, as the registration number N6593W is American.



Published 16/08/05

[englishal]

Doesn't seem very sensible to fly for two hours with a damaged wing, and loss of fuel. In fact I would say it is a pretty stupid thing to do, who knows what unseen damage may have happened.....

Possibly financial reasons were involved....?

[Goingdownagain]

It's rumoured that he flew on for a while after take-off so he could figure out how to get his story straight about doing 'charters' on an N reg aircraft from a private strip in Eire.

[nouseforaname]

nice to see you expressing your intelegence.

Would you fly to an international airport where there are reporters to take photographs and investigators and everything else if you were sceptical about your storey??

I don't think so. You would have turned around and gone back into the quiet strip where you started...IF YOU HAD NOTICED which the poor bloke didn't

fair play to him i think anyway.

TD

[TwoDeadDogs]

Well,nouse
that's amazing, it really is. He hears a loud bang, the aircraft yaws violently, sheds a large piece of itself and loses fuel and he doesn't see anything? Were his engineer passengers too shocked to speak? They must have been struck dumb and blind in one fell swoop!! Them new-fangled ANR headsets are really good,I hear, but I don't think they can drown out the sound of aluminium tearing. I think the decision-making process went out the window, on this one.
TDD

[Davidt]

Isnt it an offence to recklessly endanger a person or aircraft?

Should have taken him 5 minutes after the collision to realise his aircraft was in a potentially un airworthy state, from that point on he was reckless as to the safety of his passengers. What an idiot!

What were those engineers thinking of sitting in the back they would have the clearest view of the wing. If I'd have been them I'd have insisted that the plane be landed at the nearest possible airfield.

They are all lucky to be alive.

[nouseforaname]

the point is probably none of them realised you bunch of mongs!

[FullyFlapped]

Jeez ... will you listen to yourselves !

Surely this is simple? If he knew a lump of his wing was missing, then he was stupid for not getting back down sharpish. If he genuinely didn't know, then a lot of the "no smoke without fire" brigade on here owe the bloke an apology !

FF :mad:

[smarthawke]

They didn't know? Oh, please.

Apart from the fact they had hit something stronger than the wing, lost a fuel tank, lost part of the wing, lost most of an aileron, had various wires and things in trail......

Perhaps the gain of a new winglet offset the aerodynamic losses.

Perhaps they were flying in very thick cloud and couldn't see the end of the wings.....

[TwoDeadDogs]

Dear Nouse and FullyFlapped,
I had the misfortune to hit a tree with an aircraft and I assure you, it is the most unmissable, unforgettable noise you will ever hear. The sound of the aircraft disintegrating around me is absolutely etched on my memory.... Not to mention the amount of aileron input he'd need to keep it straight and level. If he didn't notice the changed aerodynamic configuration , maybe he noticed the gallon of raw adrenalin pounding around his veins and the simultaneous clenching of a plane-full of buttocks. That little hiss is a sure sign that something's gone pear-shaped..
regards
TDD

[Confabulous]

Put it like this. Who out of the lot of us would fly for two hours with a severely damaged aircraft when there's a field below us?

There's no excuses to be made - it's not as though the aircraft is certified to remain flyable with 5 feet of wing missing.

Fair enough, the aircraft hit a tree - could happen to any of us, no matter how good. But to fly 300 - 400nm with a multitude of airfields below him, with the approprate emergency services available - he's broken every rule of airmanship, not to mention reckless endangerment and gross stupidity. For the record, I simulated the accident using X-Plane (which doesn't factor in the increased drag of the damaged wing), and it took full aileron just to hold it level.

Confab

[englishal]

I suppose after a skin full of beer, and a good auto-pilot you may not notice until you woke up....;)

[Anne.Nonymous]

There has been mention of the financial aspect and if he were flying two engineers to repair a 747 in Lisbon then this sounds less like private flying but more of an air taxi flight. Certainly the onwards flight in the HS125 will be an air charter. Does anyone know more?

I notice that the Irish AAIB are interested - perhaps the other Irish regulatory bodies will be interested as well?

Anne :O

[nouseforaname]

Sorry to mention this AGAIN but it all points to the guy not realising.

