SR22 Crash - plane was upside down above the runway ?

[sternone]

May they rest in peace.. 4 died..

I have a question, how can a plane be upside down above the runway going in for their landing ?? Eye witness saw the plane was upside down ... ??

I can't understand, a serious windshear could make this happen ? or not ?

(click on watch the video)

http://www.ksfy.com/news/11846676.html

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gjocCPmhqj7ENiUdwTNUWWYvym6AD8T5L0700

[BackPacker]

All speculation of course, but some of the causes to end up inverted (inadvertently, that is) may be:

- Severe wind shear or turbulence (but I think that would require a windspeed which is well outside the published limits for a GA plane)
- Wake vortex
- Severe malfunction/loss of primary flight controls or their trim
- Loss of control, for instance in IMC, or the classic stall/spin scenario when turning final with not enough speed for the angle of bank used.

Note that so far it's just eyewitness reports, which in general can be very unreliable. A spin, for instance, may appear from some angles to be an inverted flight, especially if the witness has never seen a spin before.

[smarthawke]

And don't tell me, sternone, it wouldn't happen to a Mooney or Beechcraft and Cirri are now, in your opinion, in the same category as PA28s.....

[sternone]

And don't tell me, sternone, it wouldn't happen to a Mooney or Beechcraft and Cirri are now, in your opinion, in the same category as PA28s.....

Thanks for the facts! You really convinced me!!

[Contacttower]

And don't tell me, sternone, it wouldn't happen to a Mooney or Beechcraft and Cirri are now, in your opinion, in the same category as PA28s.....


To be fair Sternone said nothing of the sort in his post.

A very strange accident indeed. I can't add anything to what BackPacker said other than since it happened at an airport perhaps some of the witnesses were pilots and are more likely to have correctly identified the plane being inverted.

[sternone]

Wake turbulence is not possible since they don't have heavies landing there...

[soay]

The most likely theory that I've read on COPA is that the landing had been aborted for the second time, due to wind shear, but for whatever reason (eg. forgetting to retract full flap) the aircraft, which was heavily laden, stalled and went into an inverted spin. The true cause is unlikely to be determined, unless the data recorder (a new feature in G3 models) survived the fire.

[IRRenewal]

Wake turbulence is not possible since they don't have heavies landing there...

An AN-2 is enough to turn a light single upside down. Hardly a 'heavy'.

[sternone]

Maybe the mechanism exploded due to the fire/heat...

[ronnie3585]

Maybe baseless conjecture and speculation serves no purpose and doesn't help anyone...

[sternone]

Maybe baseless conjecture and speculation serves no purpose and doesn't help anyone...


Maybe if you see what you don't like you just need to learn to close your eyes or try to click on something else

[hobbit1983]

He does have a point Sternone.....

[Fuji Abound]

I know from experience eye witness accounts can be amazingly inaccurate. Up side down is also subjective for members of the uninfomed public!

I have taken passengers through a few stall turns before turning them properly inverted. They are convinced they were up side down in the stall turns - and, before you say anything, my stall turns are not that bad - honest.

The witness might be correct - they might be alarmingly incorrect.

[ronnie3585]

Quote:
Maybe baseless conjecture and speculation serves no purpose and doesn't help anyone...

Maybe if you see what you don't like you just need to learn to close your eyes or try to click on something else

Yet another mature and cogent answer from you sternone, yet you fail to address what think was a very valid point. There are certain facts we know about this accident, namely that a Cirrus has crashed on approach or during landing. We now that it ended up on its back on fire and that the occupants unfortunatley perished. Thereafter we now very little else.

I honestly cannot see any lodgic or anything positive or productive being achieved in people spouting out what ever notion comes to mind in respect of a certain accident/incident.

I don't mean to get up on a soapbox here but I have been reading these forums for many years now and every time there is an accident, be it commercial or private, these forums are awash with opinion after opinion about 'what happen' - based on what? Nothing.

Refering back to the accident at hand, we only know the end product of this accident i.e. the aircraft is destroyed and the occupants dead. The simple fact remains that this accident could have been caused by any number of factors. Several weeks or months form now the NTSB will publish its report into why this aircraft crashed. Maybe then when we are fully informed of all the facts we can enter into some fruitful discourse about the causes of this crash and hopefully learn from this dreadful accident.

