Beech down
 

Any news on the Baron down on the way to Jersey? All in hospital safe I think. Shame to lose the aircraft though. Hope they are not badly hurt, and recover swiftly. I assume was a private flight, not many Barons on AOCs.

Safe flying all.

Not as good news as you hoped, sadly. BBCi are now (1523 today) reporting two fatalities and one survivor in hospital.

From the BBC report it sounds like they had no raft and two of them died of hypothermia.

Channel water temp is just under 10 C today (link), which gives a survival time of less than one hour without suits or rafts.

So sorry to hear of this news.

From sailing and flying around the CIs it is a desolate sea in the middle of winter. I can only imagine how terrifying it must be to be in it.

Sky reporting it was enroute Coventry-Guernsey

What a waste. Then again you would not expect a twin to ditch I suppose unless both engines failed (fuel?)....

Aircraft ditches off Alderney
 

Just watched Channel TV. reports of a twin enroute from Coventry to Alderney ditching between Cherbourg and Alderney. French rescue service's rescued one and recovered two bodies. Very sad to all concerned, appears to have had double engine failure whilst talkin to Jersey ATC....!!

any info on what this a/c is? and if its from the flight schools at cov?

OMG, just heard about in on the news. My condolences to the families, we were probably one of the last units to speak to them. The sea is about 9 degrees at the moment which reduces survival times considerably without suits.

Well done to the French SAR for getting at least one out alive.

RIP

Beechcraft, both engines lost I believe. Very sad day again for aviation.

I understand an Auriginy aircraft followed the aircraft down then marked the position till the rescue service's arrived on scene.

eldridge
 

My condolences to fellow flyers family, just to let friends know that it was not me as I often fly a baron from covenrty to alderney.

Very sad news indeed. As a light twin driver I'm very interested to know what brought down a solid aircraft like the Baron 58.

If I recall the Apache light twin I flew a many years ago, single engine failure just gave you a bit more time to think about where you were going to stuff it down. However, all the bu******g about with feathering, trimming not to mention making sure you had the correct engine stopped just increased the sweatability rating.

Sad news....

I started a thread earlier on "Rumour and news" after watching film of the recovery on Channel TV. Surviver was in a life-raft, aircraft was working Jersey ATC at the time, they seem to have vectored an Auriginy aircraft to follow the aircraft down then circled overhead till the French rescue service's arrived. the survivor was suffering mild hypothermia, sadly 2 fatal.

May they RIP.. better put a raft in the plane, even if you have a twin..because they all got out of the plane assumably well ?

Two double engine failures in a week. Very unusual indeed and very tragic in this case.

Good to see the French pulled out all the stops to help. On the BBC video report it does show someone in a dinghy next to an inflatable so perhaps they did have a raft?

Very sorry to hear that. Such a shame. Probably will never be able to understand this accident, with the aircraft under water.

Last year I was providing a service to a BE58 that ended up having a double engine failure over the mountains in not very nice weather!!! Eventually got one engine restarted and scrapped back to NC via the M6!!!! The eventual outcome was fuel mismanagement!!!

As far as I am aware the a/c reported a rough running engine, which soon became a double engine failure. The pilot apparently got one of the engines started again and was heading towards the cherbourg coast when it failed a 2nd time. The a/c did have a liferaft which the survivor was found in, the other 2 were found face down in water. The a/c was originally routing cvt-gci, my sincere condolences go to all the families and praise to those involved in the rescue.

I know there are single points of failure in piston twins for electrics (the master switch being one of them) but losing both engines in non-icing conditions, over the sea, surely has to be running out of fuel?

Perhaps fuel contamination with water? Does this type feed both engines from the same tank?

Anyone know the reg of the aircraft involved?

Food for thought here.....http://www.thomaspturner.net/Fuel.htm

N2326Y, a sad day

Thank you for that URL, fisbangwollop. Interesting...