I imagine that the engineers onboard, if they were irish, work for either Airlingus or i think there is a big-jet maint. company in shannon airport.

So IF this was a charter flight and the pilot and passengers realised what was happening then they would have demanded he landed at nearby shannon. Their may have been 1 mad person on that plane but I doubt 4.

Sorry my little fellow investigators but everything points to him not realising. Bet he'd rather no one realised the circumstances when he landed in Jersey.

[englishal]

I can understand a 747 loosing a winglet and not really noticing, but loosing 15% of your wing area.........:ooh:

[BossEyed]

Nouse, you have looked at the pictures, I take it?

Apart from any subtle hints at the time (e.g. sudden unexpected yaw, an audio warning in the form of the sound of rending aluminium, etc), it's not as though there is much excuse for not noticing the lack of auxiliary fuel tank; after all, it was on his side...

Go on, call everyone "mongs" again. That makes your point far more eloquently than anything else can. :rolleyes:

[Farrell]

Everything you are reacting to and making judgements about is from second-hand information or more.

Rumours abound of anything from two to seven feet of missing wing are circulating.

Some articles state that the pilot took off from Shannon. Others that he left from Brittas Bay.

Please wait for the official reports to come out before slating the pilot, or in one of your cases making libelous comments about the legality of the flight.

If you don't fly a plane - either go and get a PPL so that you can actually talk informedly about this stuff or leave the analysis to the experts. You're tuppence-worth is a waste of bandwidth.

And if you are pilots and you've mouthed off on something too soon - shame on you.....it might have been you up there.

Rant over.

[treadigraph]

Farrell, OK, I don't have a PPL, but I'll waste some bandwidth by declaring tham I am sceptical about the decision to continue rather than make a precautionary landing.

I find it inconceivable that anybody could lose a portion of wing (of whatever length) in the circumstances and not notice the impact nor the absence of a portion of said aeroplane. Have you ever seen the pic of William of Gloucester's Arrow after it hit a tree in similar circumstances during an air race? Lost rather more wing, but then so did he.

I know which of this thread's contributors I'd rather fly with...

By the way, I've always had a great affection for the C210, but this has undelined its strength and capabilities to me.

[nouseforaname]

farrell....agreed.

[montys ex teaboy]

What worries me is this.

If the pilot wasn't aware he had lost part of the wing and part of the flight was conducted in VMC, then why was not this picked up on the lookout before commencing turns?

The number 1 rule of airmanship, is lookout. In a high wing A/C before a turn is initiated, the into turn wing should be "lifted" to make sure it is clear to turn. A level wing on a high wing A/C can mask a lot of airspace. So where was the pilot's lookout?

[TURIN]

The engineers were probably fast asleep anyway. Overworked and under paid those blokes are don't you know.:E

[You Gimboid]

The guy didn't notice????

If that is possible then it truly beggars belief. When I heard a Cessna clip the fuel bowser at a small airfield years ago practically the whole place heard the bang. Travelling at 100kts or whatever it would have made a hell of a noise.

Add to that the ongoing wind noise from the damaged wing, reduced control effectiveness, vibration and drag from the damage, not to mention loss of fuel, and the suspicious lack of wing whenever you look out the port window, it is just about impossible not to notice for several hours.

Whatever the reason this guy chose to continue, it has more to do with other human factors than non-perception!

[Final 3 Greens]

TreadigraphI find it inconceivable that anybody could lose a portion of wing (of whatever length) in the circumstances and not notice the impact nor the absence of a portion of said aeroplane Let me say this nicely. As a PPL, with several hundred hours of normal operational experience, I would not feel qualified to make the assertion that you have made.

If John Farley, who gained years of experience as a test pilot, is reading this thread, he may feel able to give an opinion. Or Ghengis.

I think it is best if the non-qualified, including you and me, wait for the accident report and do not engage in wild speculation.

Monty's Tea Boy

Depends whether the damage was visible and without sitting in the aircraft and looking, that's difficult to know.

If it was, then there are some searching questions to be asked, but again the enquiry should consider that.

The 210 is a strutless, cantilever wing and perhaps the lack of visual references, combined with the effect of dihedral (which this model also has, unlike many other Cessna singles) made the damage less easy to perceive. IS the slight downturn of the wingtip (which if missing would be aclue) normally in or out of sight given the raising effect of the dihedral?

