Medod
 

I would bet with near certainty they would not have been wearing immersion suits. I did 3.5 years at Cold Lake and was never even issued one. I did make use of cold weather gear though!

I have been to Kamloops in May and I have a picture of me in shorts and t-shirt at a restaurant and clearly remember it being in the mid to high 20’s (Celsius). The Kamloops area has a much warmer climate than many parts of Canada. Indeed, Kelowna just down the road is a wine growing region. The river might be pretty chilly (unlikely to have fresh glacial melt water) but certainly no worse than the temperature of the UK seas that we regularly fly over without immersion suits.

Far from avoiding the river, in the event of an engine failure I would have been aiming for it as my intended ejection site and would have briefed accordingly. Unless I had sufficient speed for a reciprocal EFATO pattern.

Remember, as I keep saying, all of this chat presupposes there was an engine failure in the first place. I have yet to see any evidence that this was the case.

BV

From your experience? Do you have experience of tellIng a passenger to eject? Telling someone what to do In a classroom is very different from what they might or might not do in a very frightening situation.
Passengers do “recognise” a dangerous situation - in their opinion - and eject, Ask the Red Arrows when a passenger ejected in Scotland.

The reason behind the decision to pull out of formation is, at present, a mystery, but this tragedy resulted from a late ejection outside seat limits. Why? We don’t know, why the pilot turned left we don’t know, why the turn resulted in a stall spin, we don’t know, except the aerodynamics and inertial forces can lead to a spin following a stall in a turn. There are far more questions than answers and they will only come from the BOI.

As for survival, neither occupant had a full chute, but the pilot hit a roof and the passenger hit a tree. The roof was probably slightly more forgiving.

RIP Captain, and I hope for a full recovery for the Pilot.

Do we know for certain that Capt Casey was first to eject?

Would it be possible for the occupant of one seat to pull the firing handle of the other seat? I can imagine it would probably not be advisable.

Does anyone have approx timings for the 4th and 5th line items (assuming they aren't conditional on the speed/attitude/etc of the seat)? The reason I ask is that, in the footage in the CBC piece posted above, both seats seem to have travelled an awfully long way from the ejection point without anything seeming to happen, as evidenced by this screen-grab (I know both were travelling downhill, but even so):

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....3f9d408dfa.png

I did initially suspect the first seat was trailing the chute just before it disappeared from view, but on reflection I think this is the remnants of rocket efflux.

No. ....and in the RAF when briefing non aircrew for a jet trip, I did a few, the brief was simple. If I say EJECT , EJECT, ,EJECT,, yes, Eject.

If you saY WHAT or repeat after that command you will be talking to yourself and I was NOT kidding.

I was actually surprised that it was that high, based on the scenario of total power loss at the point of pitch up.

I use something called Adobe Premiere Pro as a video editor. It's timeline is measured in thousands of a second. I will see if I can capture the exact time of the knife edge at the top and the frame I used to determine the eject height. The poster above, the ex BA and military guy, is right on it being an average speed and that may be useful to at least give an idea that it was greater than that.

I don't know if there is consensus about what was going on aerodynamically to start the descent. I seems to most that it was a stall in the bank and a spin. Stopped after one rotation to wings level and the nose pitched up. Pitched up by how much? And by what force, pilot, or the natural rising of the nose in the incipient portion of a spin before it goes flat. If a Tutor flat spins when fully developed. I'd venture to say Capt. MacDougall did get the spin stopped, but the aircraft was not vertical at that point and seemed to be under some sort of control. You can see that after the eject, the aircraft pitched down and was not spinning. In the period before the eject, and immediately after, the aircraft is very nose down and there is the appearance and likely the reality of a high rate of descent. The ROD may have been less at the moment of eject.

I'm normally on the side that says speculation on the cause of crashes is good because most of us are civilian pilots and any unanswered questions after a crash are often questions we would have on our mind the next day when we go flying in a similar type or situation. That doesn't hold with military accidents. So, I tend to want to hear the ex military guys give their inputs. I've put in this wee analysis of heights to add that small bit. Captain Mac Dougall has thankfully survived, and whatever we might think, he surely knows what happened and in time we will all know.

I'll see if I can come up with that average ROD.

Hi Dave and those chatting about seat ejection. I'm a journalist looking to speak with pilots about ejection systems, the old versus the new. Could you shoot me an email? I'm at [email protected]

Ex JP QFI ,here , dare I chip in again ?

For once I am with the benefit of hindsight in violent agreement with BV when he says..

