Light Aircraft Crash on Isle of Wight
 

BBC News reporting light aircraft accident on Isle of Wight.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/h...re/6932146.stm

We were joining the circuit at the time and saw the smoke and flames

Was a Cherokee 140 with 4 on board from Tatenhill (so we were told by the movements people) had refuelled and was taking off for France on RW23 with a light xwind varying in direction so could have had a tailwind, witness's reported it was very low at the end of the runway, just made it over the garden centre and trees beyond in a very nose high attitude and descended into the field beyond

RIP condolences to the families

Very sad news indeed, especially as Tatenhill is my local airfield.

Just goes to show it can happen to anyone.

Condolences to the families of the people involved.

Hmm looks like the a/c was over its operating limit - what with the heat - lots of fuel and the 3 passengers. God bless those involved..

744FO

I didn't want to say it myself but a PA28 140 with 4 POB and full fuel is way over weight.

But it is a terrible tragedy never the less.

I might add that we do not know if the aircraft was overweight. It is highly possible it stopped at IoW for enough fuel to get it from IoW to it's destination in France with enough reserve and to remain in W&B. And for my tupence worth I think this is the case, after all a PA28 should be able to do Tatenhill to queit a few places in france on a full tank. Being 4 up I am willing to put money on the fact the pilot done his W&B correctly and took enough fuel to get to IoW and so on.

Again terrible tragedy.

A very sad accident, but it could have been a lot worse if the plane hadn't made it over the H&J garden centre that would have been full of people at midday on a Sunday.
I've been over there a few times, and wondered whether they might get an unwelcome aerial visitor one day. With the new runway attracting more and possibly heavier traffic the garden centre people may be getting nervous.

hot
 

I flew yesterday with my instructor and since I am just finishing off my PPL it was the first time I had flown in hot humid weather.

Nothing different about the aircraft, full fuel as usual. I was really surprized about the takeoff performance, the take off run did not feel right, there was a reluctance to leave the ground, but the real surprize was the climb rate, it felt around 40-50% slower. I of course was checking the configuration and engine settings to work out was was wrong. It was my instructor pointing out the poor performance due to the temperature. The aircraft is a bulldog.

I know the comment is not related to the incident directly, but just an observation on how I found this weather to affect aircraft performance.

Unfortunately for those concerned they did not learn from the same accident about ten years ago at the same airport with the same aircraft (PA28 140) and the same weather conditions. Thanks to people who dont learn from History airfields like Sandown will end up closed my mother has got a house not too far from the site and is having a hissy fit about aircraft. The old git will now join the local noise committee and will probably become one of the constant moaners. She does have reason now to complain and whinge !!! As stated in previous post the 140 is not the best perfomer and may be it should have been pointed out to pilot.(You can not make a silk purse out out of a pigs ear)
It is a very sad outcome for all involved, but they successfully created an incident and accident which has already been proved!

Notwithstanding the obvious, any number of reasons could be attributed to this awful accident...

My condolences to all concerned.

Been a busy GA aviation day today due to the lovely WX.

Remember to maintain a good lookout and take into consideration the aircraft's reduced performance on such unusually nice days this summer.

Let us not jump to conclusions involving pilot error at this stage tho. For all we know he had engine probs etc...

VFE.

Another tragic day. I hope that none of our regular contributors were on board..... :sad:

I watched a Warrior stagger out of Eggesford four-up towards the hill at the end of 29 a couple of years ago. The pilot had been warned by several of us individually that it would be very dodgy. We all stood there waiting for the crash but he somehow got away with it. The attitude of the aircraft as he tried to climb out of ground effect was terrifying.

If this aircraft was a 140 and they were four-up with fuel and no reliable headwind on a warm day then the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

The Colombian Cessna 182 video whould be mandatory viewing ten times for all PPL students and about yearly for the rest of us.

QDM,
Agree totally. How sad. Remember Bournmouth and Dunkeswell a few years ago.

Just must be a serious training problem. We all have to fly with the realities of aerodynamics.

MikeJ

We don't know this. We don't know that he had full fuel. According to the BBC, there were either 3 or 4 people on board; it's not clear which. And we don't know that if there were four, they weren't all 7 stone or less.

I don't usually complain about people speculating on threads such as this, as I think it's useful. But speculation is one thing, and acing as prosecutor, judge and jury, on the basis of extremely few facts, is quite another. There could have been any number of reasons for this accident, so let's not jump to conclusions.

Well said, Whirlybird. Somebody needed to!

Wind your neck in (Been There seen it and done it )My sis is going to do auto.

Well said Whirlybird.

FL

We flew in to Bembridge today. We were warned before arrival that they had no fuel. Obviously pure speculation but because of the longer, harder runway Bembridge would, I guess, have been the preferable choice. It is possible that Sandown was their second choice. Links in the chain perhaps?

To further whirly's comments :-

An aircraft which is has been loaded correctly with the W & B checked and checked again can still show the characteristics which have been described in earlier posts, for mechanical reasons such as a stuck valve. I have seen an aircraft ditched as it had a stuck valve in high outside air temps. It was making noise but not really going anywhere. Pilot opted to ditch instead of trying to keep it flying.

WARNING :- Speculation below;
It is possible that the pilot in this incident, reached a point of no return and was trying to keep away from the garden centre ending up low, slow with high nose attitude leading to an insipient spin.