Also, note that the view of the right wingtip is obscured by the weather radar pod, so perhaps the pilot lacks an immediate visual comparison between the two wing tips. Also the damaged tip seems to be pointing upwards, out ouf the pilot's sightline?

You Gimboid

Extending your line of thinking, I wonder about the sudden loss of airspeed that pruning some of the wing would cause through friction (i.e. on impact), especially in a phase of flight where the airspeed is relatively low?

Presumably there would be also some impact on immediate directional control too, ie putting the ac out of balance and increasing drag. In a way, I am surprised that the aircraft still flew. Makes you wonder where the debris landed, near the field or some miles down track (was it initially weakened by an impact and departed later?)

Again, it will be interesting to see the report conclusions.

Edited to include Ghengis as a person who is qulified to speculate on whether a pilot could fail to notice the loss of ANY length of wing.

[englishal]

For whatever reason the pilot continued to Jersey. It may well have been the right decision, we don't know. Maybe he had good reason to continue the flight.

But, to "not notice" the damage is rubbish in my opinion. I am looking at the photo now, and there is no way a pilot with 4 pax onboard could not notice the damage. With over 50% of the port aeileron missing,a significant portion of the left wing off, and the un-aerodynamic properties of the damage, the fuel imbalance, it couldn't have been missed.

Maybe he hit one of those 20-lb Bustards, the birds they recently imported back from Russia to Salisbury, I don't know.

Now I'll wait for the report before continuing any speculation;)

[Genghis the Engineer]

One imagines that the pilot is asking himself the same questions at the moment.

G

[Final 3 Greens]

Englishal

I hear what you are saying, but also reflect on numerous incidents where aircraft are flown for considerable distances after incidents.

For example, the BMI bus that continued to Manchester after a severe hail encounter. Would the crew have diverted if that had seen the extent of the damage that was not visible? e.g. the radome. I don't know and I don't judge their decision either, but I do wonder.

So perhaps the issue is not whether the pilot was aware of the fact that there was some damage, but more how he assessed the nature and extent and impact of that damage on the continuation of the flight.

As always, the report should be enlightening.

[camaro]

More pics

here (http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=526204) & here (http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=526196)

[montys ex teaboy]

Yeap, definate bird strike. Just trying to work out what type of tree the bird was in at the time. I'll put my money on an Oak tree.

[gaunty]

It's a Pressurised 210.

It needs to be to get the turbine benefits as the IAS green arc doesn't get you respectable TAS and fuel burn unless you get into the mid to high teen FLs.

4 pax with full fuel and aux's and not overweight:rolleyes:, Irish pilot, "unaware" that a good part of the wing is missing :}, N registered aircraft doing a charter originating out of Ireland, blah blah, blah.........nah we don't want to go there do we.

The insurance claim, if they dared, will make interesting reading.:p

Have they laid any charges yet, :sad: but then I guess the Authorities have yet to sort out the jurisdictional problems? :mad:

[Genghis the Engineer]

Thank you for the complements F3g. I'm not sure, If I'm honest, that there's enough information to go on - although I'd venture that he was very lucky that the aileron circuit didn't jam!

Looking at the photos posted, clearly the lift distribution that side would have shifted inboard a bit. This will have caused the aeroplane to roll towards the damaged wing, BUT, it's a big turbo, which will have powerful roll and yaw trimmers that the pilot is used to using. I'm not sure I'd notice that I used an extra ±20% trimmer movement when trimming out unless specifically looking for it - and why should he?

It's very hard to tell from the photos how much aileron is missing, that would proabably be the main clue in "feel", but you don't tend to use more than very small inputs in a biggish aeroplane with Pax on board.


Visually, you can see from the photos that nothing is stuck down below the wing, plus with pilot and pax having their heads just below the wing, the view of the tip would be very poor due to geometry. There is a couple of feet of cable (strobe electrics?) dangling which would have streamed out of the trailing edge, that wouldn't be very visible. (Incidentally, if that was powered, and the aircraft was losing fuel in that area....)