"Far from avoiding the river, in the event of an engine failure I would have been aiming for it as my intended ejection site and would have briefed accordingly. Unless I had sufficient speed for a reciprocal EFATO pattern."

Makes complete sense to me but I think the issue here is the single engined "light jet" my be spring loaded towards a turn back towards the field in the event of an engine failure...

decent spot to throw a jet but should be considered in an emergency brief, particularly if you’re going to cross behind your lead in the event of an EFATO. High SA for sure....

You don't need an immersion suit in the Thompson now. I agree that straight ahead after entering a glide at the top is the second best alternative, if a total engine failure. A normal glide down to 200 feet at 130 would have made it close to McArthur Island. An eject there would likely see the jet go into the river and reduce public risk. The best option if eject was certain was to turn right, point it toward all that empty land, and eject higher. You make a good point about the presumption of total engine failure immediately. With a partial failure, the optimum result is return to field, save the aircraft, and not put both occupants to the risk of an ejection. The left turn may have been made with an assessment that there was sufficient power to either make a circuit, or get back on the reverse of the takeoff runway.

Someone mentioned that they were up to 200 knots in the low level pass by the camera. You can see takeoff flap is still down as they pass. Can you have flap out at 200 knots?

cncpc
 

The 200 knots thing came from me a little while back. I said the aircraft were probably sub 200 knots at the departure end of the runway. I have no idea of the flap limiting speeds.

I was implying that there was almost certainly not enough energy to complete a 180 turn let alone get lined up with the runway if there had been a total loss of thrust.

Please bear in mind I have not flown the Tutor so my views cannot be taken as authoritative.

BV

I don't know about you guys, but im gonna just wait until the initial From the Investigator report comes out from RCAF DFS. Anything else is worthless speculation.

Most of my military flying was done in M.B. seats. I've never ejected but plenty of my squadron mates have. In one case a gent who's J-57 was shooting craps in the landing pattern, tried both the primary and secondary ejection handles (face curtain and between the knees handle) but was unable to initiate the ejection sequence; the handles simply wouldn't move. So, after running out of ideas, he went back to flying the aircraft and the old P&W engine kept on chugging long enough to get him on the ground without further drama. Turns out the Martin Baker seat wasn't properly maintained and the forces required to pull the handle(s) were way out of spec. Other aviators have reported difficulty with the Martin Baker ejection handles and a common complaint is that the force required was higher than expected.

After looking at the video it appears that the Snowbird pilot made the decision to zoom and eject for whatever reason. It would seem natural to want to maximize the altitude based on the rather limited capability of the Weber seat. A the top of his climb he stopped flying the Tutor and started the ejection sequence. I'm wondering if, for some reason he (like my squadron mate) could have had some difficulty with the ejection. A delay of only a few seconds concentrating on the ejection with nobody flying the airplane could easily result in a stall/spin situation especially after using up every bit of the available kinetic energy in the zoom climb.

By the time he managed to eject, even though the delay was short, it was too late. This is pure speculation of course, but it makes a lot more sense to me than stories about avoiding populated areas, doing low speed barrel rolls to "show off" and some of the other guesses about the timing of the ejection.

I'm not familiar with the Weber seat, so perhaps some Tutor pilot might chime in with any sea-stories about how difficult it might be to pull the handle(s) and/or if anyone has reported unusual effort required to fire the seat or other factors which might cause a two or three second delay in ejecting after the decision to take the nylon let-down has been made.

Totally agree. Whilst this has naturally captured our interest. we know nothing other than they ejected, and one, incredibly sadly, died. RIP Ms Casey

Don't remember being mentioned: are those aircrafts fitted with any type of flight recorder?

I keep asking myself whether it is strange that there do seem to be any significant sounds or signs of smoke, flame or debris from the tailpipe. The engine would appear to have gone from take off thrust to very little / none in no more than 10 seconds, and I would have expected there to be some evidence of this, beyond the all too obvious.

Falcon
 

That is precisely why I keep banging that particular drum. I don’t believe anybody has overstepped the mark so far by discussing actions in the event of an engine failure at such a stage of flight from runway 09 at Kamloops but we still don’t know if that is what happened here.

Although the video may appear to show a scenario that seems obvious, there is still no evidence to back that up.

I suspect even the initial flight safety report may not clear that up either. It might be a long wait to know precisely why the zooming turn was initiated.

As for an ADR I can’t help you there. I don’t know the Tutor airframe but my gut feeling is that one won’t be fitted. Being a Snowbirds jet it may have a camera fit but that is pure speculation.

BV

No CVR or FDR in the Tutor

To be expected but thanks for confirming.

