Navajo - off airport landing south Brisbane - pilot OK
 

Courier Mail is reporting a twin down in a Hillcrest rail corridor south of Brisbane this morning - pilot OK, even though it looks like the whole front end into the cockpit is missing, and the starboard engine was torn off after impact with trees.

Cited as an 'aeromedical plane,' only the pilot on board - some mechanical issues forced the landing, they say in the article.

I just watched the 7 news report and the reporter said
‘I am told the pilot, a woman in her 30’s is a cattle farmers daughter and was flying it to get her hours up, being a cattle farmers daughter she is probably familiar with planes’ 🤣😂
geez I hope so.

Going by Flightradar24 it appears to be VH HJE landing just short of Archerfield in about the only clear area available not too long after first light
Congratulations to the pilot and hoping any injuries are minor

AirMed PA-31 VH-HJE down south of Archerfield
 

Pilot ‘minor injuries’ according to media. Very lucky if that is true.

https://www.9news.com.au/national/li...4-e636244d95f1

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-...ured/102200418

Appears to be a forced landing (asymmetric?) en-route from YSBK. Good job getting it into an area with few options and just after dawn. Awful thing to go through. Seriously hope the pilot gets the ongoing support needed.

Only 1 POB being the pilot. Will be interesting to find out what went wrong as it definitely should have been able to fly on one engine under normal circumstance.

Well it’s out of juice or it’s out of juice?

Nice landing but, considering suburbia below.

From some close up pictures looks like the RH prop is feathered and the LH one was in fine position and all bent back as if rotating at impact. Bankstown to Archerfield is a decent length flight for a PA-31, not max range though, definitely would need some aux fuel, maybe fuel related who knows. Looks like no gear out so probably happened very quick to decide to land there, although gear would be problematic with both engines failed due to no hydraulic pumps. I do like the 7 news comment that "she was familiar with aircraft", hmm gee, a pilot that has some knowledge of aircraft, but only because she was from a station.

PS; Looks like about 10 minutes before landing the speed came back significantly, to what looks like below blue line, then suddenly accelerates again with higher rate of descent until slowing for impact. Whatever happened started about 10-15 minutes before.

GT & BB move over. Channel 7 have their own aviation expert reporter now.

If it was low fuel and she was aware of it there are plenty of options along that route, Gold Coast just off to the right was one, Ballina before that, Lismore, etc etc...

For those curious, this looks to be where they landed, came in from the South but from the photos appear to have wrapped on that tree, spun around and ended up facing South. Looking at FlightRadar24 they didn't have a lot of time to decide with the rain and weather around either so big kudos on getting out with relatively minor injuries.

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/vh-hje

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....484169636.jpeg

Not the first time an aging ex Airtex Chieftain can’t maintain altitude on a single engine

Looks like she did a good job in what was most likely a very difficult situation.
In about 2 years time the ATSB will let us know what happened so we can learn from it!

It ran out of fuel

Well that’ll save an investigation

Why these old POS pistons are flying aeromedical flights in 2023 is beyond me. Should not be allowed.

In this case I think it would of had to have some other contributing factor. At such weight after long fuel burn and a single POB it would have to have some serious other drag to prevent it from flying. Considering the issue seems to have started some 10-15 minutes prior to the landing there should have been some radio communication. Apart from the few well known cases where PA31 have failed to perform on one engine there are also many others that have successfully flown on and landed without incident. I've personally had to land one with a feathered prop and it flew fine at medium load, I wouldn't want to test one at max weight on a hot day though...

Think this was a freight type flight as they do to/from Bankstown flights most nights

You can see into the back of the aircraft in a few of the scene pictures. It looks pretty empty in the back, unless of course somebody quickly removed evidence, but I doubt that would have been possible in the time available. Although the blue boxes in some of the pictures near the rear of the aircraft may have been the load, so maybe removed for some reason.

* They must have removed the load to get the pilot out looking at the scene, looks like no crew door or too damaged to open. Still eightish eskies would still only get you to mid weight of that size unless they are carrying lead weights or something, otherwise loading them would be a trial in itself if they were much more than 50kg each.

7News reporter on the scene.

https://7news.com.au/news/qld/light-...th--c-10276978

Flight radar or whatever you used simply is not accurate enough to draw conclusions about which side of blue line the aircraft was operating.

For initial certification all that was needed for most light twins was to demonstrate a one degree climb gradient at 5,000' PA at ISA with critical engine feathered and at AUW.. Always achieved by test pilot in brand new aircraft after many practice sessions. Having said that some light twins did it easily, others not so much.

If this is a case of fuel exhaustion its unforgivable.

There are rather a lot of data points around that portion of the flight, not surprising given its proximity to civilisation by then. I very much suspect that recorded speed will prove to be within a poofteeth of reality.

Checking the fuel issue can be a easy deal.

if she’s shut down an engine why are pilots reluctant to declare an emergency?

Those blue eskies are what they use for pathology sample transport and are fairly light, maybe 15Kg each.

Solid effort getting her on the ground and walking away. Nice job indeed!

Had bladders suck up occasional giving false indications.

Hence the 3% check.

Collapsed bladder - Back in the day :) VH CAR (I think?) turbo charged Aztec just north of Cairns, at night! Dead stick into the water everyone swam away. V nice work on that occasion.

The PA-31 series outstrip this requirement easily if loaded at light to mid weights. Again notwithstanding poorly maintained aircraft or pilots with poor technique, even the 40 year old machines will still perform if kept within limits. The only issue is close to max weight (or above) in low density/hot conditions.

No aircraft type will perform under the right circumstance of poor maintenance/poor technique or multiple failures involving damage. Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 529 is a good example of a transport category aircraft engine failure that led to a situation that the aircraft could not maintain altitude.

As for fuel bladder issues, this should be pretty easily covered by proper maintenance and disciplined fuel checks and records.

your welcome

Or maybe a tank or two ran out of fuel.

​​​​​​​Will be recruited to Qantas within months, ticks all the boxes.

The AirMed Chieftains are all gutted inside. Looking forward from the air stair, there is usually a crane in the aft luggage space, a stretcher on the right, two seats on the left in club config, two seats forward behind the cockpit. If they’re running samples interstate, they may have removed the stretcher. HJE has a crew door so a possible egress route in this case.

Why is this thread in an airline forum?

Moo-ney?

That was a nice TC Aztec. Apparently not waterproof

A betting person would say you’re on the money. Hard to think of anything else which would cause a double engine failure (as reported by Chanel 7 ) at the end of a flight.

​​​​​​​What speed would that be then? GS, IAS, CAS, ?

Was CAR ever found and pulled from the water to prove a bladder collapse ?. My memory says not.
Had passed Cooktown where fuel was available.

Are you going to persist in picking the fly **** out of the pepper? The various tracking websites disclose how data is derived and displayed, it's not difficult to find.