Hawk crashes on M11

[DarkStar]

Reports of a Hawk coming down on M11, one killed apparently.
Has anyone heard anything to confirm this??

[Simon W]

Yeh, looks like it was taking off from Duxford.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/england/newsid_2021000/2021961.stm

[Man-on-the-fence]

I have it on good authority that it was the L39 Albatross.

A sad day

[sky9]

L39 website for those interested.

http://www.l39.com/index.htm

[9gmax]

yes, here's the link..........sad day again....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/england/newsid_2021000/2021961.stm (http://)

[srs what?]

L69 Albertros ran off the runway at EGSU and ended up in the Central Reservation of the M11 by all account.

BBC News Report (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/england/newsid_2021000/2021961.stm)

[Boss Raptor]

Oh no...sounds like another one of those 'good weather' weekends again...seems to happen every year recently...

[trolleydollylover]

Co-owner of the plane, Ken Lyndon-Dykes, said: "The aircraft was looked after so well and everything done so properly, it will not have been a problem with the aircraft."


I find it strange that he can tell exactly what happened to the aircraft, while the fire crews were damping down in the background.
I hope that it was a state of shock that caused him to say these things. Or did he know something else. It would seem a slight on the pilots, hope that I am wrong.

Condolences to all involved.

[stiknruda]

I'm afraid that Mr K Lyndon Dykes was rather emotional and not very objective.

Did not make great viewing here in E Anglia.

Poor chap's lost a mate and the survivor will probably suffer from survivor's guilt for many a year.

I genuinely feel for K L-D. His aeroplane makes feature news after a misshap on quiet w/e and he is plucked out of something else to say a few words.

Stik

[Rattus]

Yet again, the media reporting was unprofessional to the point of incompetence. According to ITV teletext, the L-39 ran off the end of a runway "at an airfield in Essex", yet ended up in Cambs.

[NoSurrender]

It's the poor motorists I feel sorry for, inconvenienced because the airfield fence fails to stop an errant aircraft.:(

[Jhieminga]

Indeed, a sad day.... condolences to all involved.


Out of curiosity though: what are the performance specs on the L39 bang-seat? If it is a zero-zero seat (which I doubt) the guy should have survived the ejection, unless something else went horribly wrong of course...

If it is not a zero-zero seat, the question arises whether he was aware of the limitations of the seat!

[LowNSlow]

Bizarre that the chap who ejected died and the one who stayed with the aircraft walked away with "minor injuries".

Maybe the L-39's ejector seats aren't zero zero as the aircraft appears to have at least been at zero feet if not zero mph at the time.

[treadigraph]

According to a post on another forum the L-39 does not have zero/zero capability.

So sad.

[Lou Scannon]

Before we speculate on the capability of that particular seat and the knowledge of the pilot, we should wait to see if the seat was actually fired or if it inadvertently triggered itself as the aircraft crossed over rough terrain.

[halwise]

The deceased Pilot was Gary Clark a city financier. Gary was a regular contribuor to the US L39 forum's. Was very sad indeed
reading some of his most recent posts.

Condolences to all family and friends.

sabio

[featherman]

Both my husband and I, are deeply saddened by the news of this tragic event.

Our sympathies are with his family.

As a close friend and work associate of Gary's, I know how much he was respected and admired amongst the aviation community. Gary was an inspirational, enthuthiastic, sincere and generous man.

It goes without saying that he will be greatly missed.

Shidah and Matthew Emery

[Tartan Giant]

May I start by sending my sincere condolences to the family and friends of the dead pilot, Gary Clark. Our thoughts are with you all.

No Surrender
You are a disgrace for uttering such insensitive sentiments.
A poor bloke dies and you whinge about a minor traffic jam you were not even involved in. If you are a pilot, you don’t deserve to be. A public apology is in order.

Lou Scannon
I think you have hit the nail on the head and have the right attitude; let’s all stand back and let other professionals find out what went so terribly wrong.

L-39’s egress system
Assuming the seat was the original L39/VS-1 BRI one, then according to the graphs I have seen (http://www.l39.com/Ejection%20Seat%20Envelop.htm) the seat is NOT “zero-zero”.

