"Air Crash" this afternoon

[shannon]

Connex SE has a train delay reported on its website - attributed to an "aircraft crash" - between Bournemouth and Haywards Heath.

Any news/ideas? I guess Shoreham is on that route

[2Donkeys]

I understand that a light twin (type unknown) hit a house in Shoreham this afternoon, causing the temporary closure of the airfield.

I have been told that the pilot escaped without major injury and that the house was unoccupied at the time.

Not a great advert for Shoreham, but, it would seem, a lucky escape for all concerned.

-2Donkeys.

[Biggles Flies Undone]

Connex say it is due to "an aircraft landing near to the line at Shoreham".

I thought that ALL aircraft landing at Shoreham did that http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/confused.gif

[2Donkeys]

I have just been told that the aircraft involved was a Seneca with a double-engine failure. It would appear that it clipped the roof of a building, but did still make it to the airport.

Pretty incredible if correct.

-2Donkeys

[Baggy]

Imagine coming home to find that..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1256000/1256487.stm

[This message has been edited by Baggy (edited 02 April 2001).]

[Gainesy]

Local radio station reports Seneca is in garden of a house in West Street, Shoreham, about 30yds from rail line,

[ExSimGuy]

West St. is in a densely built-up area in the centre of "Old Shoreham", close to the main shopping area.

Thank God it only "clipped a roof" and managed to clear the other buildings between West St. and the airport!!

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What goes around . . .
. . often lands better!

[This message has been edited by ExSimGuy (edited 02 April 2001).]

[Whirlybird]

I hope you're all right about this. I'm at Victoria Station,on my way home from Brighton, where they're reporting cancelled trains due to 'a light aircraft which has crshed on to the railway line near Shoreham'

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Whirly

To fly is human, to hover, divine.

[Joyce Tick]

I have just heard on the TV that the pilot " just managed to avoid the school" once again - it makes one proud to be a pilot, doesn't it? I think this should be become compulsory simulator training. It would be very easy to place a school on the visual into Heathrow and we can all get some practice at "avoiding" it during a "plummet".

[Big Red ' L ']

I just been to have a look at the plane. Its a Pa34 Seneca G-OMAR. Its still in one piece. Just heard the pilot, Donald Campbel, a surgeon from east sussex, explain he was having trouble and was going strait in to the airport. Looks like he was trying to land on Rwy 25. He was "trying to avoid landing on the railway line as the 3rd rail(electric one) would have caused a fire and he was trying to land on the embankment next to it". The plane clipped a tree and then it looks like it clipped the roof of the house and ended up in the garden about 20ft away from the narrow embankment right side up. He is very lucky to escape with just cuts and bruises. The people who owned the house had just left to go and pick a child up from the local school. Hats off to him for bringing it down where he did, an excellent bit of flying by him. Its a well built up area full of old terraced houses and he clipped the roof of the end one next to the line. The trains were stopped while bits of the tree were picked up off the line and the airport was open shortly after.

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Its not the fall that kills you...Its the sudden stop.....

[MOR]

Any idea why it lost both engines? More to the point, did it have any fuel in it???

[Vmike]

Jeez, I did my IR test in that plane!

Did someone say double engine failure? Apart from fuel starvation or mismanagement, I wonder what could cause that?

[Right Stuff]

There's a great shot of all the mess in the Daily Mail today - and for once they don't go overboard about how dangerous flying is...

[ExSimGuy]

I know the school too - one of my kids used to go there!

My ex-wife used to live a few doors away, in West St. - with all the kids.

Did he end up on the railway embankment? or on the airfield? (I know that the embankment runs along the side of the field)

Hit's close to home, dunnit?

Thanks to God nobody hurt, except perhaps the pilot's pride :) (and that'll mend)

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What goes around . . .
. . often lands better!

[Arkroyal]

Ex sim

Click on this for picture.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1256000/1256487.stm

It's in the garden of a (now) roofless house. From the pics in the mail, the house is next to the railway with the track behind the aircraft by about 10 yards

[Big Red ' L ']

Check this out. He was trying to land on the embankment between the house and railway line..........
http://www.thisisbrightonandhove.co.uk/brighton__hove/news_features/shoreham_crash/pic4.html

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Its not the fall that kills you...Its the sudden stop.....

[MOR]

Hmmm... wings ruptured... no fire... guess there WASN'T any fuel on board then!!

[Lucifer]

Well we may as well not bother with the inquiry then if you're so clever. Obviously you were there or know everything.

[broadreach]

Lucky lucky guy. And, for future reference, light aircraft pilots will not fail to note the energy-absorbing qualities of city-centre housing should they ever have need to choose between a house and a railway embankment. From the position of the trees overhanging the embankment I reckon he's better off having gone through the roof, so to speak.

[ickle black box]

It's quite amazing, looking at the pictures, how short the distance was, that the plane stopped in, even after hitting a house roof.

ickle

[Heliport]

Well said, Lucifer.