PA34 down in the Alps [Archive]

IO540

12th Feb 2007, 14:54

Speed is life. Altitude is life insurance

Very true; however when flying one doesn't have simple options like that. That would be the case if there was no cloud, and no controlled airspace. In reality, flying is a complex trade of legal flight rules v. CAS v. permitted routings v. weather v. aircraft performance v. icing levels v. oxygen carriage, etc.

Initially, one has to choose either VFR or IFR.

In the former case, you have to be below cloud, or above it.

In the latter case, you can be in cloud but you wouldn't want to be in this kind of stuff. In fact, you don't want to be in anything that might have nasties embedded in it, because you can't see them. The enroute strategy then becomes one of getting VMC on top of whatever there might be, and a Seneca can't get above weather that has a significant amount of lift. Typical tops in N Europe tend to be below FL180 but they can go much higher if there is any lift.

An instrument-competent pilot can fly "official VFR" under cloud in the worst imaginable conditions, and be fine, but if he climbed higher he might for example ice up, or bust CAS.

I don't think he was on an airways flight plan because he would then have been higher, and in any case would have seen the stuff coming up ahead and would have asked for a 20 or 30 deg right due weather, and would have got it instantly (CAS is irrelevant on an airways flight). So my guess is that he was going VFR. In France you can go VFR up to FL105 without any issues but this muck would have had tops way above that, IMHO.

I wish I could get the skew-t charts for Lyon etc for 1200Z but those baloons didn't appear to have gone up. I can get the ones for 0000Z either side; the one 12hrs after (http://weather.uwyo.edu/cgi-bin/sounding?region=europe&TYPE=GIF%3ASKEWT&YEAR=2007&MONTH=02&FROM=1000&TO=1212&STNM=07481)the accident (12 hrs is a long time) shows near-IMC from deck to about 30,000ft, with a clear layer between 10k ft and 18k ft, very roughly. I haven't found a decent weather archive yet, free access.

But this is pure speculation.

can someone paint the a/c track over that weather pic?

From Shoreham to Cannes, assuming a straight line (unlikely) it passes right through the worst of it.

It's extremely sad.

Adrian N

12th Feb 2007, 16:01

I wish I could get the skew-t charts for Lyon etc for 1200Z but those baloons didn't appear to have gone up.
http://meteocentre.com/archive/tephi/2007/02/10/2007021012_07481.gif

englishal

12th Feb 2007, 16:01

Very sad, it always is when this sort of thing happens........

The Seneca (depending on model) is a very capable aeroplane and if a turbo charged model is good for FL250. Ideally for touring Europe year round, I'd want a de-iced twin with 02 and weather radar or a TBM - otherwise it does pay to be a chicken sometimes and take Easyjet.

Fuji Abound

12th Feb 2007, 16:25

I wanted to add my sorrow after reading this news.

The Seneca is a capable aircraft and I would suspect he was capable pilot to take on that trip.

I wonder what persuaded him to cross the Alps? The Seneca had more than enough range to take a quite different route and still not need to stop.

As it turned out the conditions must have been really dreadful with no way to get above the weather.

Looking at the radar and the site of the accident he had most of the weather to the north and by then east of the route. Perhaps he had been running along the western edge of the front.

Miserlou

12th Feb 2007, 16:33

IO540,

I have to disagree. Which of the other options is worse than actual outcome of this flight?

I will not speculate on this incident but the conditions appear ripe for moderate to severe icing; but that is only a risk of... The mountains don't pose so much a risk as a certainty.

I'd choose living over legal any day.

IO540

12th Feb 2007, 17:28

I agree that when one is in a mess than one has to make hard decisions; I was referring to planning a flight.

It's a case of one thing leading to another, and we will never know what decisions were taken and why.

One factor which might have weighed on a pilot's mind, in the early stages of a looming crisis, is the well known attitude in France to American aircraft. So if on a VFR flight, one might think twice before declaring an emergency and infringing some bit of their copious military airspace, in the expectation that one is going to get well and truly turned over following a landing.

I would have not gone VFR - it appears not possible on the data I see unless there are passes through the terrain. I have flown that route a few times but never below FL100 or so.

Miserlou

12th Feb 2007, 17:41

IO,
My apologies for reading it as planning phase.

I remember something I read by Richard Collins about icing to the extent that there is no problem flying in forecast (or actual for that matter) icing as long as you have enough 'outs'. May well have played a part in the VFR decision though precipitation is still icing conditions.