I think there’s a telling paragraph that shows what could go wrong,
“One of the most common discrepancies John has noted during inspections, is the improper routing of the Canopy/Seat Unblock cable. In the example given, John stated that the seat would fire at the same time as the canopy. This would result in a pilot/canopy collision just above the aircraft with fatal results most likely. (This cable normally allows the canopy to clear the aircraft before the seat catapult fires)”.

I will close with head bowed for the poor pilot.

RIP

TG

[BRL]

Tartan Giant I read No Surrenders post as a pop at the state of the airfield safety fence at the perimiterand not in the context you see it in. If i read this wrong then i will delete the post and send a Yellow card to NS. I wait to see his/her reply.

Also, may i add my condolences to Garrys family at this time.

[Tartan Giant]

Big Red L

Many thanks for your proposed intervention, but with respect, I don't think an airfield's "close link fence" was ever intended to be an 'arrester fence/barrier" under any circumstances.

Quote
It's the poor motorists I feel sorry for, inconvenienced because the airfield fence fails to stop an errant aircraft.
Unquote

If 'No Surrender' had the slightest hint of feeling sorry for anyone, then he had time and space to indicate how he felt for the poor pilot's family and friends, and not just some "poor motorists".

Like you, I hope he reconsiders his post, and with hind-sight finds time and courage to extend his sorrows as most here would wish.

TG

[lonerider]

I always thought the ejector seat rocket motor was removed when military jets were sold to private buyers?

[NoSurrender]

Tartan Giant

Thanks for taking the bait.
Imagine if the situation was reversed. Imagine if a military truck enthusiast whose life evolved around driving his 30 ton Scammel Constructor up and down the motorway at the weekend lost control and crashed through a perimeter fence into an airfield, the results could be rather nasty and no doubt there would be a press backlash against part time LGV enthusiasts. If the L39 had hit a 22500 litre tanker thats was being followed by a coach full of school kids, we would have a very different story, one that would probably lead to the demise of private jet flying in this country. Having been blessed with the oportunity to fly in a JP myself I would not like to see this happen.
Surely after the incident at Northolt a few years back when a poor builder had his transit van wrecked in a similar incident we could of expected the building of barriers at the end of runways that lead onto roads, and also the erection of Armco barriers along roads that go past airfields, surely that's just (un)common sense.
I do not wish to appear insensitive to the family of the deceased, I just get annoyed when authorities fail to act on previous incidents and bury their heads in the sand, hoping that history will not repeat itself.

[RatherBeFlying]

It's always sad when life is lost and much worse when you witness it or lose a good friend or family member.

With ex-military a/c, it may help to remember that they were usually operated from long runways with arrester gear and/or long stopways well away from habitation and public roads.

Along with many PPrune members, I'd love to have my own L39, but the public can get seriously worked up over minority hobbies if they get killed when things go wrong.

Ever wonder why there's next to no American ex-military jets flying, but lots from the Eastern Blok? After a private F86 crashed into a restaurant in California, the US military refused to sell to private owners and required the same of export jet customers.

[Genghis the Engineer]

An aside on ejection seats.

Even if a seat is rated zero-zero (and it appears this may not have been) there will be conditions where it won't save a life. For example, an aircraft descending close to the ground at a lowish speed (say 90 knots) is in a more hostile condition since the seat needs to get the occupant to a safe height despite the rate of descent.

This appears to have been a similar case - the aircraft was relatively slow having just taken off, and was descending. The chap in the front, either from luck or judgement, almost certainly made the right survival decision in not ejecting.

The most modern rocket based seats, such as the Mk.14 in the Harrier or to a lesser extent Mk.10 in Tornado or Hawk compensate for this by a sustained burn from the rocket motor. But older British seats such as the Mk.4 in the Hunter and JP (which is rated 0ft / 90 kn), and I believe from my limited knowledge all but the very newest Russian seats don't have this capacity.

The only way to get around this if a survivable forced landing seems impossible is to pull back hard and try and get a rate of climb at the point of ejection, however brief that might be. Again, at low speed there may not be the energy available to do this with.

G

[Tartan Giant]

No Surrender

I’m so glad you are not a pilot.

Perhaps in your world of being a cameraman (or was that more bait ?) you see things with a jaundiced eye.

You seem to have a deep rooted ‘thing’ about motorists and related flying accidents, whilst despairing at “authorities failing to act on previous incidents” – so why don’t you bang on about drunk drivers that kill thousands and these drunks that cause hold ups and inconvenience.

