Plane Hits Digger

[Aerozepplin]

Ouch.

Plane crash sparks investigation - national | Stuff.co.nz (http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/9925640/Plane-crash-sparks-investigation)

[Desert Flower]

Geez - what a mess! Hard to believe they got out of that alive!

DF.

[Weekend_Warrior]

The aeroplane is totalled, just wondering how the digger fared.

[mattyj]

Still digging probably..the ground made the mess of the plane

[Wally Mk2]

Might as well dig a hole for what's left of the plane while he's at it!
As 'DF' said Geez what a mess, good job there was little energy in that toy plane & it was made out of beer cans so it could crumple & absorb that energy.
Would put the wind up any pilot I'd say.

Wmk2

[5th officer]

One wonders what the investigator will make of this, maybe the Digger was flying too high???????

[Victa Bravo]

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.

[First_Principal]

I was interested in the inclusion of the last couple of sentences in the article, in particular "The air space above it does not come under air traffic control. Instead, pilots have to communicate with each other via radio."

The relevance of pilot-pilot communication to plane vs digger escaped me, but perhaps there's something I've missed :rolleyes:

Whatever one makes of it they were extremely lucky to have escaped with [seemingly] nothing too serious in terms of injury.

At a guess they were possibly trying a FLWOP and may have been fairly low at approach when the digger passed in front, perhaps someone has some insight into this? I'd also be interested to know if anyone's aware of where the digger was - inside the airfield or external to it?

In my own experience with foreign objects I can recall having to avoid a large crane on finals once, external to the airfield, and was fortunate to be around to to file an incident report with the CAA (it was surprisingly difficult to see initially).

FP.

[uncle8]

I've often wondered about this.
Landing on a short strip with a road close to the threshold.
Shepparton runway 09, for example, is 420m long with the Goulburn Valley Highway adjacent. There is a natural tendency to not be too high, on approach, but you'd better look out for double decker busses.
Another point about this particular location is that there are no signs warning motorists that there is an aerodrome there. If not familiar with the area, a motorist could easily be past the 09 undershoot before realising that there is an aerodrome on the right.
Asked the council, long time ago, what their policy was on putting signs up - said they'd find out and get back - never did.

[Old Akro]

you'd better look out for double decker busses

How many double decker busses does Shepparton have? :E

[magnum pi]

Can see how it can happen..

Few years ago landing on 17 at Ceduna, turned to backtrack after touchdown to see a huge yacht on a oversize load truck pass the end of the runway. Only need to be a little low and... :eek:

PI

[pineappledaz]

Rwy 10 at Feilding has a 100m displaced threshold to avoid incidents like this.The Rwy is around 1000m long The plane was on a normal approach to land. The reference to the airspace was a result of the 2010 fatal between 2 planes and has no relevance to the article. The digger was a front end loader on a back of a semi trailer.

[uncle8]

Probably Tony Mokbel's.

[VH-XXX]

Isn't there a standard powerline before 09 at Shep? Wouldm make it somewhat difficult hard to hit a digger.

Phillip Island and Tyabb come to mind too.


Victor Bravo - I was thinking along similar lines but couldn't think of anything witty.

[First_Principal]

@pineappledaz

Thanks for the info, having had a look at the chart I'm somewhat more enlightened as to how the two machines might have met.

I've only been into Feilding once or twice (last time in something considerably larger than a 172) so I've just a vague idea as to the layout. I do recall calling into the FTM office for weather info and they were most helpful.

FP.

[Desert Flower]

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.

Funny - that was the first thing I thought of too. Poor old diggers, there ain't many of them left now. Of course we do have the young ones coming up, but I tend to not refer to them as diggers. That title as far as I'm concerned is reserved for the returned soldiers from WW1 & WW2. My dear 92 year old dad is one of the few remaining WW2 ones.

DF.

[gerry111]

Not sure yet, if there is an Obeid family into yachts? :ooh:

[swh]

The relevance of pilot-pilot communication to plane vs digger escaped me, but perhaps there's something I've missed

unemployed pilot in the digger ?