I've done my time on ATRs so I have no quams about the icing game. It was good to know that the aircraft had been more thoroughly tested in ice than probably any other type.

scooter boy

12th Feb 2007, 18:02

It's always easy to make a better decision in retrospect but if he had taken a more westerly track down over the rhone valley and along the coast to Cannes they would probably have been fine.

He must have had some reason for thinking that the weather was better over the mountains, maybe his departure weather briefing showed that or perhaps it just looked less black that way.

What a terrible tragedy for this family.
RIP

SB

Bearcat

12th Feb 2007, 18:14

There are a few cardinals in life like don't f@ck with a truck like wise with mountains and wx are not a good mix considering the safety alt is 14500? over the ALPS. Even if it was a clear day I would have taken a way westerly track staying away from the granite.

Easy said from my arm chair. May God rest their souls. When a child is involved its gut wrenching.

VORTIME

12th Feb 2007, 19:21

Do ye think TAWS or EGPWS will help decrease such accidents over time?

VT

IO540

12th Feb 2007, 19:51

Do ye think TAWS or EGPWS will help decrease such accidents over time?

TAWS/EGPWS should prevent you flying into terrain in IMC but only if you are in control of the plane at the time. The thing is that enroute one should never need it; if you are navigating OK, and in control OK, you should be above the MSA because you know where you are and you planned the flight on that route.

because someone acquires an IR and flies a twin doesn't mean that they wouldn't enjoy a bit of spectacular sight seeing.

How true. On a long trip last year, I decided to fly one of the legs VFR instead of IFR, primarily for the view. That turned out to have been a big mistake and one that still bothers me now. There was unforecast IMC, with mountains below, and I ended up climbing over the whole lot, at max perf, to FL140 "due weather", got cleared through everything and the controller didn't bat an eyelid - you can guess this was not anywhere near the UK :) Sometimes one has to sod the view and do it properly and go IFR. Those with an IR have worked absolutely damn hard for it and should use it as intended.

as long as you have enough 'outs'

One always needs an OUT. Sometimes there isn't one, for hopefully a brief period, like landing at certain airports where there are houses down below. But if flying in potentially icing conditions, one either must have VMC above the MSA, or be able to climb to VMC on top. There is no other way. Every plane, even a Seneca with boots, will ice up over a few hundred miles of freezing IMC.

nouseforaname

12th Feb 2007, 20:05

I was over that way doing some flying just before xmas. The weather was actually quite good but there was some overlying cloud which between Courchevel and Chambery had to be decended under and scooting around the valleys got to Chambery. Was with a competent instructor at the time...picked up my plane and went back to Courchevel and went straight up to F120 for that short trip, told myself in no uncertain terms that I wouldn't fancy flying something around the valleys.
I think miselou's comment of mountains being a certainty not a risk is very relevant.
However, condolences may we all learn something.....

just to add....the aircraft I was flying actually has TAWS, and I noted then that if you got the warning to avoid terrain in a mountain range then it would just steer you into the other side of the mountains. The only 'out' would be up. That option lies with the performance of your aircraft.

IO540

12th Feb 2007, 20:28

This (http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m74/peterh337/alps-2.jpg)is what the general area (N of Cannes) looks like in a better climate - from FL105 I think.

421C

12th Feb 2007, 21:40

Do ye think TAWS or EGPWS will help decrease such accidents over time?

I used to fly a Seneca VFR around Europe, including the Alps, Pyrenees and Norwegian fjords. I found the addition of non-TAWS terrain awareness very very useful when I fitted an MX20 (essentially TAWS-like but without the advisory and command alerts). You could scale up to 100nm or more away and judge the relative height of mountains and work out options for an "out" if things got marginal or worse weather-wise. Even in perfect VFR it helped planning if routes and levels changed.

Moving to a full EGPWS unit and flying upper airways IFR, I have found the terrain function less frequently useful - it is there for the (hopefully) very very rare occassion when you might go badly wrong, whereas the VFR terrain awareness was always regularly useful when mountains or significant terrain were around.

For VFR flight over terrain (especially 'going places' VFR when the risk of inadvertent marginal VMC or IMC is higher) and IFR over mountains in non-pressurised a/c (when weather or icing might force a loss of terrain seperation) I think TAWS-type equipment has a very major safety benefit.

This used to be a >$20,000 cost but is now much more accessible with the Garmin TAWS upgrade or the GMX200

rgds
421C

Fuji Abound

12th Feb 2007, 21:52

The issue of the accident involving a us glide slope was discussed recently.

