Go Back  PPRuNe Forums > Flight Deck Forums > Accidents and Close Calls
Reload this Page >

4th Aug 2018 Junkers JU52 crashed in Switzerland

Accidents and Close Calls Discussion on accidents, close calls, and other unplanned aviation events, so we can learn from them, and be better pilots ourselves.

4th Aug 2018 Junkers JU52 crashed in Switzerland

Old 12th Aug 2018, 16:04
  #201 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: EDLB
Posts: 362
Received 4 Likes on 3 Posts
So you claim that the standard service ceiling of a slow 1500Hp plane is 12000 feet and they offer 17 pax flights in the Alps?
IMHO the performance of that Ju52 is a bit better than a standard C172.
If you start hot and high then the performance is worst right after take off. As higher you climb, as cooler gets the air improving performance of your props, wing and engine. Sure the air gets thinner and counteracts this a bit but to my experience if you make it over the fence hot and high then you make it over 14000feet after one hour.
They where almost an hour into their flight so on fuel lighter than on take off.
You do not fly the plane on the backside of its performance curve without dire circumstances. And as long they fly IAS with decent margin, they should not fall out of the sky. They did, so the investigation will hopefully figure out what those dire circumstances where.
EDLB is offline  
Old 12th Aug 2018, 16:30
  #202 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Germany
Age: 47
Posts: 402
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
edlb ..in a life as a pilot all odds may be against you . you want to fulfill the mission and you did the trip many times before . that day a glowing heat covers the alps and just that day the plane is fully booked , the passengers have much baggage , you are very heavy. you depart with a bad feeling but you want to fullfill the mission , the heat also does not improve your brain and common sense. over the alps you realize you are at the edge of performance but you want to continue - more and more trading speed for climb . in the last minute you see that this time you will really not make the mountains and in panic - being already critically low on speed - you make a sharp 180 deg turn to avoid crashing into the mountains . during the turn a wing stalls snd seconds later you hit the elevated bottom .

thats what happened i guess , they simply asked their ju52 for something she was not able to deliver at that day with that heat and that load .just few passengers less or a little colder athmosphere and that would end without an issue or media coverage .
aerobat77 is offline  
Old 12th Aug 2018, 16:36
  #203 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: EDLB
Posts: 362
Received 4 Likes on 3 Posts
Folks you don‘t make it to the age of 62 and 63 as captain if you think like this. Darwin will have sorted you out much earlier.
EDLB is offline  
Old 12th Aug 2018, 17:55
  #204 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Age: 58
Posts: 1,903
Received 3 Likes on 3 Posts
I'd be really interrested about "real liffe" performance data for those JU-52...
Also are they comparable (I understand they had 3 planes...)?
atakacs is offline  
Old 12th Aug 2018, 22:14
  #205 (permalink)  

I Have Control
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: North-West England
Posts: 49
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Some of the worst captains in all cultures are over 60 years old.. And put 2 old captains flying together, well that is often not good. Ask any commercial pilot.

Furthermore operating an old Junkers at high altitudes in the high mountains, fully loaded, is not intelligent. It is risky. Given that one must assume a failure at critical circumstances, be it power plant or even flying controls.

The CH folk do not have the best safety record either, be they pilots or ATC. There appears to be some complacency here, sadly unfounded.
RoyHudd is offline  
Old 12th Aug 2018, 23:12
  #206 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Australia
Posts: 116
Likes: 0
Received 1 Like on 1 Post
I think the eldest son in a Swiss family isn't allowed to fly in their Air Force, for a very good reason.
Standby Scum is offline  
Old 13th Aug 2018, 05:39
  #207 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Age: 58
Posts: 1,903
Received 3 Likes on 3 Posts
Originally Posted by RoyHudd
Some of the worst captains in all cultures are over 60 years old.. And put 2 old captains flying together, well that is often not good. Ask any commercial pilot.

