Seaplane flipped Jumpinpin
 

Reported as no injuries fortunately. Jumpinpin is the break between the two sections of Stradbroke Island, between Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
https://7news.com.au/news/qld/emerge...oast-c-9565050

At least the gear was up.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....988aca0af.jpeg

https://7news.com.au/news/qld/emerge...oast-c-9565050

PS Looking more closely at the nose gear, I’m not so sure.

They are Zenith floats - The nose gear does not fully disappear when retracted.

Thanks T5. I'm more familiar with Edo amphibs.

Stalled after take off. The water looked a little rough and the aircraft may have become airborne prematurely.

That’ll buff out.

Just went out on a nice Australia Day to dab his feet in the water with his GF and some pesky JetSki wake brought him undone.

DAB his feet you say? I was trying to think of something like that too. What a friggen shame. Nice plane, as we know.

The struggle to get airborne seemed to indicate marginal excess power?

Anyone able to identify the aircraft type?

It was hot ! Forget the forecast, it was 36 on the water at that time referenced Jacobs Well Marine Rescue about 8 kms away

All seaplanes look as though they are struggling until they get up on the step.

It doesn't take much vertical component dropping onto the sea surface to flip a float plane, especially in some chop. Just about anything that's not perfectly normal and it will flip, and return it to the most positive state of stability.

No idea what caused this one, but there's so many possibilities that lead to said picture that with out an actual witness video it's impossible to say what happened.

Boat wake, sudden wind change, slightly bigger wave action, porpoising, floats nose into a wave, two or three mosquitoes hit one wing, a duck farts nearby, will all result in flipping over. Which is why the insurance premiums are huge.

Becoming airborne prematurely is not really a big thing with float planes, everything is sucking it onto the water, pull back hard and it will just dig its heels in and slow down.

If its got enough power to charge through the water anywhere near flying speed it will have enough power to fly once it breaks the hydrodynamic bonds. Getting something to accelerate on water takes a lot more power than on land.

We can see what happened. He got airborne and stalled...but why?

Witness Video:

Not sure its a stall, am I imagining that the right float seems to wobble a bit too much on one of the last bounces making it slide right, then it gets airborne. Wonder if they felt the float let go and tried to put back down on the left and got a bit too much sideways.

Possibly was at flying speed and felt the float go and cut power and pulled back to stop, but got airborne and drifted left.

It definitely looks like a minefield for floatplanes with watercraft and some chop.

Next plane is named...... UNSINKABLE 2 Couldn't resist.

Have a look at that jetski coming in hot from the left. Wonder if he's seen that coming and thought "SCHIDT!!" He does do a little jink to the right.

It stalled because it wasn’t at the required flying speed and no flap was used.

2 POB, hot day, lots of waves and wake, lack of experience… the Swiss cheese aligned yet again.

Hope the driver and occupants are ok.

But this is a true straya day vid, well the commentary anyway!

Dad - it’s crashed
Kids - oh **** oh **** oh ****

Repeated.

Now it don’t get any more Strayan than that! Tell im he’s dreamin love, then again the prop could go straight to the pool room.

... as the background music sings "We're just two lost souls swimmin' in a fish bowl..." :o

The how is pretty clear - not enough lift at the port wing - but the why is less certain.

Not sure I can agree with all of Squawk's comments (we don't know the driver's experience for example) but T-bird 5 does offer a plausible explanation for the final hole in the cheese (along with several other possibilities).

There's no question that the jetski appears to enter a sharp turn almost at the same time the a/c becomes airborne. Taking into account reaction times etc I agree the driver could have been attempting to avoid the a/c around the same time the a/c driver pulled up prematurely and rather abruptly in order to miss the jetski that was on a potential collision course. Difficult to fully determine the angles etc from that camera view, but I don't believe it can be discounted at this point.

Another thing I contemplated, from the dry comfort of my office chair several thousand miles away, is whether it would have been possible to 'rescue' the a/c had one of the boaties been quick enough. Throw a line around the topside wing and gently pull downside, and/or get some flotation under the lower wing perhaps? Not a criticism, just trying to learn from this situation should one ever be in a similar situation.

FP.

The only role the JetSki played here was as a first responder.


I wonder why he took off with no flap? (Asking for a friend)