Overall, I'm not entirely surprised that IF there was no aileron restriction it wasn't noticed. One might however reasonably question the airmanship of somebody who knowingly took a bird on take-off, and didn't simply do a circuit for a look at it on the ground. I hope that's what I'd have the presence of mind to do.

One observation BTW, I've seen a few post-birdstrike aeroplanes in my time, and every one of them had a fair bit of blood streaked around the impact site. I can't see any red on the photos at-all. This is of-course possible, unless something else was hit (mast, model aeroplane, tree?) that wouldn't leave such a telltale.

G


(Gaunty, the other good news for all inolved, apart from that they're all alive and the aeroplane is apparently repairable, is that UK, Eire and Channel Islands - the latter come under UK for most aeronautical purposes, operate "no blame" accident reporting. I can't see any charges being made by or against anybody in such a case.)

[Final 3 Greens]

The damage looks even worse in those last two pix :confused:

I would still be interested in seeing a picture taken from the LHS and what the wingtip looked like from there. Also, the fuel feed pipes etc hanging from the wing tip may have been affected by the airflow and above the wing in flight.

Not speculating about what happened nor trying to judge the pilot or his decisions, but more the interesting point for me is that he's aware he's hit something, presumably the aircraft must have handled reasonably well to get as far as they did, so to what extent did the pilot realise the order of magnitude of the damage?

As You Gimboid said, there must have been a hell of a bang, but as pilots we are trained to trust our eyes and verify most things visually .... if the damage is difficult to see/perceive, might one underrate it?

That's my main interested and learning point from this thread.

I've only once experienced a bird strike and that was on landing. Yes, there was a hell of a bang and the airport fire service reported 2/3 lapwings flying across our path, which I never saw (but I was RHS, looking at the airfield plate for taxiway info). All the evidence that remained was a red streak on the (undamaged) left main gear spat - no dead birds.

GhengisOne might however reasonably question the airmanship of somebody who knowingly took a bird on take-off, and didn\'t simply do a circuit for a look at it on the ground. Its hard to argue against that, on the other hand, the commander of the bmi flight took a hail encounter with sev turb and continued for another couple of hours.

Yes, the circumstances are different, but there is a line of thinking based around visual inspection, lack of obvious damage and the lowest cost solution (with safety parameters), supported by group reinforcement (in another context the PSA 727 CVR tapes are heart rending, when 3 crew mambers and a dead heading pilot on the jump seat appear to convince themselves that they have traffic in sight, when they do not.)

When commercial pressures meet airmanship, there\'s definitely potential for conflict of interest.

In my own are of expertise (project management), exactly the same issues arise, when decisions are driven by trade offs.

Hopefully, this incident (i.e that the aircraft flew for so long with som much damage) will give commercial pilots some hard data to justify why they did a circuit and precautionary landing and remove a bit of pressure from them.

[Cat.S]

I took a bird strike on takeoff from Shobdon. My passenger, who was a birdwatcher, assured me that it was a house martin, quite a small bird, but there was a hell of a bang, which I also felt through the controls. It hit the starboard wheel and then got deflected up by the propwash to hit the port elevator, putting a dent in it the size of my fist. At the time I didn't know what the damage was as I could not see either impact site, but the last thing I wanted to do was a low circuit and land back on a short runway in an aircaft that may not fly right at low speed.

Instead I climbed to 4000' and tried slow flight to see how the aircraft handled. When all was okay I decided that I'd if there was any damage to the undercarriage, brake pipes etc, that I'd rather return home to LPL and land on their nice long runway, with full emergency backup.

I sure as well wouldn't have been happy crossing water in it though!

[Final 3 Greens]

Cat S

It's amazing how loud the noise is, isn't it?

It doesn't surprise me that the bird made a fist sized dent in the surface, since I've seen the aftermath of a Thrush meeting the l/e of a PA28 wing and that was also fist sized and quite deep.

I did accept the rental aircraft for a flight, since the incident was logged in the tech log and an engineer had inspected it and signed it off (bird type was named too), but I was surprised by the severity of the damage caused by a bird that literally weights a few ounces.

[Woomera]

So were the crew of Columbia.

It was just a little bit of ice/foam going M3+.

