PPRuNe Forums - C210 down Groote Eylandt

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- - C210 down Groote Eylandt (https://www.pprune.org/pacific-general-aviation-questions/653220-c210-down-groote-eylandt.html)

Quote:

Originally Posted by PoppaJo (Post 11494513)

I get that.

But what’s the first question the CP will ask you in this one? You were on a close right base for 28, why didn’t you pull the power, apply flap and land on 28? Instead they went on some bizarre low level, no flap, track alongside the runway, over buildings, that put them on the road upside down, and landing at 90kts.

If you look at the descent point here on the report, you could not pick a more perfect spot for a 28 glide approach. It was all lined up perfectly.

They got it down, and made it out alive, that’s the main thing, sure, but we all know many CPs won’t accept what went on here, considering they were set up perfectly for a glide approach for 28.

Perhaps it’s the operator and its training? Who knows. All forms part of the investigation.

I think there is two parts to this, the engine issue and the forced landing attempt.

Have to agree there, almost 2km of runway, only 400 ft on a close base, full flap and idle should have made an easy landing with lots of runway to spare. Will be very interested to see what comes out of the final report as to why they flew that path.

On partial engine failures, they can be worse than a full failure, as you can get stuck between whether you need to land, or have enough to make it somewhere better. As said above, once an engine has lost some of it's power to a component failure, how likely is that it will lose more power progressively or suddenly. I know of several partial failures that have ended up off runway as the engine progressively lost more power the longer they were airborne. I usually threw a partial failure at a student in the form of saying that they had x amount of power, and they had to come up with a plan to deal with it. I was never looking for an exact procedure, apart from following the same engine failure trouble checks and looking for somewhere to land as soon as possible, knowing it could lose all power very quickly. It was more to prove an engine 'failure' does not always mean total power loss, but you can still use the same checks to try and restore power. Sometimes after they had planned to fly to x, i'd pull the power to idle and say, 'it just quit', turning it into a regular PFL.

I think this young pilot did an amazing job.
This pilot didn’t have the luxury of thinking over a few days of the best course of action.
He only had time to make ONE decision and he made the right one.
I’m a 24,000 hour pilot and I think this 300 hour pilot did an exceptional job.
I hope he’s back in the air continuing his career.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sid Departure (Post 11498004)

This pilot didn’t have the luxury of thinking over a few days of the best course of action.

You shouldn’t need to.

You are at 400ft on a base leg with a 2km piece of runway to your right, with no assumed engine power.

What do you do?

Quote:

He only had time to make ONE decision and he made the right one.

I think the data showed the decision to be 'left' initially, and then 'right when they tried to line up with the side of the runway. Did they make the correct decision? Probably not, looks like they decided to turn back, but forgot to decide when to slow down and take flap, just because the outcome is safe does not mean it was a good decision. I could be speeding, skid off the road, bounce off several trees and survive with no injuries, did any of my decisions save me?

I don't think this was an 'amazing' feat of aviating, but it was enough.

I reckon if he had landed without incident on the runway the language would be 'he did what he was trained for'. So I can't see how missing the runway completely is somehow 'amazing'.