Light aircraft down in Belgium - 2 fatalities
 

Het Nieuwsblad - Gemeente Hasselt: Dodelijke vliegtuigcrash in Borgworm

Fatalities instructor (possibly 53 years old) and student.

"witness" heard sputtering engine. Pics show completely crumpled aircraft, make unknown.

Crash occurred at 1430 local time, flight took off from Brustem EBST Brustem airport / Daniel Joly

It's not a twin. It's a Piper Tomahawk.

Crikey, thats a bit of a mess! Poor blokes.

My thoughts are with their families at this sad and tragic time

Stude

TWR do you know at what part of the Syllabus they were?

I learned on the Tomahawk, and even flew it for fun later as a "throw around" but like many I disliked the incipient spin demonstration during training.

OO-MSG for those interested. Yes it looks like they made a hard impact, the guys didn't stand a chance. RIP indeed, and my sympathy with those who will miss them.

Looking at the insignificant horizontal distribution of the wreckage, I don't think what they were doing was exactly in the syllabus.

Just like that Baron.

I don't know what happened. Apparently there are witness reports about engine roughness and others talk about a spiraling downward motion. Anyway, if I ever have
an engine failure, I hope I have a similar field below me...

Edit: This newspaper mentions stall practice, but their source is unknown to me...

Hasselt - 'Vliegtuigcrash in Borgworm mogelijk te wijten aan stuurfout bij standaardoefening' - Hbvl.be

No way this accident can be a failed (controlled) emergency landing, even a stall in the flare would not create such devastation.

As this is a rumour network, perhaps some failed linkage to the horizontal stabilizer or some other structural failure in the T tail during stall training?

Surely an instructor should be able to recover from a student induced spin during stall training?

Yes, given sufficient altitude.

It does look a little unusual. I guess there are a few possible scenarios here including but not limited to structural failure, wake turbulence, physical or mental impairment due to CO poisoning.

As more facts are made public it may become obvious to the pilot community what the most likely cause is. If not, then we do the usual and wait for the accident report.

It seems there have been a rash of accidents in the last couple of weeks. Can't help wondering if the great weather is drawing out the less than current pilots. (this is not intended to be speculation on the cause of this particular accident)

My condolences to those who knew those lost in this accident.

Jan

I would assume the stall training (or incipient spin demonstration) to have been done at sufficient altitude....... instructor's responsibility.

Fleetflyer

I agree however this was a training accident, so this one would be the odd one out.... Is there a reason you mention wake turbulence?

The only reason I mentioned wake turbulence is that its a good way to pop a perfectly serviceable light aircraft into the ground. Its also a feasible 'gotcha' for an instructor to overlook. I think its very unlikely that the instructor was demonstrating or training incipient spins at too low an altitude to revcover should a spin develop. The Tomhawk has been discussed at length on this forum and its 'wobbly' tail in a spin has had people worried, but those worries were quashed by others who said that the tail had never actually failed in a spin. This makes structural failure seem unlikely. From a skills point of view, P1 was an instructor who presumably was competent (the Tomahawk is after all a simple trainer rather than a high wing-loading complex widow maker) This makes me believe its unlikely that the aircraft was mis-handled in some way. This path of deduction leaves only a few probable causes; That neither pilot was able to handle the aircraft (carbon monoxide poisoning). That there was some sort of altercation/sucidal student or instructor (unlikely but has happened before). That there was a structural failure (already discussed as unlikely) That the aircraft was made uncontrollable by an external factor. In CAVOK close to the ground, this may be wake turbulence. I don't know that this is likely as I don't know where the aircraft was operating, but it seems fesible. Out of all the options, I would regard the most likely as either wake turbulence or CO poisoning. I sincerely hope it was the latter.

Isn't the contrary true i.e. so many people got killed in them that Piper stopped making them after only ~ 2 years?

My 20hrs in the PA38 taught me that it is a flimsy piece of junk, about as well made as a tent from Milletts, leaks like a siv in the rain, has a crappy elevator trim which is often so bad (it sticks) that pilots don't bother using it, and if you stall it it drops a wing very fast and plummets at a few thousand fpm. You would not want to be doing stalls or anything like that in it, under a few thousand feet.

Even if you want to fly it on a normal flight, it is quite twitchy and the difficulty of trimming it properly makes it tiring to fly. Learning in them is a waste of the student's money, IMHO.

Is the area of this accident applicable to wake turbulence from jets?

A bit further
 

Reading the article the occupants were found deceased when the police and help got there.

I don't think so, they must have been on the verge of the Liege (EBLG) TMA so were supposed to keep below 2500 AMSL. Liege is busy with cargo heavies.

How about a PFL gone wrong? Could put them close to the ground with insufficient height to recover.

I don't usually like all the speculation after an accident, but was just wondering what situation might lead to an inadvertent stall/spin accident during a training flight away from the airfield. If indeed that is what we are looking at. The disruption to the airframe seems to indicate it spun in with no horizontal speed component at all.

I have seen a lot of the these type of aircraft sitting around with grass growing around them. there where afew around when i was training to be a pilot. i asked my instructor what they where like. her response was they are not good for low time pilots.

And ten years on you see very few of these aircraft in training roles in Australia.

I have no idea if it was a spin. But i am sure it was not a engine failure.

Paul

PA-38-112 Flat Spin Mode ON

Most airplanes spin with the nose pitched down below the horizon. However, if the nose of the airplane begins to rise, a flat spin may develop. FAA Advisory Circular 61-67B, "Stall and Spin Awareness Training," states that a flat spin is characterized by a near-level pitch and roll attitude and that recovery from a flat spin may be extremely difficult and, in some cases, impossible (because airflow disruptions prevent the flight control surfaces from effecting spin recovery). Section 23 221 states that it must be impossible to obtain unrecoverable spins with any use of the flight or engine power controls either at the entry into or during the spin. However, during the Board’s review of PA-38-112 accidents/incidents, the Safety Board learned of several incidents in which unsafe, flat spins have been encountered in the PA-38-112.

PA-38-112 Flat Spin Mode OFF

Source (NTSB)