[DFC]

Did the pilot hear it or not? Did the pilot press-on regardless or not?.........who cares. The pilot, aircraft and passengers arrived safely and that is what really matters.

But.

There is little doubt in the evidence which indicates that this was a;

Public Transport Flight.

Single Engine IFR aross water beyond glide distance to land.

The only thing he could have done to make it worse would have been to fly at night!

Ah but wait a minute.........he has done all that before (with both wings intact)! - Public Transport, IFR, Over Water at Night in a single! - It was for a organ transplant / hospital flight but that does not make it legal.

Regards,

DFC

[Genghis the Engineer]

Did the pilot hear it or not? Did the pilot press-on regardless or not?.........who cares. The pilot, aircraft and passengers arrived safely and that is what really matters.
Not really, whatever happened might happen again - and any of us might benefit from knowing how this one was survived (or it might have been avoided altogether).

G

[nouseforaname]

bet whoever donered the organ and whoever recieved it was glad because there isn't many private charter companies out there in Shannon you know. Been there a couple of times and couldn't see a lot.

[illflyit]

Had a quick look yesterday, and no, the damage is not obvious from the P1 seat.

[RobboJon]

A lot of assumptions being made here:

For example I'm not sure where it states that the aircraft was not VFR at all times - when public transport would be perfectly legal in a single. Also, given the reported name of the operator includes Pacific, last time I looked Ireland does not have a Pacific coast and the aircraft is "N" reg - perhaps an American company operating under a FAA AOC? Also, I'm not current on air law - particularly FAA and changes since EASA - but rule of thumb used to be two out of three make it legal (registration, licence/AOC, location) - so a pilot with an FAA IR flying an N-Reg a/c on a US AOC would have been OK - even IMC under some circumstances [I recall that last time I looked some years ago, night and IMC for public transport in Cessna Caravans was on the verge of being approved in the US/Canada].

Also, perhaps one of the engineers chartered the aircraft under a self-fly hire arrangement and then separately contracted the pilot to fly it for him - a grey area admittedly but an awful lot of aerial work is not, in fact, public transport.

Having said all that, the IAA to my certain knowledge, take a pretty dim view of illegal public transport, so I hope the pilot, his employers and the a/c owners have all their ducks in a row!

Unless suicidal, why would the pilot have flown on if he was aware? If the pilot was aware, very probably so would his passengers be. It would be a bit of a coincidence that all were suicidal at the same time. If they all were, why divert when their mutual oblivion was coing within reach? No, they patently did not know the extent of the damage.

As well as losing the lift from the missing part of the wing, the weight of the auxiliary fuel tank would be lost - ofsetting the lift imbalance. The increased form drag from the mashed up metal at the end of the port wing might be offset by the reduction in induced drag - hence decreasing the amount of rudder trim required to keep it all in balance.

Never never underestimate human factors and our ability to convince ourselves that everything is allright.

"(Very) loud bang, very close to tree tops on a take-off that was perhaps ill-advised - but everything still seems to work (fuel guages not checked yet, but then the engine had only been run for a few minutes). Maybe a little sluggish and unbalanced on the controls, but within "normal" tolerances - might be due to uneven loading due to size & distribution of pax and their gear. Yeah, everything seems OK. Phew, looks like I got away with the takeoff, must have been a bird. Press on"

Lucky, lucky people! Seems likely that a similar "oh I'm sure they have everything under control" scenario may have had the cabin crew of a Helios 737 continuing to sit in their seats when their a/c recommenced a climb having already deployed the pax oxygen system - by the time they found the hypoxic pilots it was already too late and the results were tragic.

The lesson for me from this is "just because it looks OK from where I'm sitting doesn't mean it is" Pilots that live to be too old to fly make conservative decisions and never, never assume the best. If you hear a loud bang, you need to establish what caused it and what it has done. If there are bits you can't see (and there always are) get someone else to check those bits out. I'm not sure I would "test the envelope" either. Supposing slow speed checks reveal an aerodynamic fault you can't recover from. Keep it flying as close as possible to the speed and configuration its already in (after all, it's staying up like that). In this case, a short flight without touching trim, undercarriage and flap controls unless absolutely essential) and approach to a nice long strip with good emergency services (such as Shannon) would seem to be favourite.