Furthermore operating an old Junkers at high altitudes in the high mountains, fully loaded, is not intelligent. It is risky. Given that one must assume a failure at critical circumstances, be it power plant or even flying
You might be on something here. Unfortunately it is very hard to get a sense of how close to the limits they were. I'm sure this will be covered in the investigation report.

As a matter of fact when is the preliminary due?
atakacs is offline  
Old 13th Aug 2018, 06:09
  #208 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: SE Qld, Australia
Age: 77
Posts: 1,165
Received 39 Likes on 26 Posts
Some of the worst captains in all cultures are over 60 years old.. And put 2 old captains flying together, well that is often not good. Ask any commercial pilot.
That's tosh. Sounds like RoyHudd is a bitter younger FO to me.
Dora-9 is offline  
Old 13th Aug 2018, 06:12
  #209 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Age: 58
Posts: 1,903
Received 3 Likes on 3 Posts
I've seen operations where they actively tried to avoid such pairing. I guess they had their reasons....
atakacs is offline  
Old 13th Aug 2018, 06:19
  #210 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: SE Qld, Australia
Age: 77
Posts: 1,165
Received 39 Likes on 26 Posts
I think the key phrase is "some of the...". Both major airline operators that I flew for rarely flew two captains together on a line flight (for obvious cost reasons) although I've never seen or heard of a two captains restriction. There could be lots of reasons that your operator, atakacks, actively avoided this, not necessarily because they're all megalomaniacs - as I think that you and RoyHudd are implying. Let's just wait for the report?
Dora-9 is offline  
Old 13th Aug 2018, 07:16
  #211 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Where it is comfortable...
Age: 60
Posts: 909
Received 13 Likes on 2 Posts
Originally Posted by Dora-9
There could be lots of reasons that your operator, atakacks, actively avoided this, not necessarily because they're all megalomaniacs - as I think that you and RoyHudd are implying.
At the outfit I used to be with, while there was no formal policy, it was accepted practice to avoid pairing senior captains because of the increased risk of complacency. This comes straight from the mouth of the horse, the Flight Ops Director was one of them, and he had FOQA data to back this up. (BTW the Pretoria CV-340 also had two senior captains up front).
andrasz is offline  
Old 13th Aug 2018, 07:45
  #212 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Melbourne
Posts: 302
Received 13 Likes on 6 Posts
Originally Posted by Dora-9
That's tosh. Sounds like RoyHudd is a bitter younger FO to me.
Some very simply-conducted research of RoyHudd's previous posts and threads started would have quickly eliminated that theory.

Crusty industry veteran who doesn't suffer fools gladly, more like.
Pearly White is offline  
Old 13th Aug 2018, 08:11
  #213 (permalink)  
Pegase Driver
 
Join Date: May 1997
Location: Europe
Age: 73
Posts: 3,656
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Originally Posted by RoyHudd

The CH folk do not have the best safety record either, be they pilots or ATC. .
Can you please elaborate on what you base your statement on ? Sounds a bit harsh I would say.
On the 2 Capt theory , yes unfortunately there, the data support this . One (of many) that comes to my mind is the one and only TAP accident (in Funchal 1977) had 2 capt on board and decisions were impaired . that accident led to lots of changes in Funchal ops and in crew pairing .