TAWS would probably have avoided that accident and many others. Whether it would have helped in this case is meaningless speculation because we dont know whether a loss of control occurred first. However TAWS in a glass cockpit setup provides superb situational awareness if unexpected weather avoidance becomes necessary.

niknak

12th Feb 2007, 22:35

421C

13th Feb 2007, 07:24

TAWS/GPWS - all very useful, but when you get such an alert you usually have a matter of seconds to react to it.
If you don't practice such manouvres on a regular basis AND the aircraft is not capable of producing the instant power required to get you out of that particular problem, you are, to put it mildly, stuffed.

not sure what you mean. the old GPWS based on a radar altimeter did provide warnings very late in the case of rising terrain. Various CFIT accidents (like the 757 Cali tragedy) led to the development of EGPWS/TAWS based on terrain databases, aircraft position and flight path. The alerting logic is designed to give warnings sufficiently in advance that you do not need amazing skills or power respone. More importantly, the situational awareness of a relative height terrain moving map is designed to keep you out of coming close to an alert.

Most mountain accidents I have read about that apply to aircraft flying for transport (ie. excluding sport flying in and out of mountain strips) are controlled flight into terrain in IMC due to navigation and awareness lapses by pilots (and occasionally controllers) rather than situations where weather avoidance or aircraft loss of control 'forced' an impact. In avoiding these CFIT situations I think modern TAWS, even from a handheld device like the Garmin 496, is a major safety benefit.

The last minute "pull up" alert which comes too late may apply to CFIT late in the approach (eg. an undershoot or descent below minima on finals) but TAWS/EGPWS seems very relevant to the large category of CFIT accidents that used to happen in cruise and decent.

scooter boy

13th Feb 2007, 08:08

Looking at the radar (I know - retrospect again) it looks very much like one wouldn't have seen much (if flying at the MEA) on the flight in question (if this was the reason why they were over the mountains in the first place). Below MEA you take your life in your hands flying in that kind of terrain. It would undoubtedly have been a very uncomfortable ride with icing and CBs to negotiate and even as a pilot I would have been seriously unhappy to be aboard that aircraft on that route on that day at that height.

Call be a coward but the only time I would take the route through the mountains would be in really good VFR conditions (even if I was filed IFR) with no frontal activity forecast and usually in the airway talking to ATC with TAWS and TCAS switched on.

TAWS helps you check where the spiky granite really is - very useful if you are crossing the Alps at night and can't see a thing - it reassures you that you are in fact in the middle of the airway (and usually shows you why the airway is where it is).

Once again a tragic waste of life,

SB

skua

13th Feb 2007, 08:41

Video of the recovery operation accessible from
http://rhone-alpes-auvergne.france3.fr/info/28231167-fr.php

(see half way down the page)

Quotes all three dead as being Americans, resident in London, with one being a university doctor, a Simon Averboush - although the commentator has such a heavy accent the surname is difficult to distinguish.

I think one of the interesting points is did the P1 choose the direct routing because a mild dogleg to the right away from the mountains was precluded by even worse weather?

Does anyone know what version of the PA34 it was? Because a Seneca III, IV or V would presumably have given him a much better performance cushion in climbing away from any ice or granite.

Skua

mm_flynn

13th Feb 2007, 09:01

I will be very interested in the background to the flight and decision making when the investigation is published. Although I fly a different type, the mission profile is very similar to my typical flights.

With these apparently available facts:
Freezing level below MSA, significant precip, potentially thick icing layer, mountainous terrain (pilot unlikely to be intimately familiar with the valleys), IR rated pilot (apparently not deiced twin) and a destination to Cannes.

What was the decision making process or lack of information that resulted in a decision to go VFR below a cloud deck in mountainous terrain, rather than IFR on top (maybe no O2?) or VFR/IFR to the west with MEAs below the freezing level?

From where we sit today, clearly none of us would have done that route. But I am sure if the pilot was reading this forum he to would be comfortable that he would never fly that plan. Hence the likelihood there is a significant insight for us all when the facts come out.

IO540

13th Feb 2007, 09:13

To get any insight into this we would need to know the route he was flying. Obviously this is known; whether it will come out prior to the accident report in a year or two's time, is another matter.

My feeling is that aircraft performance was not an issue in this case - other than possibly preventing an IFR flight in VMC on top, due to aircraft operating ceiling limitations.

However, in the latter case, an absolutely key factor is oxygen carriage: did he carry it? If you don't carry o2, then you are chucking away about half of your vertical operating space. You have shut off the most favoured weather escape option even before you departed, and you have excluded yourself from climbing into VMC during much of the year in N Europe. On that (presumed) route, the MOCA is about 9700ft and not having o2 leaves you with no vertical options at all.

Can anybody come up with TAFs/METARs for departure, destination and say Lyon?