Regardless we cannot undo this accident, so lets all see what we can learn from it when the facts start coming out.

Extremely sad to learn of this tragedy. Was airbourne at the time en-route to Cranfield from Dunkeswell. Only my second time in a light aircraft (C172).

My condolences to the families.

horrible news :( Thoughts to all the familys :(

My girlfriend pointed out the accident on the news, and I have to admit the very first thing I though was W&B and performance on a hot day :(, whats the hight of the airfield?

But all speculation, poor chaps could quite easily had a partial engine failure, so don't jump to rash conclusions.

And remember kids, boring as it may be, a 5 min W&B and take off performance check might mean your next departure won't be your last :(

What runway direction was Sandown operating at the time?

I understand it was RWY23..

They were landing on 23, taking off on 05 when we arrived, unaware of any previous events. It was all quite jolly, as has been posted by another visitor on another forum.

The breeze was quite wafty everywhere in the south yesterday. Having experienced and watched arrivals and takeoffs at a fly-in earlier the only clear thing was that hot, humid weather with little useful wind concentrates the mind.

Enough factors there, even at low level airfields, to keep us humble, whatever the facts were in this sad event.

How far from the end of the runway did it crash?

If it cleared buildings it must have been out of ground effect, IMHO.

As another Tatenhill flyer, does anybody know whether this was one of the two club PA28's or privatley owned?

Condolences to anyone connected to this sad event.

M

"Police name four who died in light aircraft fireball"
-rather confusing as it starts off talking about a helicopter in Cumbria!

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/a...all/article.do

The names refer to the Cumbria heli crash on Friday Night

Yes, they have conflated the two accidents into one. Can we ever believe anything printed in the press?

I'm not entirely sure that the unfortunate victims of the Cumbria heli crash were on their way to shoot pheasants in Scotland either. The pheasant season is closed, and the grouse season has yet to open.

At the time of the crash RW 23 was the runway in use for T/O's and Landings

After landing our new mode S (Garmin) was giving a temp of 24 and a density altitude of 1400'

Sorted:

The article has 'disappeared'.

Safe (and accurate) flying.

Cusco;)

I haven't read the whole thread, but I have a number of hours in a PA28-140, including having done the whole IR in one so I have actually read the handbook, and if there really were four adults in there, of anywhere near the average "modern British" size, plus any useful fuel, there would have been very little point in doing a W&B calculation....... it would have been massively overloaded. I recall 3 adults and fuel somewhere below tabs = MTOW.

OTOH, if the crash happened 2km after the end of the runway, after the aircraft climbed high enough to clear a building, I don't see how W&B could be the primary cause, because one can get more or less anything into the air if one has enough distance, and once it's flying (out of ground effect) then it's just a case of a slow and gentle climb. There have been cases of massively overloaded transport jets (where the pilots presumably didn't know about density altitude etc) taking many miles to climb a few thousand feet after departure from Heathrow or Gatwick, obviously ending up in Class G.

Unless one is flying into rising terrain, but I have just looked at the 1:50k O/S map of the area and can't see rising terrain beyond about 150ft AAL, on anywhere near the runway 23 heading.

As Whirly said, enough speculation, people.
This is a real bummer of an accident, on a beautiful day, from a super grass airfield.
So, again, let's just wait for the results of the enquiry, eh.

The crash site is about the same asl as the airport. There is a significant hill further SW on that flightpath but he didn't get that far.

IO

I once took a 140 (actually with a 150hp engine) and 4 POB - me - circa 12.5 stones, my dad 8.5 stones (really), my young daughter (5 stones) and a mate (13 stones.) Less than 1/2 tanks, month August, about 22 deg.

We started to roll for a local and I rejected the takeoff as I wasn't happy with the acceleration.

Went back to the flying club, the CFI saw what happened and met me.

Did the perf calcs together and established aircraft 50 lbs under gross.

The CFI insisted on cancelling the time on the aircraft on the basis that he wished to support a safe decision.

Two weeks later, the aircraft suffered a catastrophic engine failure, on the ground.

There are so many unknowns in this accident, god bless all of them.

I often wonder what would have happened if we had continued.

F3G

Indeed; what I am getting at is that there may have been a loss of power.

“if one has enough distance, and once it's flying (out of ground effect) then it's just a case of a slow and gentle climb.”

Works unless you hit a downdraft in which case you are going to fall out of the sky. There was quite a lot of thermals, lots of air rushing up and down, it could easily have taken him out if the aircraft was over weight or had lost some power.

Rod1

Was neither one of Tatenhills two club PA28's or privatley owned, it was fbased at Tatenhill untill approx 18 months ago

I0540 wrote

and if there really were four adults in there, of anywhere near the average "modern British" size, plus any useful fuel, there would have been very little point in doing a W&B calculation....... it would have been massively overloaded. I recall 3 adults and fuel somewhere below tabs = MTOW.




It depends on what weight you put as 'modern British' and what you deem useful fuel is.

I for one have flown a PA28 140, four adults with useful fuel for distance of trip and 45 mins reserve, at MAUW but within W&B envelope.

Guys, i really don't think speculating over the cause of a tragic accident like this is going to do anyone any good.

I just hope there are as many people who will read and learn from the accident report as there are those who speculate on this forum.