Great post and a plausible scenario.

Re your last sentence, yes. About 6 months ago, a Tutor preparing for an air show in Atlanta lost power and the pilot ejected. He was ok, but he reported "...problems in the ejection sequence".

https://www.skiesmag.com/news/initia...atlanta-crash/

A long shot but in the pictures posted above there is a mount that appears to be for a camera or tablet:

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....2dce5111da.jpg

In the takeoff picture it looks like a tablet is attached.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....4326ae9722.jpg

There might be some recoverable data from the memory. Data has been pulled from these memory chips even in very high energy crashes like the Galloping Ghost at Reno in 2011.

Probably nothing of value but I'm sure it will be looked at if the pieces are recovered.

I disagree. If his plan was to zoom climb and then eject he would NOT have rolled towards 80 degrees of bank at the apex of his climb. He would have ejected wings level in a climb. My real world experience as a QFI, clearly tells me he was trying a turnback to the airfield/runway of departure, pulled too hard at low IAS and stalled and spun. Its all very clearly there on the video, or I would not comment or speculate..

If the Weber seat is 0/60 its a very capable seat and an ejection during a zoom climb is clearly within its performance envelope..

A low level ejection with a high ROD was clearly not possible, as is the case with many seats.

Again, from experience, I can tell you when its time to pull the handle you pull it with all your strength, hard !

Wow dude, You would think someone with your experience would avoid making such a massive assumption/generalization. Facts first my friend. I did a tour instructing on Tutors and turnbacks were not taught nor were they encouraged while I was there, neither were they taught on 2 other aircraft types I was a QFI on in the RCAF. I personally never planned on turning back to a reciprocal while I was flying those jets and I was fortunate to never have been in that position. I dont know what the Snowbird trg syllabus is. I'm not convinced he was turning back and personally I would prefer he get to tell his story to the investigators vice everyone engaging in speculation. I've been involved in enough accident investigations on fighters and trainers over the year to know that even when things are on tape, the reality can be very different than what it appears to be. There have been cases in the CT114 where pilots have lost control because of seat/strap issues in the past. So yeah, there is some stuff on tape but we really don't know what was going on in that cockpit. Various people have put out various theories that may or may not be true. The only thing I am willing to say for sure is that with the amount of time these team members spend in the low level environment, there is really no good reason for them not to have a better seat. We are talking about an escape system where you are out of the envelope in the final turn and in my mind, considering the results of many CT114 ejections, it really is a shame to watch someone else die because of it.

Salute!

Thank you, Retired.....

Maybe best post so far, and we don't even know if the pilot pulled up after an engine problem or bird strike or whatever. He just did.

All we know is what we have seen on the various videos - fairly aggresive climb after a nice formation takeoff, then turn, then what looks like stall/roll/spin entry, then roll wings level and punch out very low. RIP.
========================

For all you wannabes and nuggets just entering the game.......

When things go south, you react as you have been trained or practiced in your brain a hundred times.

THIS IS IMPORTANT!! So sitting in the barber shop and even while in the chair you should be rehearsing all the "what if's". When that day/split second comes you have a better chance of survival than the folks that never thought it could happen to them. You will go thru the drill without a millisecond of hesitation. After all, you have done it a hundred times in the barber shop!

All the bad things youi may encounter do not required superhuman reactions and such, and one thing that served me and many of my fellow "light" pilots well, was - If the damned plane is still flying and ain't rolling at 200 degrees per second or flipping end over end, take one more second, maybe two and try to figure out what went wrong and if there's a way to correct for the problem or make the best of a bad situation. The heavy pilots have to do this. We lights do not, and we can ask Weber or Douglas or Martin Baker for help.

Gums sends....

With respect to the safe ejection envelope, it is worth
remembering that the minimum height fo a safe ejection is increased by a nose down pitch attitude (and bank angle) as well as rate of descent. The pitch attitude will certainly have been a factor here.

Does anyone have a link to the original video which gives a "new video angle" seen in the video in post #145, the CBC "Key moments in the Snowbirds crash" video with a former Snowbirds pilot commenting?

The video is a good example of how the angle of view changes the perception of an object's angle -- That is, the ejection was not nearly as vertical as it seemed to many of us from the most commonly seen videos. The new video shows that while there was a considerable dive, which was bad for trying to be in the ejection envelope it wasn't close to a vertical dive with flight speed in knots = descent rate.

I took some caps from the video and cropped each using just the bottom 640*480 part of the video. Since the cloud base and sometimes ground can be seen, one can see that the camera is fairly level.