[worldpilot]

Technology, weather and piloting, a very complicated relationship. Despite the tremendous advances in aviation activities in the last couple of years, some pilots out there still don't get it right.:ugh: The relationship between these entities are very complex and we tend to ignore the ramifications when we jump into the cockpit.:sad:

When accidents happen, we tend to attribute the cause to weather conditions. Well, we always have a choice, and that is, avoiding the adverse weather conditions totally.

DON'T FLY INTO ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS. := Period. :D

This accident remind me of the crash in recent days. After unsuccessful attempt to land, the subsequent attempt ended in disaster.

Despite the casualties (regrettably, and may their souls rest in peace), I would like to mention that the pilot of this plane had a choice and that was diverting to another airport.

Here is an experience that I made on a flight as a passenger from EDDK to EDDM in March of this year. There was severe weather above EDDK and I was wondering if flights will be delayed for the weather to clear off. To my surprise, that was not the case. I listened into the ATC (I always have my ICOM IC-A23 with me) and noticed thunder activities above active runway. 2-3 minutes after takeoff, we got stroked by lightening and the smell in the aircaft was terrible. On arrival, I requested to speak to the pilot and asked him if it was right to fly into that weather. He said we were cleared by ATC to takeoff.:eek:

SO, it is very simple. Stay away form adverse weather conditions. No matter what the circumstances are.

Happy landings

WP

[gcolyer]

I watched a 152 on take off, stall and flip on to it's roof at Newtonards last year. And I mean straight on to it's roof..not wing first, not nose first...slap bang on to it's roof (and tail).

[JW411]

Sternone:

Does your mother know you're out?

[sternone]

Does your mother know you're out?


No please don't tell her i'm with your sister

[scooter boy]

Does your mother know you're out?
"No please don't tell her i'm with your sister"

:DOh how you boys make me smile!

I haven't heard an exchange like this since I was in the Playground - you're making me feel young again!

SB

[JW411]

Sternone:

If you are going out with my sister then you are even sadder than I thought you were.

My sister is in her 70's!

[sternone]

If you are going out with my sister then you are even sadder than I thought you were.

My sister is in her 70's!

Auch!!! I knew she was lying to me!!

[martello]

the prelim NTSB report is out, not much to report other than the data recorder was found about 80feet away charred. The witness was a CFI. Apparently this second attempt at landing was about 8miins after the first. The aircraft was about 40ft up when it appeared to pitch and roll over - left wing tip touched ground, it cartwheeled and after inverted impact an explosion was heard

The explosion could have been the BRS going off. Also sounds like he was in the process of another go around given that he was at 40 ft

[Contacttower]

My sister is in her 70's!

Well sternone you profess to liking older planes.....:p

[sternone]

I was talking to a Cirrus owner this weekend, he told me that the fuel tanks in his Cirrus are 'not protected' meaning the fuel was in his wings without a real tank.

Is this correct ? I mean they must at least put it in some sort of a bag ? Or do they have a metal fuel tank like most GA planes have ?

If they don't have any protection, isn't this a very dangerous situation in case something happens with the wing, the fuel get's loose directly ?

[soay]

It's true that the fuel tanks in Cirri are just spaces in the wing cavity, unlike Diamonds, which have separate metal tanks, behind the wing spar. As far as I know, the only Diamond to have caught fire did so after hitting overhead power cables.

[sternone]

Since this thread is about a cirrus plane that caught fire:
are just spaces in the wing cavity,
Can you explain this a little further, do you mean the cirrus has no separate sheath for fuel ? you mean not even a 'bag' ? it's just in the space in the wing ??

[soay]

Yes, it's just a space in the wing with no sheath. According to NTSB reports, there have been post impact fires in 10 out of 26 of the 31 Cirrus crashes involving fatalities (5 crashes were not in the US), but I'm not leaping to any conclusions.

[sternone]

Yes, imagine if i would jump to conclusions, some people would skin me alive!!

Could somebody tell me that is a safe solution in the Cirrus planes ??

[Contacttower]

I am very suprised to here about the Cirrus fuel tanks. When I watched A Plane is Born presented by Mark Evans in which he was building a Europa they showed the fuel tank being constantly run over by a Land Rover, despite being deformed it would not burst. It was a very strong tank!

To discover that a Cirrus doesn't actually have a fuel tank at all is very suprising.

[smarthawke]

Just to nip this one in the bud before it gets out of hand....

Integral wing tanks are very common in actual fact on all sorts of aircraft. The Cirrus has a composite wing and is sealed to form a tank inside the wing, bounded by ribs and the spar most probably.