MMF - your post crossed with mine and I agree. However, we will never find out what & why the pilot knew & decided, etc. Unless he confided in somebody who stayed on the ground. A vital bit of info would be the radar track & Mode C return.

Fuji Abound

13th Feb 2007, 09:18

mm_flynn

Yes, I couldnt agree more. It is very easy in hindsight to wonder about the decision making that lead to an accident of this type, however lest we forget this would seem to have been a very expereinced pilot, who was well qualified and an intelligent man. It is a whole lot easier to avoid weather operating in the local patch on short flights. This was getting on for a four hour flight over some treacherous terrain in the middle of winter.

I0540

I suspect he did not have oxygen, given that there were three aboard including a baby or very young child. Given the graph I dont think he would have found clear air on top, and as he did not have de-icing a climb might have not provided a solution.

Ye Olde Pilot

13th Feb 2007, 11:58

From the BBC website

Tributes paid to air crash victim

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42564000/jpg/_42564825_alpscrash_203.jpg Dr Awerbuch's website said he was an experienced financial economist

Tributes have been paid by colleagues to a financial economist who died with his partner and son in a light aircraft which crashed in the French Alps.
Dr Shimon Awerbuch and Maria Ribiero, who lived in Hove, East Sussex, died with Dr Awerbuch's seven-year-old son, Everett, on 10 February.
Dr Awerbuch was a senior fellow at the University of Sussex.
"He was unfailingly enthusiastic and very supportive of other colleagues," said Professor Gordon Mackerron.
Dr Awerbuch and Ms Ribiero were US nationals who had lived in the UK for a number of years.
The Israeli-born financial economist specialised in energy, regulatory economics and market restructuring.
'Exciting ideas'
He had also advised government agencies in the US, Europe, Mexico, the United Nations and the World Bank.
He had taught graduate and undergraduate courses in the science and technology policy research department at the University of Sussex.
"He had lots of exciting and creative ideas," said friend and colleague Prof Mackerron.
"He was making some important breakthroughs, which we thought were terribly exciting, which it is sad to say he is no longer able to follow up."
Dr Awerbuch was the pilot of a Piper Seneca which crashed in France on Saturday.
The aircraft was bound for Cannes when Dr Awerbuch contacted air traffic control in France to say he was having trouble in a snow storm.
The plane disappeared from radar screens moments later. A mountain rescue team working on foot eventually found the crash scene, at Grand Veymont, on Sunday. The plane appeared to have hit a rock face and broken apart on impact, killing all three on board instantly.

a4fly

13th Feb 2007, 20:55

I agree that planning is very important, but the planning process should not stop when airborne.

Multi crew procedures, say for take-off, are a good example of how decisions can be made clear cut in a phase of flight where ambiguity will kill. I.e." below x kts. we will stop for blah blah and above y kts.we will continue etc etc.". No deviation. I try to apply the same criteria for critical decisions on any flight, particularly when alone and I don't have the luxury of another crew member to temper my enthusiasm. In this situation I would like to think that at the onset of I.M.C. I would have made an immediate 180 degree turn and gone back. This plan would have been made long before the situation had arisen, hopefully preventing me from making the wrong decision when I was under stress.

I love piston engined aeroplanes but don't like to mix them with mountains and ice. Under-powered light twins are no match for the type of conditions that prevailed over the Alps on Saturday.

I have read on this thread about oxygen, performance, icing and how this situation might have been survivable, but:

What would have happened if the aircraft had suffered an engine failure whilst the pilot had been attempting the climb to the sector safe altitude, which, incidentally, would have taken several minutes even with both engines operating ?

When was the last time any of us was tested for performance under the enormous stress this poor guy was under ? Like most of you, I have been in places I didn't want to be in an aeroplane and it ain't nice !

Faced with these factors there was only one option, turn back.

Perhaps the pilot was attempting to do just that, we will find out in due course.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but the chance of making an error can be reduced if, whilst during the first 2 hours or so of this type of flight when the conditions are V.M.C.and the autopilot is on, that one thinks about the potentially most hazardous part of the journey and plans for when things turn to rat sh#t.

IO540

13th Feb 2007, 21:54

I don't particularly disagree with anything you say, a4fly, but you are assuming certain things which may be true but which we don't actually know.

I guess you are assuming he was flying VFR and then inadvertently entered IMC. OK, that kills loads of pilots, and if this pilot was a novice then it would be a open and shut case of "here goes another", another useful slide for the CAA safety seminar, etc.

While I am not going to write anything here which amounts to inside knowledge, and commendably neither has anybody else, yet, this pilot was not a novice. You can also look him up on the FAA database: he was instrument rated, PPL/ME.