Video caps are roughly at the time of :
1. Canopy blowing off
2. First ejection rocket seen
3. Second ejection rocket seen
4. Some time later
(And the video cuts before anything hits the ground)

While talking about this video making the angles LESS steep than other videos appear, it is also true that despite the video viewpoint being more "beside the action", by looking upwards somewhat from the horizon that makes the visual angle of descent less than the actual angle. So one can't just put a protractor to the screen and say these shallower angles are the true ones either.

Still, look at those smoke trails ... they were NOT anywhere near a vertical dive. Which to me makes the problem of not getting a full canopy before running out of sky, more frustrating.

As for the issue of "Why turn left (towards the city) instead of heading straight (river area)?", as usual we don't know all the factors involved. But it certainly could have been things like (a) being on the left side of the formation to start with! -- Pull away from the other aircraft, or (b) initially thinking it was only a partial engine failure and instinctively trying to take up around into a circuit.




https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....44dc4ee4e6.jpg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....a3df07f383.jpg
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....65f6163786.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....158de71a3a.jpg

Although the descent angle wasn't nearly as vertical as it seemed to people, based on some of the comments, in this post I'd like to address that the timing of the ejection sequence.
The time from ejection to impact, was fairly short ... but was still between 3.7 and 4.3 seconds between canopy starting to depart and the ejectees disappearing behind the tree line.

I ran the most common original video through the Vegas video editor to zoom and add timestamps.
(The Shannon Forest video from twitter, where at the end the camera pans down, man says "It just crashed", boy says "Oh my god.")

One can't tell when handles were first pulled, so one has to go with the first visible signs of ejection, the canopy starting to depart the aircraft.
That's my zero point. Then:
- First ejection noticed (smoke first seen) 0.67 seconds
- Second ejection noticed (smoke first seen) 1.03 seconds (which is 0.37 sec later)
- First object disappearing behind tree line 3.70 seconds (2.66 sec after their ejection first seen)
(This is the SECOND, lower ejection, with no visible chute at long distance in the video)
- Second object disappearing behind the tree line 4.30 seconds (3.63 sec after their ejection first seen)
(Actually, not the person but the starting-to-inflate canopy behind that FIRST ejectee, which disappears behind the treeline just as it goes out of frame on the video too. Presumably the survivor.)

Of course the visible tree line isn't quite at ground level but close enough for this analysis.

So the first ejectee had the benefit of a bit over a third of a second earlier ejection, thus a bit of extra altitude, plus the aircraft pitched down fairly rapidly between the two ejections. That gave the first ejectee basically one extra second air time, which helped at least give them a partially inflated canopy.

The Tutor doesn't have command ejection?? (pilot pulls, both seats are fired in some predetermined sequence) I guess not but I don't think anyone with experience has clarified that issue.
Assuming not, being the second to pull the handle after the aircraft commander, just about a third of a second later, is actually pretty good performance, but the conditions were unfortunately too marginal for it to work out here.

Re the ejection sequence as viewed on this clip (and further to my earlierq regarding sequence timings) seat separation should commence c.1 second after initiation according to the following source:

Weber CL-41 seat with AERO Drogue System

No command ejection. Completely manual.

Just an observation. The initial left turn starts as the aircraft moves up and out of formation - it looks like an instinctive easing wide to avoid the lead once sight of him is lost. The reasoning why that turn was tightened shortly thereafter could be turn back, unintentional following ejection seat issues or trying to point in a safer direction to eject having made the initial turn towards the town.

That's an aviation approved 'Pivot' mount for a tablet being used for navigation and documentation. I think it's unlikely it was being used for recording.

The success or otherwise of an ejection is hugely affected by the upward or downward vector of the aircraft as the seat leaves the airframe. I spent all my flying career on ejection seats, both rocket zero/zero seats and non-rocket seats with height and/or speed limits. Hopefully, I was always aware of those limits, particularly in one early jet aircraft where there was a gap between lift off speed and a safe ejection speed/height.

After hanging up my flying gloves, I became a ground school instructor, part of which was teaching ab-initio students about the seat they were going to use. I used a clip from a USAF training film showing the crew leaving an F4 as the aircraft pitched up uncontrollably after liftoff. One occupant went out as the aircraft still had an upward vector, the second went out higher but the aircraft had stopped climbing, the chute of the first ejectee opened at a greater height, despite ejecting at a lower height.

yeah there are some things going on there that I just cannot make sense of. i bet it will be a really interesting case once the investigation is done; pilot is out of hospital now so im sure hes had his chance to say his piece to the flight safety guys etc. could be so many factors including the terrain, river etc. Not a great airfield to experience a problem like that. Had it been me I would have had serious concerns about ending up ejecting into the thompson river at this time of year and theres also terrain on both sides of departure end. thinking back about other tutor accidents over the years its almost pointless to speculate as there have been so may freak occurrences over the years. only thing for sure is that this will undoubtedly be an interesting case study as things move forward.