A PA28 uses a removable section of the wing to form a tank - made from aluminium the same as the rest of the wing - it's removavble for inspection of the tank and wing but is still part of the actual wing. And no it isn't why wings are falling off PA28s left, right and centre.

New build Cessna 172s and 182s use sealed wing structure to form a tank, older 182s used a bag tank and 172s had a separate ali tank in the wing. Bag tanks dry out, crack and leak and can be very costly.

Oh and your beloved Mooney has an integral tank, just like a Ceesna or indeed the apparently pyro-Cirri - they just seal the aluminium rather than the composite structure......

PS The chances of a Land Rover running over a Cirrus wing are probably pretty remote.

[Contacttower]

Just to nip this one in the bud before it gets out of hand....

Thanks, it's good when someone who knows what they are talking about comes along. :ok:

It wasn't that I thought all planes had strong seperate tanks, just that I always regarded Cirrus as being very safe and was therefore suprised to find that they perhaps had a potential weakness in this area.

[soay]

smarthawke, thanks for the information on the fuel tank structure of other aircraft. It prompted me to do similar searches of the NTSB (http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/query.asp) database, with the following results:

Cirrus: 26 fatal crashes with 10 post-impact fires
Mooney: 44 fatal crashes with 7 post-impact fires
Cessna 172: 162 fatal crashes with 3 post-impact fires
Diamond: 4 fatal crashes with 1 post-impact fire (a DA20 that hit power lines (http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20050928X01545&key=1))

I'm not a statistician, so don't know if those figures need to be normalised before any significance can be drawn from them.

[sternone]

any significance can be drawn from them

I guess we all can say that on the Cirrus they have a remarcable high post-impact fire rate...

[englishal]

Gosh,

they sound shockingly dangerous don't they! Looking at those stats though, the most deadly aeroplanes are the Mooney and the Cessna 172 !!!!

Best I steer clear of those dangerous aeroplanes.

[soay]

There's another burnt out Cirrus to add to the statistics, but fortunately no casualties. According to this report (http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20071202/NEWS/712020389/0/OPINION02), the plane crashed at the end of the runway, then caught fire after the two occupants had exited. Reportedly, the pilot said the crash "was the plane's fault". :rolleyes:

[martello]

interestingly according to the NTSB there have been 6 fatal crashes of mooneys in 2007 so far and (excluding the greenland ferry incident) 2 in Cirrus - (that's crashes causing fatality not fatalities) there are about 8000 mooneys of all type on the register and just under 4000 cirrus
Amazing what you can do with statistics when you've got a point to make!
regardless of one's support for a particular make there should be a lot of general interest in this crash because it looks a) like a situation where we would all expect to control things (15-20kts xwind is no big deal in a cirrus) and it does look like a stall spin.
So instead of trying to blame the aircraft which would be nice and comforting (for some) we should be asking are there techniques we need to improve - there but for the grace etc ...

[IFollowRailways]

The Cirrus does use a "wet" wing.
It is wrong to draw conclusions from such a small sample, however, In my view the reason for the apparent increased incidence of post impact fires in Cirrus is that the tank is entirely fibreglass/GRP, unlike for example the Diamond tank which I understand is a conventional aluminium tank contained within the wing.

I think it is likely that in a severe impact that the GRP tank in a Cirrus will burst or split, spilling fuel just where you don't want it. Even a crack will result in a fuel leak......

A conventional aluminium tank is less likely to rupture and in my view Cessnas, Pipers, Mooneys etc all use aluminium tanks for good reasons.

[Flying Binghi]

Martello,

Most Mooneys are getting fairly old now, with old style avionics. Perhaps you need to include what was the reason for the accidents of the Mooneys and Cirrus' to add wieght to your statistics.

[BackPacker]

The Cirrus does use a "wet" wing.
It is wrong to draw conclusions from such a small sample, however, In my view the reason for the apparent increased incidence of post impact fires in Cirrus is that the tank is entirely fibreglass/GRP, unlike for example the Diamond tank which I understand is a conventional aluminium tank contained within the wing.

I think there's a little more to it.

