Another Twin Down

[Piloto]

Although I can't imagine what would cause loss of controlled flight at that altitude other than a pilot or icing induced stall/spin or physical damage to the plane like a wing or rudder shearing off.

 

Engine failure caused cabin decompression? Autopilots can not fly straight with an engine out.

 

José 

[frcabot]

Engine failure caused cabin decompression? Autopilots can not fly straight with an engine out.

 

José 

 

How would cabin decompression cause a spiral into the ground? And how would an engine failure cause decompression short of having exploding parts penetrate the fuselage?

[bnicolette]

This was a tough thread to read.............There's always one without the knowledge or experience that perpetuates misinformation and OWT's.  Now where is that dead horse and bat emoji??

[bnicolette]

Fly by the numbers!

 

Or be as good as this guy and forget the damn numbers.     FF to 4:02

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7R7jZmliGc

[Piloto]

How would cabin decompression cause a spiral into the ground? And how would an engine failure cause decompression short of having exploding parts penetrate the fuselage?

 

Cabin pressure is provided by the compressor stage in the engine. In an engine out is possible to loose cabin pressure If the valve does not close it dumps the pressure from the operating engine. At FL280 the KA-350 was likely to be on autopilot. So it would had maintained a straight course even if the crew was unconscious. But if there was an engine failure the A/P would have been unable to maintain a straight course and the plane would spiral toward the dead engine. 

 

José

[AndyFromCB]

Cabin pressure is provided by the compressor stage in the engine. In an engine out is possible to loose cabin pressure If the valve does not close it dumps the pressure from the operating engine. At FL280 the KA-350 was likely to be on autopilot. So it would had maintained a straight course even if the crew was unconscious. But if there was an engine failure the A/P would have been unable to maintain a straight course and the plane would spiral toward the dead engine. 

 

José

 

I'm sorry, once again, incorrect. At FL280 it would have been unable to maintain altitude but the autopilot will fly a straight course just fine in a KA with an engine out. It is possible that the autopilot would have stalled it at FL280 attempting to maintain altitude. Don't remember the details of what envelope protection ProLine 21 has.

 

Part of memory checklist is to flip on the autopilot during engine out in order to run the real checklist, if level in cruise and autopilot off. Engine out or not, you flip the autopilot on, just either change pitch or IAS held. I really think you underestimate the amount of power KA350 has to climb on one and that it is equipped with both rudder boost and yaw damper aka 3rd axis. It will fly a full coupled approach on one, including going missed.

 

Just checked the checklist, actually, it's 10 degrees pitch for engine out initial climb to 400ft. That's more than most mooneys can muster.

 

No requirement to disconnect the autopilot during engine failure.

[frcabot]

He wasn't unconscious, he let out a mayday call as he was spiralling down. It only took a minute or so from normal flight to crash.

[AndyFromCB]

He wasn't unconscious, he let out a mayday call as he was spiralling down. It only took a minute or so from normal flight to crash.

Sounds like high altitude stall and spin, quite possibly related to engine out condition. I don't think you can unspin a King Air or for that matter a Baron.

[Marauder]

Fly by the numbers!

Or be as good as this guy and forget the damn numbers. FF to 4:02

Brett - do the same rules apply for the types of jets you fly? If you lose an engine on a 3 hole Falcon is there a rapid asymmetrical thrust to deal with?

[frcabot]

Sounds like high altitude stall and spin, quite possibly related to engine out condition. I don't think you can unspin a King Air or for that matter a Baron.

If that were the case he would have reported engine out. The spiral would not have been instantaneous. The only call he made was "emergency" after the spiral had started. And it was an extremely fast spiral. Which makes me think it was probably a structural failure.

 

Those really scare me. It doesn't matter how good of a pilot you are if your wing falls off in flight. 

[frcabot]

Also if you look at the chart on page 21 of the report http://asndata.aviation-safety.net/reports/Chile/20120322-1_B350_CC-AEB.pdf, there was no decrease in speed until  AFTER the departure from controlled flight occurred. And then, it took less than a minute and a half for the plane to impact the ground, so that's a descent rate of about 20,000 ft/min. If that doesn't sound like structural failure, I don't know what does. It couldn't be a stall induced spin or engine failure if the decrease in airspeed didn't occur until after the spiral had started.

[frcabot]

Also the report mentions corrosion on the right side of the fuselage in conclusion 3.2.3, but said that due to the total destruction of the aircraft it was not possible to determine the extent or progression of the corrosion. Also, apparently the operator of the plane had not complied with King Air's corrosion prevention program. (3.2.4). My spanish isn't great but it sounds like there were other maintenance issues as well.

[frcabot]

The report also states in 3.3.10 that analysis of the brief emergency transmission audio by the NTSB established that the engines were operating during the spiral and forensic analysis showed that the blades had been spinning at the time of impact. I think based on all of the above it would be fairly safe to say that structural failure was the cause, although the Chileans are apparently more reserved with their probable cause determinations than the NTSB is since they simply said the cause was "undetermined."

[frcabot]

Plus, knowing how South America works, it's very possible that money changed hands to ensure that the conclusion would be undetermined rather than loss of flight control surface. I imagine that doesn't do much for sales.