This doesn't rule out the possibility of it indeed being a simple explanation like the above, but it makes it a lot less likely.

In normal GA operations, it isn't so much the "survivability" of the situation that is in issue. It is not getting anywhere near it in the first place. A flight like this would have been done IFR/airways, with oxygen, in VMC, or not at all. Often, there is a VFR "on the deck" option when the IFR one is closed due to very high or nasty IMC at/above airway MEAs, but this isn't feasible over this kind of terrain. One should be at FL150 or whatever, and making weather avoidance decisions from tens of miles back, while still in sunshine.

A bit of a mystery, really.

Many twin pilots choose to fly VFR to avoid Eurocontrol enroute charges, but a Seneca can be certified at 1999kg. However, VFR is pretty useless for frequent European travel which this man was doing, by all accounts.

The issues with engine failures are a redherring. Single engine pilots accept engine failure as a risk and live with it. If they didn't nobody would fly a SEP over water, over mountains, over forests (unless it's a Cirrus). In return they get the performance of a twin but with about half the running cost, and probably well under half the maintenance cost of an old twin.

Fuji Abound

13th Feb 2007, 22:02

Single engine pilots accept engine failure as a risk and live with it.

I agree.

ME is not necessarily the answer. Clearly we dont know what happened in this case but over the Alps dirft down on one engine would be a major factor particularly if performance had been effected in other ways and in any event one engine in those conditions, even if current, is going to be very challenging.

IanSeager

14th Feb 2007, 08:07

...is the well known attitude in France to American aircraft. So if on a VFR flight, one might think twice before declaring an emergency and infringing some bit of their copious military airspace, in the expectation that one is going to get well and truly turned over following a landing.
I've flown a lot in France with an N reg aircraft, both VFR and airways. I have NEVER had a problem with ATC or an airfield operator becasue of that. It is true that customs tend to pay more attention to N reg ops, but that's customs and they aren't the DGAC or ATC.
If as you suggest you 'might think twice about declaring an emergency' because of the N painted on the side of your aircraft then may I very humbly suggest that you reconsider your actions before you next fly to France. There's no place in the air for an attitude like that.
Ian

IO540

14th Feb 2007, 08:45

I've never had a problem there either, and have been generally very positive on their ATS services, but the perception of ground hostility to N is unfortunately very real among foreign-reg pilots and over the years has been pretty widely propagated not only through the UK aviation press ;) but also through every pilot forum there is.

On occassions, it gets reinforced by real incidents on the ground where somebody has to hand over the VAT on a TBM700 or whatever, only to get it back upon departure a few days later.

I never suggested that a pilot should delay declaring an emergency in a N-reg, and I wouldn't.

Let's leave personal "your attitude is wrong" attacks for other forums, especially the cliquey ones where everybody knows each other anyway and can settle it over a beer the same night.

IanSeager

14th Feb 2007, 13:35

So if on a VFR flight, one might think twice before declaring an emergency...

IO (Can I call you by your first name?) - I was genuinely surprised to see this and feel very strongly that it is the wrong attitude.

Happy to buy you a beer whenever

:)

Ian

a4fly

14th Feb 2007, 18:53

IO 540

I am certainly assuming that this pilot was flying in V.M.C. ! I would be staggered if he was flying in I.M.C. several thousand feet below M.S.A.

I suppose the bottom line with my argument is this:

Irrespective of how many engines I have (because I'm probably going to die in the event of an engine failure if I try to continue), do I attempt to climb to M.S.A. and press on with the flight, bearing in mind it will take at least a few minutes subject to turbulence, icing etc. or do I turn back and try a different route ?

I agree that the most important thing is to keep miles away from danger. Clear planning ahead of the flight is imperative. The first thing that I learnt when doing my I.M.C. rating was that planning an I.F.R. flight can often take twice as long as conducting the flight . This is because the planning phase needs to cover all reasonable eventualities. Entering I.M.C. over the Alps is entirely possible, as you know, and should always be planned for.

