PA30 crash lands in Villejuif, Paris

[Del Prado]

https://www.aerobuzz.fr/aviation-generale/j-p-trimaille-se-crashe-avec-deux-eleves-en-pleine-ville-a-villejuif/


80 year old instructor and pupils 28,29 injured after reporting technical issues and landing in road before crashing in to apartment building.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67620792

[magyar_flyer]

That was a very close call indeed. Amazing anyone survived this one!

[funkydreadlocks]

Trying to understand how they ended up over Villejuif. I’m guessing a STAR? But that would be a hold or point south east of the airport, and they were coming in from the Northwest. I guess they could have been doing practice approaches, since the instructor was an MEIR instructor

[funkydreadlocks]

Found it on flight radar. I hope the 3 people recover. I cannot fathom might might have caused a dual engine failure other than fuel starvation. Perhaps it was a single engine failure and they flew it to the crash site, as is sometimes the case with these underpowered pistons.

lots of perhaps in my posts. I’ll shut up now
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1169x919/img_5084_f9f5700024788aad62bbf1fa018d69e52ea364af.jpeg
n

[atakacs]

Don't want to open a can of worms but 80 yo instructor ? :oh:

[ATC Watcher]

Don't want to open a can of worms but 80 yo instructor ? :oh:
actually he is 82 and and well know in France Aeronautic circles . Jean PierreTrimaille. Quite experienced too .

[DIBO]

...but 80 yo instructor ?
My first reaction also, but on second thought, have seen people turning 70 (even yesterday, a -retired- cardiologist) ready for a care home and on the other end, 80+ yo I wouldn't start a fight with...
Celebrated his 40.000hr milestone earlier this year, it seems

[FUMR]

Don't want to open a can of worms but 80 yo instructor ? :oh:

Perhaps his experience is what saved them?!

[DIBO]

Perhaps his experience is what saved them?!
undoubtedly will have played a part in it, but in the last second before impact, they had a great deal of luck. Putting the cabin pretty intact between a wall and a building, smashing the right wing to pieces, with the tail, as a perfect crumple zone, smashing on the wall. And the nose held in place with the help of the X-mas tree ;)
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1024x576/gah_cwoxuaazicj_cbd2d0f669ae568914214496460b67fce20a5818.jpg
source: X

Wonder what the weather conditions were, with that part of Europe transitioning on Monday from a pretty cold and snowy period, to freeze free days as from Tuesday.
They had been flying at FL80 from a while it seems, followed by a stable descent, until things went south. Not sure what kit was onboard if icing conditions were inadvertently entered. On the few photo's after it's 2020 overhaul and repaint, not much of such a kit can be seen on the plane.

[NoelEvans]

Don't want to open a can of worms but 80 yo instructor ? :oh:What has that got to do with it?

Perhaps his experience is what saved them?!Very likely.

[Dogflyer]

Trying to understand how they ended up over Villejuif. I’m guessing a STAR? But that would be a hold or point south east of the airport, and they were coming in from the Northwest. I guess they could have been doing practice approaches, since the instructor was an MEIR instructor

Yes, it is one of the standard IFR approaches to Toussus Le Noble , but, yes...idiotic given GPS approaches to have one that is over populated areas like that for light aircraft that have no need to fly an outbound 20 NM leg before reversing course.

[caribou78]

Tere is a video with images of the plane and an interview (in french) of the pilot that I will partly translate :
Since I'm new to the forum I cannot post URL so you can google "Atterrissage en urgence d'un avion à Villejuif : l’incroyable sang-froid du pilote france info" for the details :

"We have the right engine that started to loose power.
The student thought that I was faking a failure as I keep faking failures during training flights
and then the second engine started to loose power as well.
This is exceptional...., it cannot happen... well it does.
I identified a platform so we flew toward and reached it.
The luck made that the right wing touched the side of the building
and induced a spin to the aircraft that came to rest on a small wall
and absorbed all the kinetic energy that would most probably have killed us
if we had taken the wall in front.
It is a pride to have saved the lives of people underneath us and of the
two students...and also of mine."

[Del Prado]

Great video Caribou78, thanks for finding it.

https://www.tf1info.fr/justice-faits-divers/video-reportage-crash-avion-villejuif-accident-l-incroyable-sang-froid-de-jean-pierre-trimaille-pilote-instructeur-de-82-ans-2278515.html#

[MechEngr]

So, no fire after two engines cease running and most every part opened like a can of tuna?
Methinks someone thought someone else was supposed to fill it with gas.

