Investigation Wrapping Up
 

From the Herald Sun paper today 26-Feb-18

DFO crash investigation wraps up
Air crash investigators have pinpointed why a doomed plane plummeted into Essendon's DFO killing five people but the ATSB is keeping reasons under wraps until at least late May.

I'm going to predict that it will be something generic and high-level and will leave us wondering why it panned out the way it did.

Eg, veered off runway, prop struck and damaged engine then took off, but we will never know why it ran off.

March has come and gone and still no report.

April has come and gone and still no report. The ATSB statement on February 9 looks pretty hollow now.

I'm with XEPTU. I believe the seat went backwards on full power application and the aeroplane took off on its own
and flew where ever it wanted. At no stage it was under control.

What PTT, I have one on the boom of my headset, if in fact it has been established that the pilot was the one that actually made those transmissions and not the passenger seated next to him., in the 5 of the 9 airborne seconds. it's clear in my mind that the aircraft was not controlled from the moment takeoff power was set. A runway excursion on this runway in this class of aircraft is extraordinary in itself. I can hardly wait for the final report, it was completed in February and a ninety day right of response from the parties is required, so expect it to be released about mid may. I look forward to being substantially corrected.

Mr. Lead,
It's true - his noodleness sometimes operates in strange ways..:D

Takeoff, or any phase with thunderstorms present, or any phase where I have allowed my own laziness or stupidity to put me in a situation that will require all the powers of my better character to save my fat carcass.
Most stressful part of the job is explaining each payday to the wife. :hmm:

Is Stressful the right word. I don't find any part stressful when everything is going well. Whilst every part of flying requires diligence, which would be the order of highest, in my view, Takeoff, Approach, Landing, Descent, Climb, Cruise. The most stressful part is driving to work.

But since you asked for stressful, uncontrolled engine fire, smoke in the cabin at night along way to an adequate, depressurisation or engine failure over a mountain range, multiple thunderstorm activity where the base is below 3,000 feet, just to name a few.

In my albeit relatively short period of time in PNG I would have said 'Depends on where, when, what and the weather at the time. With a combination of all or some of the above mentioned!

There are others on this site with far more PNG time than I who could speak with far more authority.

These days all I do is Glider Towing so I would list the Takeoff as the prime.

LVO Taxy.

This accident has been over speculated. We need the ATSB to do its job and publish the report.

In Feb the ATSB put out a media release essentially saying that the report was done but release was delayed because of a requirement to give interested parties time to comment with the inference that this involving international parties was increasing this period to 60 days. This 60 day period has now elapsed by 30 days and still no report.

The exact same update was issued on the same day for the 3 September 2015 incident at Mt Hotham with VH-OWN & VH-LQR- an incident that occurred 32 months ago. .

The list of pending reports has grown to 109.

This is from the ATSB's current strategic plan:
" The Government’s recent Budget measures, and the ATSB’s organisational change program, position the ATSB to reduce its investigation backlog and increase its capacity to complete complex investigations within 12 months, which is a key deliverable of the ATSB."

The ATSB is clearly failing to do its job by any measure.

I think we will be waiting quite a while for this report to come out; according to the ATSB investigation status the report is still at "Final Report: Internal Review". That means it likely hasn't even gone to the DIPs yet, if it had the status should be "Final Report: External Review".

And yes they do appear to work at a cracking pace!! Snail wise I mean.

841 posts and nobody has mentioned control/gust/rudder locks... just sayin'...