Incidentally for you M.E. fans, the argument regarding the engine failure gives more credence to the turn back possibility ; as maintaining altitude on one engine as one tries to retreat is almost certainly going to be possible, whereas trying to out climb the mountains is going to be impossible.

mm_flynn

14th Feb 2007, 19:19

Irrespective of how many engines I have (because I'm probably going to die in the event of an engine failure if I try to continue), do I attempt to climb to M.S.A. and press on with the flight, bearing in mind it will take at least a few minutes subject to turbulence, icing etc. or do I turn back and try a different route
Moving away from this specific case, where there was potential icing in the climb and we are speculating a non-deiced aircraft - I would climb on my current track to MSA before manoeuvring unless I positively knew something was in my way (in which case I would really wonder what I was doing flying at it in the first place!). The potential not to correctly judged the circling radius against memory of what terrain I had recently passed is so high and accident stats suggest people underestimate this even when they can see where they are going (like in NYC recently) that the risk of CFIT has got to be higher turning around in a pass rather than climbing to MSA and then turning around.
Obviously if there is a performance limit like icing, operating near service ceiling, lack of O2, etc. then you are stuck with turn around and hope you remembered which side of the valley you are now on!
I would agree that in this case the VFR plan was clearly blown and pressing on would be a bad call. I just think it is climb to MSA and then turn if you and the plane are technically capable of IFR.

rustle

14th Feb 2007, 19:56

Incidentally for you M.E. fans, the argument regarding the engine failure gives more credence to the turn back possibility ; as maintaining altitude on one engine as one tries to retreat is almost certainly going to be possible, whereas trying to out climb the mountains is going to be impossible.

It is only "almost certainly going to be possible" if the ground behind you is going down and not up.

Whether in this case that is a fact I know not, but knowing the best direction to drift down (should one engine inop require it) is part of situational awareness, and if you can't see the ground out the window you're reliant on TAWS/EGPWS and/or luck.

After a couple of hours fuel burn and 2.5 passengers (in weight terms) I would have thought even a Seneca could maintain height on one engine at that altitude unless it was iced-up; but then even two engines might not have been enough. :confused:

Fuji Abound

14th Feb 2007, 21:37

After a couple of hours fuel burn and 2.5 passengers (in weight terms) I would have thought even a Seneca could maintain height on one engine at that altitude unless it was iced-up;

Really.

According to the report posted the accident site was at nearly 6,500 feet.

Are you suggesting the pilot would have readly been able to maintain height on one engine given the single engine service ceiling and the need to maintain some rate of climb at times even to maintain the existing altitude?

rustle

14th Feb 2007, 22:43

According to the report posted the accident site was at nearly 6,500 feet.

Are you suggesting the pilot would have readly been able to maintain height on one engine given the single engine service ceiling and the need to maintain some rate of climb at times even to maintain the existing altitude?

No, I didn't "suggest" anything of the kind as I have zero idea of his competence or experience: I merely "thought" that a Seneca after 2+ hours of fuel burn and relatively lightly loaded could maintain height <10,000 with one engine inop, subject to icing. (Exactly as I wrote, funnily enough :ugh:)

"SE Service ceiling" is a bit meaningless in a drift-down context, and in any event is the altitude where >=100FPM climb is unsustainable.

Twins don't suddenly drop to SE ceiling (POH'd at MTOW) in the event of an engine failure, they slowly drift down with the ROD reducing as mass reduces through fuel burn or jettison of unneeded cargo.

It wouldn't surprise me if the SE drift-down altitude was significantly higher than the "SE service ceiling" quoted in a book.

Maintaining altitude, or having a climb rate > 0 < 100 FPM is entirely feasible at that altitude and assumed mass.

Pilot-H

14th Feb 2007, 23:36

The SE service ceiling of the Turbocharged Seneca is 16,500'
At 6,000' ISA the SE R.O.C. is 320 fpm. (Seneca V figures)

IO540

15th Feb 2007, 06:41

On what we know (admittedly very little) he reported having general trouble but he didn't report engine trouble.

I am sure any twin pilot, and this was one quite high time, would have known about SE climb performance on this type of twin being well short of spectacular, and would have turned back.

I say "climb" because my presumed "VFR flight" scenario, together with the crash site location, would suggest he flew under the Lyon airspace, probably between 2500 and 3500ft AMSL, and then he would have had to climb quite decisively to clear the terrain coming up (peaks to 7600ft).

It doesn't actually make any sense no matter how you look at it.

S-Works

15th Feb 2007, 08:01

Maybe he got lost? It was pretty bad luck to hit that peak as it is surrounded by quite low terrain all around.

Adrian N

15th Feb 2007, 09:31

They could well have been lost, or at least not where they thought they were. But contrary to the impression you can get from some aeronautical charts, this isn't an isolated peak surrounded by low ground.

This not particularly good photo was taken last summer about 15 miles North of the accident site, heading South. The accident was just to the left of the high peak on the far right of the picture, at 6400ft. The peaks in the foreground reach 7500ft. For about 20 miles to the West before you reach the Rhone valley, there are hills up to 5600ft, and within 15 miles to the East the ground rises to over 9000ft.

http://www.fototime.com/7DDAC50BC069B68/standard.jpg

At 6400ft in this area, you stand a very high chance of having an accident unless the visibility is good.

