Mooney 201 lands on high power lines in MD

[whiskytango]

2 hours ago, aviatoreb said:

the springy tower actually caught them at the right spot so they were decelerated sufficiently but not too strongly to break the humans inside but not too springy to bounce them off so they would fall backwards 100ft to the ground.

I am wondering if, at the last moment before impact, the pilot saw the transmission lines, pulled back on the yoke, dissipating airspeed / kinetic energy, so that the impact was relatively low energy?  That could make the deceleration a lot more survivable. 

[Danb]

42 minutes ago, 201er said:

After all this, the cabin and baggage doors still functional!

YIKES she’ll still fly it’s a Moody!!

[aviatoreb]

42 minutes ago, whiskytango said:

I am wondering if, at the last moment before impact, the pilot saw the transmission lines, pulled back on the yoke, dissipating airspeed / kinetic energy, so that the impact was relatively low energy?  That could make the deceleration a lot more survivable. 

I would guess the tower and wires were completely invisible in the dark in the fog.  I know there is a beacon light on towers but in the fog I bet it just wasn't there.

[bradp]

5 hours ago, Rusty Pilot said:

I was wondering if the pilot had the altimeter setting correct.  It appears ATC was on top of their game and providing a valuable alert.  I am sure we will learn more as the investigation is conducted.

I thought about this too.  Even if he had an incorrect baro - he still should have been on the GP to (incorrect) DH closer to the runway.  If he was doing the LNAV he should not have been lower than the approach mins for that type (980 msl)

[Shadrach]

1 hour ago, whiskytango said:

I am wondering if, at the last moment before impact, the pilot saw the transmission lines, pulled back on the yoke, dissipating airspeed / kinetic energy, so that the impact was relatively low energy?  That could make the deceleration a lot more survivable. 

Sorry but not likely to matter much. You should go try snap rolls with an acro pilot and see how much energy is dissipated.

[Hank]

2 hours ago, aviatoreb said:

Can’t imagine hung up like that scared injured progressively hypothermic and probably in shock.

I read a report this evening that said their worst injury was from the cold.

Go Mooney!  Love that steel cage! And one-piece wing!

[carusoam]

Upon further review… of the pic above…

Both wings crushed in front of the fuel tanks…

More Yikes!

-a-

[Tony Starke]

3 hours ago, mike261 said:

good grab!

the news is never on our side. 

There is no news anymore, just propaganda. 

[Echo]

I thought becoming incapacitated in the dead of winter by CO, passing out, plane crashes in a field and you are able to find a house in subzero temps and save yourself would never be beaten in the Miraculous Mooney survival incidents.

It is NOW number 2 on the list.

[aviatoreb]

32 minutes ago, Hank said:

I read a report this evening that said their worst injury was from the cold.

Go Mooney!  Love that steel cage! And one-piece wing!

I just read that too - and furthermore I just read that one of them was already just released from the hospital.  WOW.

[MooneyMitch]

19 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

I just read that too - and furthermore I just read that one of them was already just released from the hospital.  WOW.

Furthering the miracle 

[PT20J]

6 hours ago, aviatoreb said:

That is what I was thinking - could he have incorrectly set the altimeter?  He was way low way far out.

That said - what the heck was he doing flying in that in the first place?  But once he was there near KGAI in below mins conditions - what the heck was he doing trying the approach anyway - were all the nearby airports below min too?  KFDK is very nearby and has better approaches, a bigger airport environment, tower and multiple runways.  Or heck - Dulles and BWI in a pinch - or just fly somewhere else entirely but I do not know the fuel status.

I am a Professor in a department of electrical engineering and several of my colleagues are power transmission specialists.  I was talking to one of the profs who is also a pilot - and we were just talking how amazingly unlikely this accident was a survived outcome.  First - how many controlled flight into terrain accidents in night low ifr conditions are survived.  Almost none.  Obviously he found a nice springy metal tower with cables that arrested them from 100kts to zero in short order like a carrier landing but maybe more abrupt.  I wonder if he had airbags.  

But here are the miracles - 

-they found a springy tower instead of a hard building or the ground or a hillside or a big tree.

-the springy tower actually caught them at the right spot so they were decelerated sufficiently but not too strongly to break the humans inside but not too springy to bounce them off so they would fall backwards 100ft to the ground.

-here is the part that amazed the power transmission engineer I was talking too - he told me exactly the voltage and capacity of that specific tower just by looking at it and he declared it a miracle that the entire airplane structure didn't just melt/dissolve/catch on fire - I mean aluminum on fire not to mention fuel - somehow it didn't arc etc.  Yeah the birds landing not grounded  thing but they are tiny plus dont touch the tower structure itself.