“Authorities” can’t act on every flying accident/incident as it affects motorists. The cost-benefit equation rules it out.

I regret to see that you STILL did not find space, nor time, in your imaginative post to register your condolences to Gary Clark’s distraught family and friends. The mark of a good cameraman, or no bait in your film ?

I find it despicable that you lace a post knowing a pilot died and then describe it as “bait”.

[spekesoftly]

Genghis,

You make some valid points about ejector seat capabilities, but the reports I've seen so far refer to a landing/over run accident at Duxford, and to the front seat pilot ejecting. Perhaps your information is more up to date?

Sadly "Zoom and Boom", on this tragic occassion, doesn't appear to have been an option.

[matspart3]

My sincere condolences to all those involved

No Surrender
The licensing criteria for RESAs (Runway End Safety Areas) changed recently following an amendment to ICAO Standards and Recommended Practices. RESA's are designed to protect aircraft overunning or undershooting runways. The minimum length of a RESA for a runway of the dimensions of Duxford's would currently be 90m but this would increase to 240m following the change. Where physical constraints, e.g. the proximity of a major road, preclude compliance with the new requirements, one option would be to reduce the Declared Distances available. This may mean, and without knowing any specific details I can only speculate, that the revised distances would be outside the performance envelope of the L39. The link below refers:

http://www.caa.co.uk/publications/docs/CAP_168_the_licensing_of_aerodromes.pdf

Although this 'paperwork exercise' may not have saved the life of the individual concerned in this tragic accident, I post it to show that the 'Authorities' can, and do 'Act' when there are benefits to flight safety. I, too, found your post insensitive

Edited to state that these changes DO NOT come into effect until 2004

[distaff_beancounter]

From reports on local TV, I understand that the aircraft was LANDING, on runway 06, which is 1503m, but with a LDA of only 1353m.

I believe that the original hard runway 24/06 at Duxford, used to be more than 2200m, with substantial further safe run off areas, at both ends.

BUT, that was before the powers-that-be decided to build the M11 motorway, actually through part of the original airfield. This chopped off about one third of the original runway, at its eastern end, and left virtually no space for a RESA.

There is a small earth bank between the end of the runway & the M11. Is this meant to stop an aircraft that has overun? Or could this bank have a ski-jump effect, on any aircraft that still has a lot of momentum? (I am only asking the question, as I do not pretend to know anything about accident investigations).

My deepest sympathy to all those involved.

[Genghis the Engineer]

My information was only what was gleaned here, and I may have misunderstood some of the facts. However, the detail of who had the fortune/extreme misfortune to be in which seat, or whether this was a take-off or landing doesn't particularly change my technical points.

Adding my own consolations to the friends and family of the deceased, there are worse ways to go, but it is still far better not to go. The only thing that we can now look for is lessons to prevent the accident being repeated, no doubt the AAIB are looking for these lessons as we speak.

G

[Holly_Copter]

I was there at Duxford when the tragic event happened. I'd just landed (R44 helicopter) and the L39 came in 2 aircraft behind me, behind a 172. (He'd been asked to expedite to allow the L39's approach). I'd just stepped out of the helicopter, and the fuel bowser had arrived immediately. I guess it was less than 2 minutes since I'd reached the airfield. As the refueller was starting to pump, we heard a really strange 'whump', then silence. Several other pilots were stood looking around, trying to figure what the noise was, then we spotted the tail of the aircraft just showing over the hedges and knew what had happened. We guessed later that the strange sound was the ejector seat firing, rather than an impact.

From the position of the aircraft, and the hole in the fence & hedging, it was clear that the plane had veered considerably off 06 to the right, and had missed the mound at the end of the runway completely, going through the fence where the ground was pretty level.

Needless to say, that everything stopped immediately while emergency services were rallied. It was confusing for a while, though, as traffic was clearly still moving freely on the northbound M11 for some time after the accident, and the L39 had crossed to the southbound. I'd have thought that everyone would have stopped, and was amazed that people just drove past!

Along with everyone else, I offer my condolences to the family involved. It is a very sad day for aviation when something like this happens, especially involving a superbly maintained aircraft, enthusiastic and experienced pilots, on a good-flying-day, and at a place like Duxford, where many members of the public were there to witness the tragedy.

[md 600 driver]

no surrender do you use a helicopter when you workat osterly