Fuji Abound

15th Feb 2007, 09:33

Rustle

I had assumed your comments were relevant to the discussion as opposed to a technical comment along the lines of “the book says the take off run of a Warrior is .. .. - so it must be”. I am sorry I mis understood the contexty of your comment.

Most of this is speculation and someone raised the comment that maybe he suffered an engine failure.

I have no idea what version of the Seneca was involved in this accident (apologies if it has been stated earlier). Details of the performance of a Turbo charged Seneca may or may not be relevant. However given the number of Senecas made and the number with turbos I guess it is unlikely it was this version.

In my opinion given that the aircraft was likely to have been higher than the accident site and we know that the pilot inadvertently entered IMC, with snow, probable icing and perhaps moderate turbulence, and given that we know he had a young child and wife with him who may well have been panicking, and finally given the marginal single engine performance of most Senecas, never mind that he may well have been above the SESC coping with sink and turbulence (to be expected in the mountains in those conditions) I think he would have done a remarkable job to have maintained altitude on one engine if that had befallen him - whatever the book says.

rustle

15th Feb 2007, 09:40

The SE service ceiling of the Turbocharged Seneca is 16,500'
At 6,000' ISA the SE R.O.C. is 320 fpm. (Seneca V figures)

Thanks H. So much duff gen on this BB it's nice to see some facts.

IO540

15th Feb 2007, 10:08

The aircraft was a PA34-200T Seneca II. Is this a turbo?

I am not going to give the tail number here but it has been confirmed locally, and positively identified from the crash site pictures.

Looking at the FAA aircraft data for it, there is no mention of the 1999kg mod either - relevant to a VFR flight.

rustle

15th Feb 2007, 10:20

The aircraft was a PA34-200T Seneca II. Is this a turbo?

Looking at other PA34-200Ts it seems they're all turbo. Maybe that's what the "T" designates

mm_flynn

15th Feb 2007, 10:46

I looked up the model and in fact the T does seem to stand for the turbocharged option. In addition, in photos you can see what appear to be wing, rudder, elevator boots and a hot plate on the windscreen.
The publicly available information seems to suggest an uneventful level flight below cloud that suddenly entered a snow show and probably then went IMC.

I am not aware of any reporting (as compared to speculation) that he was experiencing icing, engine failure, or any other performance problem prior to his call to ATC.

In addition, the fact he was in a turbocharged aircraft apparently with deice boots (although they may have been inop) is a further mystery as to why he had chosen that route and altitude

421C

15th Feb 2007, 10:48

However given the number of Senecas made and the number with turbos I guess it is unlikely it was this version.

The original Seneca ('73-'74) was a normally aspirated 4cyl Lycoming, a few have aftermarket turbos.

All subsequent Senecas (II,III,IV,V) are turbocharged, with the 6cyl Continetal. The power steps up from 200hp to 220hp t/o only to 220hp continuusly across the models.

This accident aircraft was a turbocharged Seneca II, and, as a random guess, 90% of the Seneca fleet is turbocharged (ie. is not a Seneca "1" model)

The Single-Engine performance of any of the turbo models should be fair at 6500' on a cold day (by light twin standards), unless of course there is icing or a prop won't feather etc.) But I agree that the little we know of the accident doesn't particularly signal that engine failure was an issue. Sounds like loss of terrain awareness when navigating in IMC, perhaps avoiding weather an/or icing.

rgds
421C

S-Works

15th Feb 2007, 10:55

I have considerable time in the Senece both our Senece I and the Turbo version G-RH. They are generally de-iced and the single engine performance is actually very good, certainly enough to have cleared the peaks in question.

This looks very like a loss of awareness brought on by flying into a snow storm. The logic behind the route VFR is what I find most curious. I was in the alps snowboarding and from the 2nd-5th it was stunning blue skies (I have the tan to attest) after that is snowed for the rest of week with a lot more forecast. As an IR pilot I would not have consider that route even airways so I wonder why he did?

Ye Olde Pilot

15th Feb 2007, 13:02

Maybe he thought it was going to be an easy ride?

The truth is that mountains kill a lot closer to home.

For what is worth in over a decade of weekly flying from North to South Wales in a single I never managed a direct flight from Gwynedd to Cardiff VFR!

There are lots of nice weather 'mountain" flying sites if you google.

Here is a UK example!

