Types Crashed In
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Types Crashed In
(As a follow-on to KING6024's thread)
Bell 206B, St. Simons Island, Georgia. Long story: I (left seat), my wife, our nine-year-old son, and a good friend, were aboard when our pilot, an acquaintance of not many months, decided to show off by cycling the Emergency Fuel Cutoff switch. The annunciator panel flashed orange momentarily, then red. We were at 2,000’ MSL – too low for a restart. We autorotated to the beach on Sea Island; airspeed indicated at 40 kts., and the VSI was pegged at 2,000 f.p.m. The aircraft’s skids were bent upward 90 degrees, and as the nose dug into the sand, the main rotor chopped the tailboom off at the root. It also narrowly missed decapitating my wife, who was running from the wreckage with our boy in her arms. The starboard fuel bladder had ruptured and Jet A was trickling across the rear fuselage, dangerously close to a very hot turbine exhaust.
Forty-three years later, I still have an occasionally vivid nightmare about this accident. The chin bubble of the Jet Ranger gives an astonishingly clear view of cows, beaches, and Terra Firma getting bigger in a hurry. The pilot begged us to disclaim any involvement for it would cost him his job. We kept quiet, but I shall never forgive him for nearly taking our lives.
Chopper Flopper
- Ed
Last edited by cavuman1; 26th Sep 2022 at 23:49. Reason: Add Photograph
Gnome de PPRuNe
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Never been in a crash although I've experienced several "young man, did we land or were we shot down?" landings. (A friend was a rear seat pax in a PA-28 which "landed" about 10 feet up. The subsequent descent removed the nose wheel leg with related damage to prop, engine and chin... my dad was instructing in a Blanik which undershot through a fence, glider was a write off.. )
Couple of rear end clenching ''near-miss'' moments - Do they count>?
British Airtours 707-436 in the hold for a Gatwick approach coming home from Corfu or possibly Palma - I think we were going around in circles in the Hold south of Croydon -
Out of my eye I saw an HS748 (I was seated on the RHS) zoom past us sort of diagonally, and at the same time the 707 dropped like a stone in a severe left bank, and they dropped the Landing Gear, which I gather is something on the older 707's you can do to get rid of energy (Is that so>?)
I have a feeling the HS748 was the one used for CAA Airfield Calibrations as I had often seen it at LHR - It was not a familiar airline livery.
Nothing said but it was a 'moment'.
2nd one -
Flying home from 3 weeks bliss in the then unknown Maldives. I was flying back from Male via Colombo - Karachi - LHR (On free PIA staff travel from KHI)
I had been working in KHI on the BMA 707 leasing contracts with PIA and then had a month's leave, so as PIA gave me a roundtrip freebie to Colombo (720B out) I took advantage of
staying out in the Tropics rather then go back the UK in a damp March.
At Colombo around 1am in the morning we were bussed out for the KHI flight and we turned up at a old DC-8 LX-IDB which PIA had leased from Cargolux - The DC-8 was one of Swissair's first batch of -32 series but SR had IDB converted to a 50 series.
American FD crew and PIA girls. We took off into the night for the 3 hours 40 flight back up to KHI in the middle of a very dark night.
We made a long let down approach - it was all just black out there - We touched down quite a way down the Runway and there was hardly any retardation.
The brakes were simply not slowing us down, Full Reverse then came on - deafening and the old girl almost shaking to bits - We were slowing abit and suddenly and sharply slewed off to the left and I thought that's it we are going into the sand - still with Full Reverse on - we then did come to a slower speed.
We stopped for a while, then carried on to the apron and shut down - Not a word was said.
British Airtours 707-436 in the hold for a Gatwick approach coming home from Corfu or possibly Palma - I think we were going around in circles in the Hold south of Croydon -
Out of my eye I saw an HS748 (I was seated on the RHS) zoom past us sort of diagonally, and at the same time the 707 dropped like a stone in a severe left bank, and they dropped the Landing Gear, which I gather is something on the older 707's you can do to get rid of energy (Is that so>?)
I have a feeling the HS748 was the one used for CAA Airfield Calibrations as I had often seen it at LHR - It was not a familiar airline livery.
Nothing said but it was a 'moment'.
2nd one -
Flying home from 3 weeks bliss in the then unknown Maldives. I was flying back from Male via Colombo - Karachi - LHR (On free PIA staff travel from KHI)
I had been working in KHI on the BMA 707 leasing contracts with PIA and then had a month's leave, so as PIA gave me a roundtrip freebie to Colombo (720B out) I took advantage of
staying out in the Tropics rather then go back the UK in a damp March.