Last edited by ATC Watcher; 13th Aug 2018 at 08:25. Reason: addition
ATC Watcher is offline  
Old 13th Aug 2018, 11:46
  #214 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Mar 2018
Location: Central UK
Posts: 1,576
Received 123 Likes on 60 Posts
It never ceases to amaze me that even after 30+ years of human factors training in which human fallibility is so closely examined, additional to decades of global accident statistics that show conclusively that by far the biggest single cause of accidents is broadly dscribed as "pilot error" that so many pople are so reluctant to accept the likelyhood that this accident was simply what it appears to be. Mishandling.
There have been dozens of accidents reported in this forum over the years that have attracted the same old automatic responses, "A 60 year old commerecial pilot would never do that!", "He was an ex military pilot, he'd never make such a basic error", "I knew him and I know he'd never make such a mistake" "he was a brilliant pilot and he'd never -"etc.etc.etc. But every time he did, time and again it turns out that's exactly what they did. I realise it's difficult to accept that even such experienced pilots as this can make such a basic error but experience, history and statistics prove that they do, and regularly. Sure, HF applies here too, acceptance of the ability of experienced pilots to make very basic errors relies on our acceptance of our own fallibility, something none of us like to admit to. Thrashing around trying to invent ever more ulikely scenarios (elevator trim failure was one) when a heavily loaded, underpowered vintage aircraft tries to make a downwind turn in a mountain valley just below a ridge at high density altitude and falls inverted from the sky suggests to me that the lessons of HF are still not as ingrained as they might be, though I recognise that there are a lot of expert spotters/spectators etc here vs. pilots who have actually studied that subject. Sad as it seems it appears that these guys got themselves too far into a narrowing hole and tried just a bit too hard to turn out of it, and got bitten by 1930's stall habits. What seems more important here is not so much the what as the why?

There has been considerable discussion about the stall characteristics (esp. power on) of the DC3/C47 following the CAF's recent accident in which many have attested to that type's viscious stall habits. Tante Ju was from a design era pre C47 and would very likely behave in much the same abrupt manner in an aggravated power-on stall. We saw the Australian Mallard make a simiar manoeuvre with similar results. Yes, of course there's a tiny possibility that the inside knurled flange-bracket went "ping" but all the evidence points elsewhere, and whatsmore to the same place. But that's playing double jeopardy, isn't it? At the very point in a flight where every aviator says "Bloody hell, they're really asking for trouble doing that" something completely unexpected and invisible yet critical chooses that very instant to break. It isn't really a credible scenario. (viz the Shoreham accident. Page after page of fanciful speculative failures when all the time the duck was sitting there patiently quacking away)

Guys, though it isn't yet proven (and never will be as they 99.9% for certain won't find anything significant in the mechanical investigation) this case has all the attributes of the duck analogy. Looks like, sounds like, swims like. Is.

I think we'd sometimes do better to recognise and accept the weight of the obvious in reaching our local (as opposed to the investigators') conclusion rather than trying to invent fanciful "balancing" arguments where no shred of evidence nor requirement for them for them exists.

We have had a report (my previous post somewhere above) that on a previous flight the aircraft was apparently flown in a more "sporting" manner than the pax liked such that the pilots had to be asked to tone it down and though that report is anecdotal and a one-off (so far) it may well indicate an operational style that had developed. I too find it hard to believe that professional pilots would throw pax around so much they got sick and had tp be told to knock it off but apparently they did. If that does prove to be the case one can only wonder whether it was a one-off or not, or had other less than prudent habits attended the operation not just in flying but in the field of performance and loading perhaps? If so it wouldn't be the first time professional pilots, removed from the straitjacket of airline ops found themselves in a relaxed little fun operation where they could cut loose a bit. And came to grief because of it. After all, that's just human nature (factors).

That is where the bulk of the investigation will centre I suspect.

Last edited by meleagertoo; 13th Aug 2018 at 12:12.
meleagertoo is offline  
Old 13th Aug 2018, 11:59
  #215 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: May 2010
Location: under a stone
Posts: 21
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Great post, mealeagertoo!

Mountain-slopes all over the world are littered with mangled wreckages that have been put there by captains that should have ben too experienced to let this happen.
In fact, it's exactly this attitude that is the first hole in the cheese...
Toryu is offline  
Old 13th Aug 2018, 12:08
  #216 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Switzerland
Age: 78
Posts: 109
Received 7 Likes on 2 Posts
Angry