OK, so we disagree. I was taught low level turnbacks a student on the JP way back in 62/63, so I know the procedure, but we did not teach or practice them in my time as a QFI.

So. I stand by my comments based on A my experience on a similar jet and B, the fact that the whole flight is clearly seen on the video. The video SHOWS him turning back, otherwise why turn TOWARDS rising terrain which would effectively reduce his ejection height. If not a turnback, what was it?

Its a long time since I flew and instructed on the 737. On that jet , on certain runways , there
was an emergency turn procedure, which, in the event of engine failure on take off above V1 the turn took one AWAY from terrain, so that terrain clearance was assured despite the reduced climb gradient.

.... and no, I dont know what was going on in the cockpit, but I do have a pretty good idea, which I will keep to myself. The nearest I have been to that was losing an engine in a very heavy Canberra ( big JP on two engines, a potential killer on one) at about 100 feet just after take off, too low and slow to eject on our Mk 2 seats, some choice words were spoken, rapid decisions made but we got away with it, just. If we had had MB Mk4 seats or better we would have been out.

So the Tutor does not have a. CVR or. FDR. so if you have been involved in accident investigation you will know you have an enormous amount of vital evidence but that video is invaluable. The pilot survived, the wreckage is not at the bottom of the sea ,the accident site is accessible. and the engine manufacturers will be able to determine whether or not it was developing thrust at impact, I am confident the real situation will be revealed in due course.

So I will leave it to them, now.

But finally, in this months edition of Sport Aviation, the EAA magazine, there is an excellent article on 180 turnbacks, including NTSB statistics, on such. It was written by a former Shuttle commander and test pilot, so no armchair quarterback or amateur.

Yes, I know it refers to light aircraft but the principles are the same.

Well worth a read, whatever single you fly, you might be surprised, very surprised, at the statistics.

(Although the term altitude is used in the article wheras HEIGHT is the correct term)

Hi BA/BY, we ran a feature about practicing turnbacks in GASCo FlightSfety magazine last year, which concluded that - for a variety of reasons - it was generally better to go straight ahead and NOT turn back, and that practicing turn backs was fundamentally flawed if you initiate the sequence due to the absence of the 'startle' factor. Unfortunately I don't get Sport Aviation any more, but would be very interested in that article's conclusion. Would you be so kind as to provide me with a brief précis please?

There are many diagrams in the really excellent article, so I cant really precis it. EXCEPT to say that, in essence, if your aircraft glides at a steeper angle than its climbangle and you try a 180 you are NOT going to make it.

So please pm me your address and I will send you a copy with pleasure.

It should be read by EVERY GA pilot and I will discuss it at White Waltham when we get back, although my take off briefs never consider a turnback unless I am at least 500 feet AND the first 90 degree turn in the circuit is complete.

Perhaps some good will come out of this tragic accident.

I don't want to refute anyone's theories but I would like to present one of my one which I believe is quite probable.

After the initial engine problem, the natural instinct would be to initiate a slight bank away from Lead while conducting the Red Page actions (ZOOM, IDLE, AIRSTART). Because the pilot was in the right seat and turning away from his direct view out the right side of the the a/c, once he had initiated the zoom and bank his next priority would have been examining the engine instruments which would have been to his left. After a glance there and looking up, he realized that he had over-banked and continued the roll to the left to regain wings level with the horizon. Unfortunately, the pitch-up was excessive and the airspeed bled off during the roll and upon reaching wings level the only alternative remaining was to eject. Sadly, by that time the safe ejection parameters had been exceeded and we all know the result.

As for my background, I am a former RCAF pilot who last flew the Tutor in training over 20 years ago so I apologize for any inaccuracies. RIP Capt Casey and all the best wishes for a successful recovery for the pilot.

A copy as well please BA/BY, QFI's here can do turn backs if the numbers are aligned, but students are not permitted.

Great article in Sport Aviation, thanks. On that subject one of the best papers on the subject, in my opinion, is The Feasibility of Turnback from a Low Altitude Engine Failure During the Takeoff Climb-out Phase by Brent Jett, United States Naval Academy Aerospace Engineering Department, AIAA-82-0406. You can access it from here Prof Rogers It is based on a single engine GA aircraft.