At Colombo around 1am in the morning we were bussed out for the KHI flight and we turned up at a old DC-8 LX-IDB which PIA had leased from Cargolux - The DC-8 was one of Swissair's first batch of -32 series but SR had IDB converted to a 50 series.
American FD crew and PIA girls. We took off into the night for the 3 hours 40 flight back up to KHI in the middle of a very dark night.
We made a long let down approach - it was all just black out there - We touched down quite a way down the Runway and there was hardly any retardation.
The brakes were simply not slowing us down, Full Reverse then came on - deafening and the old girl almost shaking to bits - We were slowing abit and suddenly and sharply slewed off to the left and I thought that's it we are going into the sand - still with Full Reverse on - we then did come to a slower speed.
We stopped for a while, then carried on to the apron and shut down - Not a word was said.
Sudden big clear air turbulence and drop on an American 767 overhead the Rockies on LAX-LHR around 1990. Diverted to Chicago where some injuries were taken off. Most memorable point was a couple of seats ahead, a wine glass went almost up to the ceiling and back down in a parabola; the red wine contents described their own parabola, slowly coming out of the glass like something in a Mickey Mouse cartoon and coming down on some poor pax further ahead from where the glass landed.
Described this here a while ago. Surprisingly one of the crew then sent me a PM saying it had been their flight, and how amazing to hear from one of the pax from long before.
Described this here a while ago. Surprisingly one of the crew then sent me a PM saying it had been their flight, and how amazing to hear from one of the pax from long before.
One 'write-off' crash, two serious 'unplanned arrivals' and a number of 'normal service disruptions'
The crash (photo below) was at Beihan ('up-country' Aden) - broke main spar, lost tailwheel and sole pax (newspaper correspondentt) queried " Do you always land here like that ?"
The two unplanned were rotary - one with unextinguishable engine fire indication (plus unusual crew problems), the other having 'collected' several hundred yards of polypropylene kite 'string' from Lady's Mile in Cyprus.
About average for machinery and number of years involved.
The 'Pig' incident had an unexpected follow-up nearly 40 years later.
The crash (photo below) was at Beihan ('up-country' Aden) - broke main spar, lost tailwheel and sole pax (newspaper correspondentt) queried " Do you always land here like that ?"
The two unplanned were rotary - one with unextinguishable engine fire indication (plus unusual crew problems), the other having 'collected' several hundred yards of polypropylene kite 'string' from Lady's Mile in Cyprus.
About average for machinery and number of years involved.
The 'Pig' incident had an unexpected follow-up nearly 40 years later.
(As a follow-on to KING6024's thread)
Bell 206B, St. Simons Island, Georgia. Long story: I (left seat), my wife, our nine-year-old son, and a good friend, were aboard when our pilot, an acquaintance of not many months, decided to show off by cycling the Emergency Fuel Cutoff switch. The annunciator panel flashed orange momentarily, then red. We were at 2,000’ MSL – too low for a restart. We autorotated to the beach on Sea Island; airspeed indicated at 40 kts., and the VSI was pegged at 2,000 f.p.m. The aircraft’s skids were bent upward 90 degrees, and as the nose dug into the sand, the main rotor chopped the tailboom off at the root. It also narrowly missed decapitating my wife, who was running from the wreckage with our boy in her arms. The starboard fuel bladder had ruptured and Jet A was trickling across the rear fuselage, dangerously close to a very hot turbine exhaust.
Forty-three years later, I still have an occasionally vivid nightmare about this accident. The chin bubble of the Jet Ranger gives an astonishingly clear view of cows, beaches, and Terra Firma getting bigger in a hurry. The pilot begged us to disclaim any involvement for it would cost him his job. We kept quiet, but I shall never forgive him for nearly taking our lives.
Chopper Flopper
- Ed
Jack
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Tiger Moth DE 574, 11 March 1954.The engine didn't respond the throttle lever movement after descending to circuit height near Ballykelly. We picked an emergency landing field but didn't see a thin electricity cable slung between two trees until too late. There wasn't enough room to get under and we didn't have enough speed to hop over. The wire caught the undercarriage and we stopped flying. No fatalities but some blood shed and two front teeth lost.
The closest I've come to a proper contribution to this thread was the student who decided to stop flying a couple of feet above the runway and did it in such a way that I was unable to catch the descent in time. He dropped us onto the left gear leg of the 172 with such enthusiasm that the door on his side opened. No damage found during subsequent hard landing check.
I am curious about this now....