[Trossie]

So, no fire after two engines cease running and most every part opened like a can of tuna?
Methinks someone thought someone else was supposed to fill it with gas.The lack of fire might point to that?
Engine failure: A situation that occurs when all fuel tanks become totally filled with air.

[caribou78]

Hi Del Prado thanks for the link. It is also interesting, but the translation I put was from this video www.francetvinfo.fr/faits-divers/atterrissage-en-urgence-d-un-avion-a-villejuif-l-incroyable-sang-froid-du-pilote_6233430.html (removed the leading part of the URL)
where the pilot himself is describing the situation.
I like the animation in the TF1 video though.

[Del Prado]

hi del prado thanks for the link. It is also interesting, but the translation i put was from this video www.francetvinfo.fr/faits-divers/atterrissage-en-urgence-d-un-avion-a-villejuif-l-incroyable-sang-froid-du-pilote_6233430.html (removed the leading part of the url)
where the pilot himself is describing the situation.
I like the animation in the tf1 video though.

👍👍👍👍👍

[ATC Watcher]

So, no fire after two engines cease running and most every part opened like a can of tuna?
Methinks someone thought someone else was supposed to fill it with gas.
Yes my first thought too but the pilot/FI said "loss of power" (perte de puissance) not "engine failure" , on one engine and he also said that the student (PF) thought it was an action by the instructor . That bring another possibility in the possible scenarios., of switching off the wrong engine .But we'll see when the report is out . Lucky escape that's for sure.

[ATC Watcher]

There is a long interview of the pilot (J.P. Trimaille the FI ) of that flight in the March issue of INFO PILOTE ( French GA magazine ) he said there were on an IFR LPV approach for 25 in Toussus at 4000 ft descending for 3000 when the first engine stopped, the student ( already a CPL ) believed it was an exercise and followed the procedure but almost immediately after the second engine stopped, . He immediately took over from the Student and both tried to restart with fuel pump ,changed tanks etc, but losing alt fast .. It was almost night . a large avenue straight ahead , but full of cars , he chose a smaller space between 2 big buildings also almost straight ahead , he said he took arbitrarily 70 Kts as a compromise to stay above stall and minimize impact speed. he planned to hit the buildings with the end of wings ( the outer half wings ) to dissipate energy . All worked out almost as planed, the right wing hit the right building first which spinned the a/c which landed with little vertical energy. The door could be opened and they walked out. His lesson : keep speed to avoid stall, choose a place to put it down somewhere straight ahead. and fly the aircraft until the end
There was only 1 min 50 sec between the double failure and impact . So much for an 82 years old with 40.000 h . He is back flying again as an FI .I'll go with him any day.
He does not know (yet) what caused the double failure., the BEA is looking into it.

[Expressflight]

He does not know (yet) what caused the double failure., the BEA is looking into it.

I shall certainly be interested in hearing the BEA findings.

We had a PA-30-160 similarly suffer a double engine failure in the early 1980s en-route Southend to Doncaster. Luckily it was daytime VMC and our Chief Pilot was flying the aircraft. He issued a Mayday call and headed for RAF Barkston Heath while trying to restart the engines. While on finals for a dead-stick landing one engine did restart but he continued with the landing as being the wisest choice. RAF Cranwell sent over a vehicle to collect the two pax and took them to the nearest rail station to continue their journey. Our Chief Engineer flew up to examine the aircraft and despite extensive checks and ground runs could find no fault so flew back with the aircraft to Southend.

So we never found the cause of the incident and nothing of the like ever happened again. There was a slightly amusing aspect to this in that I was in a meeting with a client who wanted to discuss a new contract and an Ops Officer rushed in to say that " ***** has just declared a Mayday." I told him I would come through in a moment and the client looked at me and said "Mayday? That's serious isn't it?" to which I replied "It can be. Please excuse me for a few minutes." We got the new contract.

[Needle Knocker]

We had a PA-30-160 similarly suffer a double engine failure in the early 1980s en-route Southend to Doncaster.

Reminds me of a light twin that I used to fly quite regularly that had an engine failure at night (someone else flying) - followed by a gear indication issue necessitating an assymetric go-around - followed by a successful landing. The next day the pilot checked in with the LAME working on the aircraft; the LAME said "we found the reason for the failure ... blocked carb jets". It was about that time that the pilot informed him that that was the engine that was still working ...

Turned out to be a fuel contamination issue from the aircraft being refulled from 44 gallon drums at a strip somewhere; why the aircraft was not required to have a fuel filter I will never know.

Interestingly, I had an instructor turn off the fuel to the left engine as part of my BFR; I was quite surprised at how long and gradual the decline in power was ... not abrupt at all.