Originally Posted by EDLB
If you start hot and high then the performance is worst right after take off. As higher you climb, as cooler gets the air improving performance of your props, wing and engine. Sure the air gets thinner and counteracts this a bit but to my experience if you make it over the fence hot and high then you make it over 14000feet after one hour.
It's against our environmental protection laws to litter our mountains with guys and their aircraft who believe they may pass any obstacle once they have made the fence. .
clearedtocross is offline  
Old 13th Aug 2018, 16:40
  #217 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Age: 56
Posts: 945
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Originally Posted by meleagertoo
It never ceases to amaze me that even after 30+ years of human factors training in which human fallibility is so closely examined, additional to decades of global accident statistics that show conclusively that by far the biggest single cause of accidents is broadly dscribed as "pilot error" that so many pople are so reluctant to accept the likelyhood that this accident was simply what it appears to be. Mishandling.
There have been dozens of accidents reported in this forum over the years that have attracted the same old automatic responses, "A 60 year old commerecial pilot would never do that!", "He was an ex military pilot, he'd never make such a basic error", "I knew him and I know he'd never make such a mistake" "he was a brilliant pilot and he'd never -"etc.etc.etc. But every time he did, time and again it turns out that's exactly what they did. I realise it's difficult to accept that even such experienced pilots as this can make such a basic error but experience, history and statistics prove that they do, and regularly. Sure, HF applies here too, acceptance of the ability of experienced pilots to make very basic errors relies on our acceptance of our own fallibility, something none of us like to admit to. Thrashing around trying to invent ever more ulikely scenarios (elevator trim failure was one) when a heavily loaded, underpowered vintage aircraft tries to make a downwind turn in a mountain valley just below a ridge at high density altitude and falls inverted from the sky suggests to me that the lessons of HF are still not as ingrained as they might be, though I recognise that there are a lot of expert spotters/spectators etc here vs. pilots who have actually studied that subject. Sad as it seems it appears that these guys got themselves too far into a narrowing hole and tried just a bit too hard to turn out of it, and got bitten by 1930's stall habits. What seems more important here is not so much the what as the why?

There has been considerable discussion about the stall characteristics (esp. power on) of the DC3/C47 following the CAF's recent accident in which many have attested to that type's viscious stall habits. Tante Ju was from a design era pre C47 and would very likely behave in much the same abrupt manner in an aggravated power-on stall. We saw the Australian Mallard make a simiar manoeuvre with similar results. Yes, of course there's a tiny possibility that the inside knurled flange-bracket went "ping" but all the evidence points elsewhere, and whatsmore to the same place. But that's playing double jeopardy, isn't it? At the very point in a flight where every aviator says "Bloody hell, they're really asking for trouble doing that" something completely unexpected and invisible yet critical chooses that very instant to break. It isn't really a credible scenario. (viz the Shoreham accident. Page after page of fanciful speculative failures when all the time the duck was sitting there patiently quacking away)

Guys, though it isn't yet proven (and never will be as they 99.9% for certain won't find anything significant in the mechanical investigation) this case has all the attributes of the duck analogy. Looks like, sounds like, swims like. Is.

I think we'd sometimes do better to recognise and accept the weight of the obvious in reaching our local (as opposed to the investigators') conclusion rather than trying to invent fanciful "balancing" arguments where no shred of evidence nor requirement for them for them exists.

We have had a report (my previous post somewhere above) that on a previous flight the aircraft was apparently flown in a more "sporting" manner than the pax liked such that the pilots had to be asked to tone it down and though that report is anecdotal and a one-off (so far) it may well indicate an operational style that had developed. I too find it hard to believe that professional pilots would throw pax around so much they got sick and had tp be told to knock it off but apparently they did. If that does prove to be the case one can only wonder whether it was a one-off or not, or had other less than prudent habits attended the operation not just in flying but in the field of performance and loading perhaps? If so it wouldn't be the first time professional pilots, removed from the straitjacket of airline ops found themselves in a relaxed little fun operation where they could cut loose a bit. And came to grief because of it. After all, that's just human nature (factors).

That is where the bulk of the investigation will centre I suspect.