A very experienced instructor friend of mine once told me a story of how he reckoned he was 2 mins from double engine failure in a Seneca (with one tank still full!) . During the taxy checks the cross feeds are checked. In this case his student didn't return one of the cross feeds to ON - and his mistake, he didn't check. The result was that both engines were feeding from the same tank. The "problem" is that the left engine returns fuel to the left tank, and right to the right tank - the result with full tanks is that one tank is being drained at 30 gals per hour, and the other full tank is being fed with return fuel, which gets dumped overboard if the tank is full.

Of course when they noticed this, they crossfed from the other tank and everything was ok.

I have just looked up N2326Y....

Does anyone know when it last changed hands or anything about it? I have a very nasty suspicion that I have flown in this aeroplane.........

Ta....

Registered Owner

Name SOUTHERN AIRCRAFT CONSULTANCY INC TRUSTEE StreetTHE COT COT VALLEY ST JUST CityCORNWALL StateFOREIGN Zip Code TR19 -7NT CountyCountryUNITED KINGDOM

That is just the N-reg trustee. He has about 200 planes on his name.

The usual procedure is to google on the tail number.

It's all very sad and so pointless. I am used to flying with a fuel flowmeter accurate to 1% and I can usually tell if some airport pump has been "adjusted" to over-read by a few % (this is sometimes found in the more southern parts of Europe). It's easy to forget that the vast majority of GA pilots, even twins, fly without accurate fuel instruments and therefore on guesswork. Conservative guesswork usually, and OK if one remains very conservative. Unfortunately, if one is sufficiently conservative to be safe, one ends up chucking away a large part of one's usable range.

English Al,

We painted the aircraft in 2001 @ Sturgate. The Aircraft was based in Lincolnshire at Gamston and Wickenby and Gerry Cooper of Cooper Aerial Surveys used to look after it for the owner at that time. Not long after it was resprayed it was put up for sale with various brokers but not sure if it sold or not.

Thanks....

I think I've found the answer I was looking for. It is not the same one. The Gamston link got me wondering....

Cheers.

This is the latest picked up from the net.

RUGBY man survived after his plane crashed into the English Channel, killing two of his colleagues.

My thoughts go out to all the family and friends of these 2 people who were killed in this accident.......I was lucky enough to work with one the guy's who died in this accident for a period of time...He was a warm genuine caring guy with a heart of gold...Sadly missed by lots, hope you are at peace. The world had lost an amazing bloke and we all have lost an true friend...

Forever in our thoughts

A labour of love
 

My earliest recollection when I first moved to Airpark at CVT with my aircraft was of Rodney up to his neck in grease working on the Baron. From memory he was chasing an oil leak which he finally cracked but not before making a few good puddles on the pristine floor of the Airpark hangar.

I always found Rodney to be a thoroughly agreeable bloke - very knowledgable about the business and always happy to help. I hope all who's lives were touched by Rodney and the other people involved in this tragey will remember the joy that aviation brought to their lives.

englishal

we had a female driver in Stephan Baths Baron do excatly the same and wrote it off in field landing - luckily with no injuries other than pride - scratches - heaps of fuel vented and heaps on board but incorrect feed and supply - donks stopped - very expensive.

Also huge praise for the reeny tri driver and pax on board his plane for watching events unfold then the feeling of help-less-ness after ditching - whilst helping other sar services in locating which could easily of ended up being 3 fatals if they didnt help......

A thought i have had for years which is relevant to the thread and i would welcome opinions: " Why dont fixed wing mfrs have a blister in the fuselage where a liferaft or dinghy can be loaded for overwater flights... it should be far easier to get access to the external of the aircraft after ditching than internal???? :(

Re the liferaft storage idea - they aren't exactly light and would cause a CofG problem in many GA aircraft if they were 'outside' the cabin/baggage area of the fuselage.

It would appear that there was a raft in this sad occurrence which unfortunately 2 of the people didn't manage to get into. The survivor was quite an experienced PPL(A) holder, by the way.

mmmmm - my fault for not explaining in technical terms - the CofG issue is not an issue, due to the vast array of technical liferafts available - think BRS for scope, location etc - there are many, many, many technical liferafts in production - this is not the thread or place to get diverted from the incident in question just purely a general comment - idea..!

Appreciate where you are coming from tho...