Trevor, There is no basis to suggest that he stopped flying. Not even the ATSB has suggested this and they are pretty good at leaps of logic. The pilot was one of the most experienced King Air pilots around. He'd just been put through the mill with 3 or more flight reviews. I'll bet that each one had at least one simulated engine failure.

Go and read the ATSB report on the Mojave Air ambulance accident at Bankstown. That pilot was heavily criticized for not making a mayday call. I guess you just cant win.

If I had a low level incident that had me worried, I'd be thinking about getting the services out early, which would prompt you to make a mayday call. Plus, the Mojave incident has burned in my mind that you need to make the mayday call to prevent AsA & ATSB from attacking you later.

Akro - you need to get past this idea that his experience equated to competence. I have a vast training background and I have been with 15,000 hour pilots that I wouldn't piss on and I have been with 1500 hour pilots that fly like eagles. EXPERIENCE DOES NOT NECESSARILY EQUAL COMPETENCE.. I have seen it so many times.

Forget the pixel method, Old Akro, I suggest it would be too erroneous. Just look at the impact marks diagram and associated analysis.

I believe there is a basis, Old Akro - the pilot's leg giving out. And I believe that is what the ATSB are getting at. When that happened, the aircraft would have gone into a situation of increased drag, reduced lift and reduced thrust - all of which made continued climb impossible.

Dead set serious, Leady.

King Air Down at Essendon
 

It may help to understand this crash by describing a crash of a Bonanza I witnessed at Archerfield some time ago.
A fully loaded Bonanza took off on 28.
At the time, I was working from building just to the south of the terminal building.
What drew our attention, was the Bonanza being airborne well before you’d expect to see it off the ground. The climb levelled out, then started again, then levelled out then went into a vertical climb ending in a stall turn and descent into the ground.
(it landed in the creek actually just near the 10 threshold).
Alarming to watch I can tell you.
It did this out of control manoeuvring because it was trimmed full nose up on the elevators.
It had returned to AF just prior to loading and the attempted departure of the crashed flight.
The aircraft was trimmed nose up from the previous landing when it attempted the takeoff.
So, during the Bonanza’s departure, the controls were just doing what the aerodynamics wanted them to do and simply overpowered the pilot.
Slow speed, the pilot could handle it but as the speed increased the trim position forced the elevators to full nose up and the pilot simply could not stop it doing so.
Now think of this B200.
It accelerates and starts veering left as the aerodynamics are forcing the rudder to yaw hard nose left.
I can only speculate of the pilot’s reaction but it must have been startling to him and he never gets his head around the problem and the solution.
The yaw continues, it gets airborne, secondary effect of yaw comes into play, and …
If the Bonanza pilot had recognised why the pilot was pushing so hard on the elevators, it should have followed that trim follows the control pressure.
Ditto with the B200 pilot.
And the other solution was in both cases, get off the power.

Get off the airspeed, I think you mean XYGT, but I know what you're getting at.

Trevor, A CASA FOI declared him to be competent about a year prior after extensive review.

The maydays were broadcast in the last 3 seconds before impact. I know the correct broadcast when you realize a crash is inevitable is a laconic "Ahhh sh*t" but we can't all have The Right Stuff.

XYGT is correct - one Jan Kennedy. I saw this accident too like I witnessed the fatal C206 accident at CAB that killed five souls. My statement to the coroner was that it appeared to me that the trim might have been left set for landing as the aircraft had no rapid pitch change that might have been associated with a seat rollback.

Competence = Knowledge, Recency and Discipline

Firstly, the ATSB rely heavily on the pixel method. It is the prime basis on which they argue that the aircraft was in a slideslip that caused reduced performance. Note, that the ATSB failed to investigate if the aircraft would climb in this configuration. Its speculation that it wouldn't.

Secondly, I'm not completely won over by the roof marks because a) from the time any part f the aircraft touched the roof, the path of the aircraft would have become violent and not fully predictable. The first part of the aircraft contacting would create yaw in itself. b) the propellor marks aren't fully consistent with the aircraft position they have outlined. I think the slash marks look like they are made with less aircraft yaw.

I think the work they did here was interesting, its just not intellectually rigorous enough to base their conclusion upon.

Regarding the pilots "leg giving out" you and I are just going to disagree. My reading is that the SIM pilot said that the rudder force was manageable at the airspeeds that the accident aircraft was flying. The sadness is that the ATSB didn't undertake the SIM exercise diligently. It should have replicated the incident aircraft's flight condition. In which case we wouldn't be debating the implications of comma's.

He reached brain CPU overload before leg muscle forces overload!
Aircraft doing what it was doing and not thinking once about rudder trimming your aircraft for a little help!?




Really? :confused:

If the whole thing only took 12 seconds, then spending the last 25% of it on the radio was probably about as useful as anything else.

I understand that the B200 is certified under FAR 23. Paraphrasing FAR 23.677 it says essentially that the aircraft should have enough control authority to land in any trim position. The wording suggests they are primarily referring to elevator trim. Does anyone know if this is tested for rudder trim?

In a similar vein, I note that the ATSB report indicates did not consult Raytheon. If the ATSB is asserting that the B200 cannot be flown with full rudder trim, wouldn't it be worth an email to the manufacturer to see if they flight tested this condition????