Great post, sadly totally made irrelevant by the words " downwind turn". There are downdrafts downwind of mountain ridges, but there is no such thing as a downwind turn.
hans brinker is offline  
Old 13th Aug 2018, 16:44
  #218 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Feb 2017
Location: Isla Grande
Posts: 996
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
WOW, very impressive to learn some know already what actually happened.
gearlever is offline  
Old 13th Aug 2018, 18:34
  #219 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Mar 2018
Location: Central UK
Posts: 1,576
Received 123 Likes on 60 Posts
Originally Posted by hans brinker
but there is no such thing as a downwind turn.
Eh???
Not many people know that, my friend, and even if you take issue with the terminology (but why? It is a common enough expresson) everyone knows what is meant by it and the significance of it in this case. Quite how that one petty cavil renders an entire post "totally made irrelevant" (ugh!) is known only to you pal - but it doesn't say much for your CRM, tolerance or powers of logic and judgement does it?

Nul points for a pointless, irrelevant snipe.

gearlever - do spill the beans - who "knows exactly what actually happened"? and what was it? I'm impressed you "know" too. Hadn't realised the case was closed and hadn't read any post so far revealing it.
Or could it be you read my post so so carelessley that you took it to be a statement of facts rather than the clearly stated hypothesis based on probability and likleyhood that was repeated so many times specifically so lazy people who don't bother to read posts properly might not jump to conclusions and mistake it for something else.
Human factors again?

Last edited by meleagertoo; 13th Aug 2018 at 18:46.
meleagertoo is offline  
Old 13th Aug 2018, 19:09
  #220 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Sydney
Age: 60
Posts: 87
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Originally Posted by meleagertoo
Eh???
Not many people know that, my friend, and even if you take issue with the terminology (but why? It is a common enough expresson) everyone knows what is meant by it and the significance of it in this case. Quite how that one petty cavil renders an entire post "utterly irrelevant" is known only to you pal - but it doesn't say much for your CRM, tolerance or powers of logic and judgement does it?

Nul points for a pointless, irrelevant snipe.
Very much appreciated your post too meleagertoo (and I didn't think any of it "irrelevant" by the mention of a downwind turn). I think this person is just exercising the usual knee-jerk black & white judgement reaction to the possibility that in using the term you're indicating you're from that die-hard aviation fraternity that swears by the belief an aircraft behaves differently (and has differing stall speeds) depending on whether you're turning into the wind or away from it. There is of course an ongoing debate with members of this fraternity where some will absolutely hang-on to this notion that an upwind turn "can save you" in circumstances where you're close to stalling whereas an equivalent downwind turn can be your undoing. What's missed in these discussions again and again is that these turns can only be termed "upwind" and "downwind" when considered in regards to reference against the terrain the aircraft is flying over and it is when a pilot falls for the trap of attempting to tighten a turn because of the perceived overshoot with reference to the ground or terrain that a "downwind turn" can be so fraught with danger.

And (from what I can assess with the obvious experience and knowledge you've presented in your post) it's this phenomena you're talking about; an aircraft close to the edge of its performance envelop in high density altitude conditions boxed in by rising terrain where a downwind turn will have the pilots likely overshooting with the radius of the turn bigger than expected resulting in them (potentially and unwittingly) pulling it tighter and into a stall. This is an accident scenario all too common, with one of the more obvious ones being where pilots stall during the turn from base onto final when dealing with a strong crosswind. They start overshooting during the turn because they didn't allow for the wind behind them and in the ensuing over-banking stall and spiral in.

The human factors you've written about and the complacency that can set in with very experienced high-hours flight crew is all too likely to have been the major contributing factor in this accident. I appreciate how you've articulated this.

Last edited by RenegadeMan; 13th Aug 2018 at 19:16. Reason: Minor grammar correction and removed "right hand" from crosswind circuit description as depends of circuit direction
RenegadeMan is offline  

Thread Tools
Search this Thread

Contact Us - Archive - Advertising - Cookie Policy - Privacy Statement - Terms of Service

Copyright © 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Use of this site indicates your consent to the Terms of Use.