First, there is the difference between a wet wing and a separate fuel tank contained in the wing, regardless of the material. If you have a wet wing in a crash, it is almost certain that the tank walls (ie. the wing surface, leading edge, spar) will take some or all of the impact forces. If you have a separate tank within the wing, the tank walls will only be impacted after the wing itself fails. I think this is inherently safer, regardless of the materials used. See double-walled oil tankers (ships) who have replaced virtually all single-walled oil tankers after the Exxon Valdez drama. Installing fuel tanks also gives the designer flexibility in offering different fuel tank sizes, like on the Diamond the long-range tank. But it has an inherent penalty in weight.

Second, there's the material that the tank is from. Slippery ice here, since aluminium and GRP/composite have different strength characteristics and depending on who you talk to and what loads are considered, either of the two can come out best. To me, what makes the most difference is the behaviour in fire. I think an aluminium tank will stay intact until reaching very high temperatures, after which it will melt. A composite tank will lose a lot of its strength at much lower temperatures and as far as I know, most composites will actually burn, instead of only melting.

Someone also mentioned the Europa tank. This tank is made from rotomoulded polyethylene, which is completely different from GRP/composite or aluminium. It is very strong but melts very easily. In fact, when opening up the tank fitting holes the factory recommends using a hot soldering iron instead of sawing/drilling. But most importantly, the Europa tank is carried in the fuselage itself, in a location where even in case of a crash, there's not going to be a lot of impact.

[IFollowRailways]

Backpacker,

If you have a wet wing in a crash, it is almost certain that the tank walls (ie. the wing surface, leading edge, spar) will take some or all of the impact forces.

I think you put it better than me!

What I meant to imply is that the Cirrus uses a wet wing - The primary structure of the wing makes up the fuel tank. In an accident the primary structure is easily damaged and so a fuel leak is highly likely.

In my opinion, the double skin protection afforded by an aluminium (or even another GRP tank?) contained within the wing or fuselage has to be dramatically safer in the event of an accident than the Cirrus system.

[wsmempson]

QUOTE "This tank is made from rotomoulded polyethylene, which is completely different from GRP/composite or aluminium. It is very strong but melts very easily. In fact, when opening up the tank fitting holes the factory recommends using a hot soldering iron instead of sawing/drilling. But most importantly, the Europa tank is carried in the fuselage itself, in a location where even in case of a crash, there's not going to be a lot of impact."

Trouble is, unless this is placed exactly over (or under) the C of G, as you use the fuel, the trim of the a/c will be unduly affected. Placing a tank in the fuselage at the c of g will almost certainly involve placing the tank next to the occupants. In the event of an accident or a leak, this doesn't sound like a good idea to me.....:uhoh:

[soay]

The different approaches Cirrus and Diamond have taken to safety is interesting. They both have 26g cabins and seats, but Cirrus have 4-point AmSafe seatbelts with airbags, compared with Diamond's 3-point seatbelts. Also, Cirrus have installed airframe parachutes and aluminium honeycomb seat bases to absorb the vertical energy. All other things being equal, you're more likely to survive an impact in a Cirrus, but that may not be much consolation if the wing tanks rupture. I guess you pays your money and you takes your choice.

[BackPacker]

wsmempson, the main reason that the Europa tank is in the fuselage is to make the wings removable.

The tank is located just behind the occupants, almost exactly at the CofG. The Europa kit consists of a lower and upper hull part, and a cockpit module plus some other bits and pieces not relevant here. The cockpit module needs to be placed upside down and the fuel tank is installed in a cavity there which actually forms the seatbacks and front side of the baggage bay. That same cavity also holds the spar ends when the wings are installed, and various bits of flight control linkage. The cockpit module is then placed, right side up, into the lower fuselage and bonded in. This gives great rigidity to the lower fuselage. So the fuel, despite being physically located something like 15 centimeters from the backs of the occupants, is separated from them by the GRP cockpit module, which is an integral part of the construction, plus the fuel tank itself.

I'm not an aircraft designer but given the design parameters this looks like a sensible construction to me. Obviously the Europa is a two-seater. If you were to do this in a four-seater, it would be much harder with regards to CofG issues.

(Apologies to actual Europa builders out there, for summarizing a 100+ page build manual in just one paragraph.)

[smarthawke]

Just to go over one point so as to not give the wrong impression. Fuel is carried in the wing structure of Cessnas, Pipers, Mooneys, Rockwells and Cirri. That is fuel is immediately behind the single skin thickness leading edge of the wing - the same bit that will get bent as a Cirrus wing. I'm not an expert on design but materials and perhaps composite structure does crack more easily than ali but ali splits quite often as well in an accident.