Fullerton Beech Duke crash 4/18/19

[DXB]

Ugh- this is hard to watch. Left engine failed  immediately after takeoff? Looks like only a couple of seconds from takeoff until unrecoverable.  

 

[Guitarmaster]

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[Shadrach]

That was sickening. The Duke has never won much praise for its single engine performance.  I have alway imagined Vmc rollovers to be slow but deliberate affairs.  This looked like a low speed snap roll.  I'm not multi rated and have little SIC time in a handful of twins. However to me it almost looks like the poor soul stepped on the dead engine. RIP.

Edited May 6, 2019 by Shadrach

[Skates97]

This is the one I saw after my flight last Thursday as I was leaving the airport. I did not see the actual accident as I started to drive away when he lifted off, just the fireball in my peripheral vision. There is a very long thread over on Beechtalk about it with some good insights from pilots very familiar with the Duke. When I first saw the video yesterday I too was surprised by how quickly it all went wrong.

I imagine this video will make its way into many a training discussion on training in twins.

[jaylw314]

Yikes.  Is it just me or does that takeoff angle look steep?  I'm completely unfamiliar with the Beech Duke

I know it seems silly to ask, but do we know about any survivors?

[Shadrach]

3 minutes ago, jaylw314 said:

Yikes.  Is it just me or does that takeoff angle look steep?  I'm completely unfamiliar with the Beech Duke

I know it seems silly to ask, but do we know about any survivors?

no survivors.

[Danb]

Chilling, upsetting to watch, the helicopter was lucky to escape.

[Yetti]

youch.  The helicopter is like GTFOH.   I would think the helicopter would want to land and check for shrapnel damage.

[rbridges]

ok, my stupid question.  Someone that is trained and prepared for engine failure on takeoff, does he recover from that?  It just seemed so fast that my brain wouldn't register what was going on until it was too late.

[DXB]

1 minute ago, rbridges said:

ok, my stupid question.  Someone that is trained and prepared for engine failure on takeoff, does he recover from that?  It just seemed so fast that my brain wouldn't register what was going on until it was too late.

My first reaction exactly, though like you I don't have a clue about twins.  It seems like it has to be a primed reflex and not a cognitive decision to have any hope here. Not sure how any amateur with a day job can get enough practice to make it so hardwired.  But perhaps the same could be said for needing to push the nose down in the same scenario in a piston single - there's really not much time.  

[gsengle]

Yikes.  Is it just me or does that takeoff angle look steep?  I'm completely unfamiliar with the Beech Duke
I know it seems silly to ask, but do we know about any survivors?

My day job is flying twins. You increase your danger by climbing steeply and trading climb rate for airspeed that is closer to Vmc. Combine that with a low altitude engine failure and you’re gonna roll. I generally go for a faster lower angle departure for just that reason.

But there is a simple solution to Vmc roll - close the throttles, roll stops. If you’re going inverted too late to diagnose, pull em both back and look for a spot to land just like a single.

I have no idea how slowly or steeply he was climbing out, just speaking generally.


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[Niko182]

25 minutes ago, rbridges said:

ok, my stupid question.  Someone that is trained and prepared for engine failure on takeoff, does he recover from that?  It just seemed so fast that my brain wouldn't register what was going on until it was too late.

Fullerton is a rather small airport for a duke to be taking off out of. looks like he yanked it up as the engine failed. in a bigger airport with a move relaxed and shallower take off, I don't think it would have snap rolled like that. airspeed is your friend, and looking by the video, it looked like he didn't have a lot of it.

I THINK (this opinion could be completely wrong) he was climbing on power and not airspeed. in ovations, if you climb at 80 knots, you are climbing on power, and the moment you lose that engine, you have nothing. you don't have airspeed or power. if I climb at 120, I lose the engine and I still have airspeed left. Difference with a twin is that if you lose an engine at that slow of a speed, the offset of thrust is just going to roll you. the  looks like this guy was climbing on power, and the moment he lost that engine, he didn't have enough airspeed to keep the plane yawed in the correct direction. his airspeed was also low enough that the plane had no problem snap rolling that quickly.

[orionflt]

my first thought when i looked at the video was power back level the aircraft, but if he didn't recognize what was going on fast enough....... as we saw in the video he was unrecoverable in a few seconds. when I was doing my twin training, my instructor cut the fuel to one of my engines as i started my takeoff roll. I knew I lost an engine, I knew what my procedures were, but I still almost ended up in the grass due to a slow reaction time. my brain was processing what was happening instead of reacting to it. 

that was just one more thing to reinforce the need to practice emergencies and train yourself to react to the situation and control the airplane.    

[Guitarmaster]

ok, my stupid question.  Someone that is trained and prepared for engine failure on takeoff, does he recover from that?  It just seemed so fast that my brain wouldn't register what was going on until it was too late.

Flying a twin is a little like flying a taildragger. If you wait to use the rudder when the torque takes you, you will be in the bushes or ground looped before you know it. Same thing with an engine failure... But much more aggressive. It has to be instinct.
Training and repetition is key. At a critical speed and engine out, If you step on the wrong rudder, you're dead.
The video is hard to watch. All Vmc demos I have done never resulted in a roll that fast. That surprised me, but maybe the wrong rudder was applied.