Pilot's thanks for air crash help

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42079000/jpg/_42079710_wreckage203index.jpg The plane came down in cloud onto the mountainside

A pilot who survived a light aircraft crash in Snowdonia, which killed his passenger, says he wants to return to the area to thank his rescuers.
Brian Vaux, 61, from Pontypool, has undergone extensive treatment for brain and spinal injuries after the Cessna accident near Bethesda last September.
His passenger, Stuart Kingsbury, who was 73 and also from Pontypool, died.
Speaking publicly for the first time, Mr Vaux said he would always be haunted by the crash which killed his friend.
"He'd been a long-standing friend for over 40 years and he was probably the first person who introduced me to general aviation, light aircraft.
"He was a wonderful guy, helped me a lot and I've been devastated by his death, devastated and I'm sure it will haunt me for the rest of my life," said Mr Vaux, who is being treated in a rehabilitation centre in Pontypool.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/o.gifhttp://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/start_quote_rb.gif His widow still says it was a terrible accident - and that's all that it was - an accident http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/end_quote_rb.gif

Brian Vaux

The pair had taken off from Caernarfon when the aircraft came down in cloud in the Ogwen Valley.
Mr Vaux recalled what happened.
"I was very lucky in that a lady fell runner heard the aircraft going over and heard the impact of us hitting the hillside and immediately ran down and alerted the rescue services," he said.
He described how members of a mountain rescue team came to help - along with a paramedic who was dropped at the accident site by police helicopter.
He was eventually lifted off the mountain by RAF rescue helicopter from Valley on Anglesey and taken to hospital in Bangor.
Volunteers
"I would certainly like to pay tribute to those people for the assistance they gave me which was quick and, basically, I owe my life to them.
"I would just basically like to...thank them for their help because when you consider the mountain rescue people are just volunteers."
"Hopefully if I make a full recovery I'd like to go back to the area to meet some of the people involved to thank them for their response and assistance on that day," added Mr Vaux.
He said he had been enormously helped by Mr Kingsbury's family. His widow Frances had visited him in hospital "on numerous occasions"
"His widow still says it was a terrible accident - and that's all that it was - an accident."
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42079000/jpg/_42079708_wreckage203.jpg The emergency services were alerted by a jogger

Paul Smith, a member of the Ogwen Valley Mountain Rescue, said they would be pleased to host the injured pilot.
"It's obviously very nice to hear people survive after these incidents because very often we don't hear from people - they go off to a hospital somewhere else in the country and we very often don't get the follow up, so that's very nice," said Mr Smith.
Mr Smith also described the accident scene.
"The plane was actually lying upside down and the canopy over the cockpit had been crushed. "Both occupants were presumably hanging from their seatbelts after the impact and its obviously a thin line because the passenger sadly died and Brian was very lucky to come out alive."

RatherBeFlying

15th Feb 2007, 13:46

On one occasion I flew through a few snow showers over flat land and yep, the forward viz is zilch; however the ground remained visible. All this with a nice VFR forecast and an IR and sufficient height to clear towers. I don't recommend this practice, but snow showers tend to come in streets; so, the door behind can get closed and you have to pick your way through the thin spots or land out:ouch:

I've been flown through mountain valleys in dodgy VFR in a helo with a highly experienced pilot who knew the terrain like the back of his hand. At 70 kt, he could do a
180 in next to nothing, but a twin doing a 180 is a completely different ball game.

Mixing snow showers, mountainous terrain, high airspeed and lack of local knowledge puts the risk factor waaay up unless you're in the Swiss AF.

The previous photo shows the wreakage on a snow slope. Perhaps he was flying for what he thought was an opening:(

Amazingly enough, snow slope impacts are sometimes survivable. There was one case reported where the pilot was adding power because the a/s was going down to zero as he bogged down in fine powder:\

IO540

15th Feb 2007, 14:29

The truth is that mountains kill a lot closer to home

Mountains don't kill anybody. You have to fly into them. There is usually something that can be learnt from these accidents.

I don't think this pilot looked at the weather data much, if at all. I wish I could find a site that keeps archived data like F415, MSLP, or even TAFs. I know it's kept but it's not public access.

Archived METARs (http://weather.uwyo.edu/surface/meteogram/)are common enough, and on that basis the flight would have been difficult right from the beginning, with cloudbases as low as BKN007 and 0C levels down to ~ 3000ft which is way below the terrain.

Obviously one would not have got a Eurocontrol (IFR) routing below the 0C level (one rarely can anyway) and from the limited skew-t info I can dig out it doesn't look like one could have climbed into VMC, oxygen or no oxygen.

Maybe one can fly a Seneca with boots through freezing layers for a few hours, but this is a whole mindset which I am not familiar with.