PVR'd to a Tech Instructor job with BA at Cranebank, late 80s. We had a 'Crew Room/coffee bar' and the usual daily 'gatherings'. A number of Instructors were ex-RAF and the 'Perf' guys were ex Navs. One such - Harry B... and I chatted regularly and in one conversation, one of us mentioned Jack B......... . I said that I remembered him 'cos we had crashed together in a 'Pig' ... to which Harry replied "So did I !" ... Harry had been the Nav on that 'crash day' ! An unlikely reunion after all that time.
The crash itself was down to a persistent rigging fault which gave that particular airframe an intermittent stall 3 to 5 kts higher than normal. The Beihan approach (over the 'town') was invariably bumpy but needed close speed control. We stalled just clear of the buildings and at about 20'-30', arrived tail wheel first and ended up minus tail wheel, blocking the only runway. The engines were still running so Jack 'blasted' us through the dust to get us clear. I went back to check the passenger and when I opened the door, the Rock-Ape fire crew were outside holding our tail wheel ... " Does this belong to you ?" , or something similar. !
An afterthought ... Harry and i having crashed with Jack B, didn't necessarily mean that we had to have been together - Jack had at least two 'destructive arrivals' (both well handled) and one of our Valetta Squadron crew had been involved in no less than six such incidents in a two year tour ... his Emergency Drills were impressive !
PVR'd to a Tech Instructor job with BA at Cranebank, late 80s. We had a 'Crew Room/coffee bar' and the usual daily 'gatherings'. A number of Instructors were ex-RAF and the 'Perf' guys were ex Navs. One such - Harry B... and I chatted regularly and in one conversation, one of us mentioned Jack B......... . I said that I remembered him 'cos we had crashed together in a 'Pig' ... to which Harry replied "So did I !" ... Harry had been the Nav on that 'crash day' ! An unlikely reunion after all that time.
The crash itself was down to a persistent rigging fault which gave that particular airframe an intermittent stall 3 to 5 kts higher than normal. The Beihan approach (over the 'town') was invariably bumpy but needed close speed control. We stalled just clear of the buildings and at about 20'-30', arrived tail wheel first and ended up minus tail wheel, blocking the only runway. The engines were still running so Jack 'blasted' us through the dust to get us clear. I went back to check the passenger and when I opened the door, the Rock-Ape fire crew were outside holding our tail wheel ... " Does this belong to you ?" , or something similar. !
An afterthought ... Harry and i having crashed with Jack B, didn't necessarily mean that we had to have been together - Jack had at least two 'destructive arrivals' (both well handled) and one of our Valetta Squadron crew had been involved in no less than six such incidents in a two year tour ... his Emergency Drills were impressive !
I guess that by definition the crashes described in this thread must be survivable, maybe a little tame? My only real crash, ie aircraft severely damaged, was like that.
1.Coronado, MEA Beirut early 1970s. Coronados landed hot in any event, but on this occasion it was high as well, so we touched down a long way down the runway and hit the scrub at the far end doing about 60Kts (My guess). The worst bit was having to walk back to the terminal. The airport was very different then to what it is now. Just one N/S runway, and little development around it.
(I'm keeping stumm about how a C172 lost its nosewheel landing at Lympne well outside X-wind limits. Not a real crash, anyway.)
1.Coronado, MEA Beirut early 1970s. Coronados landed hot in any event, but on this occasion it was high as well, so we touched down a long way down the runway and hit the scrub at the far end doing about 60Kts (My guess). The worst bit was having to walk back to the terminal. The airport was very different then to what it is now. Just one N/S runway, and little development around it.
(I'm keeping stumm about how a C172 lost its nosewheel landing at Lympne well outside X-wind limits. Not a real crash, anyway.)
C152, First solo 
Onto grass, must have been wet and/or brakes unbalanced. Touched down, applied brakes, swung left by (it felt) about 45 degrees. Never trained for this, or had it happen before or since. Nevertheless, somewhat intuitively, straightened it out. Instructor, watching, said nothing about it ...
Onto grass, must have been wet and/or brakes unbalanced. Touched down, applied brakes, swung left by (it felt) about 45 degrees. Never trained for this, or had it happen before or since. Nevertheless, somewhat intuitively, straightened it out. Instructor, watching, said nothing about it ...
Working with the redoubtable Ken Wallis , he asked me to try a certain engine-off recovery with one of his Autogiros., which I followed to a "T",,,,
As I was cutting the fuel off , killing the switches etc.whilst rapidly exiting the resultant mass of bent tubing and broken wood I was aware of Ken striding up......
"Terribly sorry old chap, I appear to have dropped you in at the deep end there!"
As I was cutting the fuel off , killing the switches etc.whilst rapidly exiting the resultant mass of bent tubing and broken wood I was aware of Ken striding up......
"Terribly sorry old chap, I appear to have dropped you in at the deep end there!"