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[gsengle]

Flying a twin is a little like flying a taildragger. If you wait to use the rudder when the torque takes you, you will be in the bushes or ground looped before you know it. Same thing with an engine failure... But much more aggressive. It has to be instinct.
Training and repetition is key. At a critical speed and engine out, If you step on the wrong rudder, you're dead.
The video is hard to watch. All Vmc demos I have done never resulted in a roll that fast. That surprised me, but maybe the wrong rudder was applied.

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High power and slow.


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[Shadrach]

After looking at the Google Earth data for KFUL and it looks as if he was airborne in about 1,100ft.  The video is grainy but appears as though the initial wing drop is to the right just after lift off followed by an abrupt break to the left impacting about 2,000ft from the approach end of runway 24. This was not necessarily an engine failure.  A full power departure stall would look similar.

[gsengle]

After looking at the Google Earth data for KFUL and it looks as if he was airborne in about 1,100ft.  The video is grainy but appears as though the initial wing drop is to the right just after lift off followed by an abrupt break to the left impacting about 2,000ft from the approach end of runway 24. This was not necessarily an engine failure.  A full power departure stall would look similar.

 

Twins like that are easily off in 1000, especially if rotated slow. I don’t see a nose drop, and to get a stall at full power in a plane like that it would have to be a much steeper climb I’d think. Looks all roll...

 

See this photo? That’s at Vx on a training flight at altitude, around 15kts above stall/Vmc with two spinning... climb angles can be impressive... until an engine quits...

 

 

 

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[Guitarmaster]

 
Twins like that are easily off in 1000, especially if rotated slow. I don’t see a nose drop, and to get a stall at full power in a plane like that it would have to be a much steeper climb I’d think. Looks all roll...
 
See this photo? That’s at Vx on a training flight at altitude, around 15kts above stall/Vmc with two spinning... climb angles can be impressive... until an engine quits...
 

 
 
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I have noticed that I my 310. The deck angle is impressive sometimes.

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[Shadrach]

11 minutes ago, gsengle said:

 

Twins like that are easily off in 1000, especially if rotated slow. I don’t see a nose drop, and to get a stall at full power in a plane like that it would have to be a much steeper climb I’d think. Looks all roll...

 

See this photo? That’s at Vx on a training flight at altitude, around 15kts above stall/Vmc with two spinning... climb angles can be impressive... until an engine quits...

 

 

 

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I don’t disagree. I will say that leveling the camera angle shows a pretty aggressive nose up pitch for just 30-40’ agl.

 

[Skates97]

25 minutes ago, Shadrach said:

After looking at the Google Earth data for KFUL and it looks as if he was airborne in about 1,100ft.  The video is grainy but appears as though the initial wing drop is to the right just after lift off followed by an abrupt break to the left impacting about 2,000ft from the approach end of runway 24. This was not necessarily an engine failure.  A full power departure stall would look similar.

 

I was parked right about where I put the red "X" on the map. He started from the end of the displaced threshold using all the runway he could. From running up the engines while on the brakes and then the release and ground roll everything looked and sounded normal. As he lifted off it looked a little squirrley but then a lot of folks do when they lift off so I thought nothing of it. I rolled my window up right after he lifted off so if anything changed with an engine I didn't hear it.

[Shadrach]

7 minutes ago, Skates97 said:

I was parked right about where I put the red "X" on the map. He started from the end of the displaced threshold using all the runway he could. From running up the engines while on the brakes and then the release and ground roll everything looked and sounded normal. As he lifted off it looked a little squirrley but then a lot of folks do when they lift off so I thought nothing of it. I rolled my window up right after he lifted off so if anything changed with an engine I didn't hear it.

When you say squirrley do you mean unstable?  The video image is lousy but the wings are well illuminated.  There appears to be a clear right wing rock as the plane begins pitch up after lift off.

[Skates97]

1 minute ago, Shadrach said:

When you say squirrley do you mean unstable?  The video image is lousy but the wings are well illuminated.  There appears to be a clear right wing rock as the plane begins pitch up after lift off.

Yes, it was not a nice smooth lift off, the wing did rock a little. Looked more like if someone was taking off with a gusty crosswind, but there wasn't any gusty crosswind that night.

[ArtVandelay]

My day job is flying twins. You increase your danger by climbing steeply and trading climb rate for airspeed that is closer to Vmc. Combine that with a low altitude engine failure and you’re gonna roll. I generally go for a faster lower angle departure for just that reason.

But there is a simple solution to Vmc roll - close the throttles, roll stops. If you’re going inverted too late to diagnose, pull em both back and look for a spot to land just like a single.

I have no idea how slowly or steeply he was climbing out, just speaking generally.

I assume his reaction (pull power, dead foot/dead engine) response has to be immediate, like a wing drop during a stall ...if don’t reflexively react, it’s too late.


Tom

[gsengle]

I assume his reaction (pull power, dead foot/dead engine) response has to be immediate, like a wing drop during a stall ...if don’t reflexively react, it’s too late.


Tom

Vmc roll is because of the good engine not because of the dead one. And lack of speed meaning lack of rudder authority. Pulling power is the other way to arrest roll. Fly it to the ground...


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[Niko182]

this is probably a scenario were a dual engine failure would've been better than a single.