[bnicolette]

Brett - do the same rules apply for the types of jets you fly? If you lose an engine on a 3 hole Falcon is there a rapid asymmetrical thrust to deal with?

 

All the jets I've flown including the 3 holers, have been very easy to manage with one engine out.  They do get a bit tricky with one reverser hanging out and at full power!  Must get that thing stowed as quickly as possible.  The jet engines in corporate aircraft are very close to centerline.  Interesting tidbit.......an engine failure in the Falcon 50/900 (3 holers) is considered an abnormal not an emergency.

 

Even the Baron with the critical engine out is not that big of a deal IF handled correctly.  What you can NOT do is get slow.  Pitch plus power equals performance.  Fly the numbers in level flight while you get the dead engine secured then continue to fly the numbers.  If there is bad stuff in front of you well then too bad............should've thought of that before you pushed the throttles forward.  Give up airspeed you had better be prepared to pull the other engine back in the interest of survival.  In the Colemill President II she will give you 550+ fpm at gross weight once you get it cleaned up (which doesn't take long) and also has a 14000' single engine service ceiling.

 

These guys apparently had the deck stacked against them by the looks of it.  I have no idea what the airport surroundings look like but it appears as though the engine quit at the worst possible time with those buildings in the way?  

[PTK]

I read this morning that they lost both engines on TO.

With no thrust on TO, they handled the emergency achieving the best outcome possible. They avoided the apartment buildings and put it in the river.

My hat's off to them. May they rest in peace.

[Marauder]

BTW Brett, ever see the Hoover video where he does the barrel roll with a cup of coffee on the glare shield? Looks like from the same series of videos.

[Piloto]

New findings on the ATR-72. Pilot shut down wrong engine.

 

http://abcnews.go.com/International/engines-lost-power-transasia-crash-aviation-official/story?id=28769196

 

José

[frcabot]

New findings on the ATR-72. Pilot shut down wrong engine.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/engines-lost-power-transasia-crash-aviation-official/story?id=28769196

José

Wow... That's fucked up. Not the first time that's happened though.

[bnicolette]

Wow... That's fucked up. Not the first time that's happened though.

 

Ditto!

 

I did all my prep work with King Schools for every one of my ratings.  Yep they were corny but it worked.  One thing they said has stayed with me and available for instant recall during every training event I've been to over the last 20 years.  

 

"There is no emergency you can't make worse by working too fast"

[frcabot]

Yeah ... That'll do it. (Long sigh ... Sad, somber feeling ... )

It sure won't fly then.

Anyone remember the British Midland 737 story? Whole programs shown on the Discovery Channel about it. Shut down the wrong engine ...

I'm way more afraid of bad pilots than I am of a bad airplane.

[frcabot]

On Feb 6th 2015 Taiwan's ASC reported that the investigation so far determined from flight data and cockpit voice recorders: the aircraft received takeoff clearance at 10:51Z, in the initial climb the aircraft was handed off to departure at 10:52:33Z. At 10:52:38Z at about 1200 feet MSL, 37 seconds after becoming airborne, a master warning activated related to the failure of the right hand engine, at 10:52:43Z the left hand engine was throttled back and at 10:53:00Z the crew began to discuss engine #1 had stalled. At 10:53:06Z the right hand engine (engine #2) auto-feathered. At 10:53:12Z a first stall warning occured and ceased at 10:53:18Z. At 10:53:19Z the crew discussed that engine #1 had already feathered, the fuel supply had already been cut to the engine and decided to attempt a restart of engine #1. Two seconds later another stall warning activated. At 10:53:34Z the crew radioed "Mayday! Mayday! Engine flame out!", multiple attempts to restart the engines followed to no avail. At 10:54:34Z a second master warning activated, 0.4 seconds later both recorders stopped recording due to impact.

Later the day Feb 6th 2015 the ASC also released an English version of the initial release detailing further that when the first master warning activated associated with the right hand engine the crew "called it out", then the left hand engine thrust lever was progressively retarded to flight idle. At 10:53:24Z the condition lever was set to fuel shut off position resulting in the shut down of the left hand engine. Following several call outs to restart the left hand engine the parameters suggest the left hand engine was restarted at 10:54:20Z, however, at 10:54:34Z another master warning sounded, the CVR recorded impact sounds and both recorders stopped.

[frcabot]

And given the 4 seconds between master warning and engine shutdown of the good engine, the pilots obviously did not follow proper flow to confirm engine failure where PNF calls for engine shutdown of the proper engine which is then confirmed by PF.

[AndyFromCB]

In anything with auto feather or NTS, do nothing. There was no rush to do anything. The yaw damper was probably on. Climb away, clear all obstacles, then start worrying about which engine just died. Had they done nothing, they would have lived. 

[Andy95W]

I'm reminded of the story about the old airline captain that goes to the sim for his semi-annual check-ride.

The sim instructor, who is very young and eager, loads the crew up with failures. The old captain slides his seat back, winds his watch, then slides his seat forward to deal with the situation.

In the out-brief, the sim instructor complements the crew on the handling of the emergencies, but questions the captain's prioritization of tasks.

The captain replies, "Son, I ain't never killed no one by winding my watch."

Like most good stories, I'm not sure if it's true, but if it isn't, it should be.