Accident at MLE
 

Anyone know anything about this? Just heard there has been a light aircraft accident at MLE.

Hope nothing too serious and any persons involved are OK.

Trans Maldivian Airways Twotter, I believe, apparently lost a float on take-off and ended up junked on the runway. Handful of injuries among 17 on board but no fatalities.

Local crew Capt & FO. FO with head injuries but should make a full recovery.

2 pax presumed both German with injuries nothing life threatening.

This will make for an interesting accident report.

Will read in the real world, not enough speed, too much baggage weight with rear most c of g, aircraft failed to out climb the seawall, impact with seawall removed float and aircraft came to rest on the flyover area.

Make your own conclusions.

Having been their for 3 years barefooting it, it was only a matter of time.:ugh: :\ :*

:ouch:

what a place to "Prang" ......

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/451959/L/

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/349827/M/

Twin Otter crash at MLE
 

Have a look at
http://visitaddu.com
By the looks of things people were lucky to get out alive.

They appeared to be taking off with about a 15Kts tailwind straight towards the harbour/runway wall that seems to me to not give much room for error. Hope they all make a speedy recovery

FWIW, I was a pax on one of these last Thursday (13/05) - I can't believe they got 15 pax on board! There were about 8 of us (and loads of luggage) and things were pretty tight (admittedly, we were fat westerners, not skinny locals).

Far be it from me as a totally unqualified pax to pre-judge the cause of this accident, but it seems to me IHD has a point.

Glad everyone is safe and hope the injured lady makes a speedy recovery - it must have been pretty frightening.

Not a nice place to crash, despite the scenery. Remember it's an Island with an airport - No Hospital.

If seas are rough, nobody gets off.

Apparently crew medevac'd out to Colombo and SIN for treatment.

IHD, not so good at replying to PM's are you?

It is definately unfortunate that this accident occured. Lets hope that both crew and passengers are on their way to a quick recovery.

Waiting to hear more specific details.

Joe

Been flying Twotters out of the beach among other islands in Scotland for over 3 years. Regularly have 16 pax with golf clubs, luggage, shopping from Ikea, B&Q and Marks n Sparks. It's a tight fit, but by no means unusual for a Twotter operation. Out of bigger fields we can take 19 pax and all their stuff, rarely out of C of G if ever. Always found it harder to fill the seats and keep it within MTOM than C of G.

I'm not sure about the floats, but think that float Twotters are restricted to 17 pax max. I could be wrong and I'm sure someone will let me know, but have read that Harbour Air operate 17 seats, restricted down to 12 pax on scheduled flights. Wot do they do with all that left over space and all that extra leg room!!!

Harbour Air operate short nosed otters, but like ours, the TMA machines are all long nosed aircraft with the extra front luggage hold. This front hold solved the aft C of G problem for our operation as you can balance baggage between the front and rear holds and keep the C of G nicely within the envelope. The short nosed aircraft that I have seen are rear hold aircraft only and so can often be very aft C of G.

The one thing I don't know outright is how having the floats fitted affects C of G. If anything, they look faily neutral? Any Float Twotter Drivers out there care to comment?

Zambe', if you read this site, my thoughts are with you out there and hope that you can get TMA through this ok.

Regards

CA