Crash landing Eindhoven
 

A Rushmeyer crash landed at Rotterdam airport.
A vague picture and some info in Dutch:

Piloot gecrasht vliegtuig Eindhoven in kritieke toestand - AD

Pilot is in critical condition, anybody more info?

###Ultra Long Hauler###

EDIT: Eindhoven airport of course, NOT Rotterdam! That´s what you get when you post from a cellphone while doing 5 things at the same time.
I requested a thread title change wit the mods.
My apologies, folks!

Would this relate to the same crash? Not that there's much info, as yet.

Jammer op EHEH - Airwork

From Equador I can imagine it doesn't matter all that much, but there really is a difference between Eindhoven and Rotterdam/the Hague. Particularly if you're a Football (soccer) fan.

The pilot was executing a flight on behalf of the Stichting Hoogvliegers (Hoogvliegers Foundation). This is a Dutch charity that offers experience flights to sick/disabled children. One such child was on board, together with his brother and dad. His mom was witness to the crash from the ground.

I'm one of the main volunteers for this charity so I'm involved in the aftermath. As such, I know a lot of details but I'm not allowed to divulge them as yet.

Having said that, the child involved, his brother and his dad walked away relatively unhurt. A few scratches and bruises, and they were admitted to hospital overnight as a precaution. The pilot is in worse shape. He has been airlifted to the hospital with severe injuries.

A Rushmeyer?

The OP had an ultralight named Ciudad de la Haya, so I suspect he does know the difference.

BTW, the country is called Ecuador. ;)

Very nice machine.....pity there is one less of them now!

I was there, i saw it happen. I went to the airport with the kids to watch the airplanes from the panorama terrace. At around 5 pm the airplane involved approached the threshold of runway 22 at a 90 degree angle.
A sort of threshold base, exept that it was flying at 100 feet...(!!!) it required a ninety degree turn to the right to end up on the runway. This turn was executed at around 50 feet, with initially 30 degrees bank. As the aircraft progressed through the turn, its bank angle suddenly increased to about 60 degrees and it slammed onto the runway. Right wing first.
Airspeed was low during the entire maneuvre, around 80kts.
Immediately one of the occupants exited the aircraft wreckage.
Crashtenders were there within 2 minutes.

There's one at one of my flying clubs (gosh that sounds posh) and I'd never seen one before either. Very sleek looking beast.

That is amazingly acurate report :ugh: Is 80kts really that slow on approach?

Please mention your eye witness report to the authorities.

If the stalling speed is 78 kts, I suppose so!:ugh:

Presuming this was in a Ruschmeyer R-90-230RG, the stall speed ( not sure which flap config ) is 58kts. 80kts would not be slow flight.

What i meant to say was that the aircraft was not doing, say, 160 kts or so. It was flying at a typical final approach speed, 80 or so. And its nose attitude was normal all the way, right till the very end when it had 60 bank and 10 degrees nose down.

From the previously posted data it would appear the stall speed in a 60 degree bank would be 85 knots (assuming a constant descent rate pre stall).

I have zero knowledge of this incident other than that posted. However, the final reports of quite a number of accidents are consistent with the initial observations.

In this case, the reports describe a low altitude base to final turn at a high bank angle resulting in a sudden descent to the ground. Reported speeds and bank angles are consistent with the stalling speed of the aircraft in landing configuration - It would be a surprise if the answer from the final report isn't 'pilot did not maintain sufficient airspeed during a steep low altitude turn resulting in an unrecoverable stall'. What will be interesting to know in due course is what combination of events lead up to the accident.

Any update on how the injured pilot is doing?

SGC

The more bank, the more the load factor goes up. At 45 degrees it's 1.4x higher than in straight and level. This is why people constantly kill themselves and stall near the ground trying to shoehorn stuff in.

There's no such thing as 'stall speed', only 'stall angle' (of attack). Sounds (from the eye-witness report) like the combination of low airspeed and bank angle caused this one to exceed it.