-the tower didn't collapse in which case they would have been mechanically crushed and electrically fried simultaneously. 

I would guess if this was a computer simulation you could crash this airplane a thousand times and none of them would end up with this outcome - even if you crash it into the tower - something lined up just right to make everything work.

This is what collapsed towers look like - an incident of an ice storm overloading their weight in 1996 I think near Montreal.

https://www.inmr.com/looking-back-on-the-great-ice-storm-of-1998/

So overall a miracle these guys are alive and also the weirdest survived accident we are likely to ever see.  

I didn't really think about the voltage. I counted 18 disks on the suspension insulators so probably 230kV. Really lucky not to have gotten across phases. 

[carusoam]

1 minute ago, PT20J said:

I didn't really think about the voltage. I counted 18 disks on the suspension insulators so probably 230kV. Really lucky not get across phases. 

kVs… That is pretty eye opening!

-a-

[PeteMc]

What is your #1 again???  The guy in the Everglades or was it something else?  (Can't find the post.)

 

[Marauder]

continuing the aviation misinformation Lester Holt just called it a Moody.
 

That’s good news! Maybe Moody insurance rates will go up and not ours.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[Sue Bon]

Well.... Moody does accurately describe how I feel when I don't get to fly....

[Rusty Pilot]

11 hours ago, TonyK said:

Well at least they got the tail right in the model.

[Pinecone]

12 hours ago, 201er said:

After all this, the cabin and baggage doors still functional!

A little duct tape and bonds it should be good to go.

Amazing what properly designed load paths around the pax compartment will do.  I have a Fiat 500 Abarth.  A few months before I bought, but joined on line forums to research, a person posted that driving down a street at about 35 MPH, her was hit by a Suburban and driven into a parked pickup truck.  After the collision, both doors would open, shut, and latch.   The 500 has 3 load paths around the pax comparment

[toto]

7 hours ago, PeteMc said:

What is your #1 again???  The guy in the Everglades or was it something else?  (Can't find the post.)

 

I think he was talking about Dan Bass:

 

[Pinecone]

11 hours ago, Shadrach said:

Sorry but not likely to matter much. You should go try snap rolls with an acro pilot and see how much energy is dissipated.

A good bit.  Try multiple snaps a lowered powered plane.

And energy is proportional to velocity squared.  So even a small amount of speed reduction greatly reduces the energy a lot

[Shadrach]

4 hours ago, Pinecone said:

A little duct tape and bonds it should be good to go.

Amazing what properly designed load paths around the pax compartment will do.  I have a Fiat 500 Abarth.  A few months before I bought, but joined on line forums to research, a person posted that driving down a street at about 35 MPH, her was hit by a Suburban and driven into a parked pickup truck.  After the collision, both doors would open, shut, and latch.   The 500 has 3 load paths around the pax comparment

We sold the Abarth a few months before our first child was born.  It was my wife's commuter and was bought to replace her precious Cooper S.  It never lived up to my expectations in terms of efficiency but made up for it in spades by exceeding every expectation when it came to fun.  Very solid little car that people will still be talking about in 50 years. I still miss it after 7 years.

[Shadrach]

4 hours ago, Pinecone said:

A good bit.  Try multiple snaps a lowered powered plane.

And energy is proportional to velocity squared.  So even a small amount of speed reduction greatly reduces the energy a lot

Perhaps I am talking out of school. I've only done snap rolls in a Stearman with an instructor leading me on the controls.  Yes there was some energy loss but not as significant as I expected.  They were rapid maneuvers that ended crisply on track. The first few times, the maneuver was over long before my brain had finished processing the inputs.  Entry speed was around 90kts. I don't recall speed being degraded significantly...but then that's power on and in an airplane that is very draggy no matter it orientation.

My point was that a split second, reactionary yoke yank as the windshield fills with steel is not likely to do much except alter the impact attitude slightly...which may or may not be helpful.

[Echo]

4 hours ago, toto said:

I think he was talking about Dan Bass:

 

Ding ding. Not much white stuff in Glades

[Hank]

Interesting . . . . The pilot sounds like he's in pretty good shape.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/maryland-plane-crash-911-calls-released-revealing-harrowing-details

 

[201er]

Here is the position and distance from the runway where the plane impacted the tower vs the straight in approach. The lower line is the straight in and the upper line is the distance to the impact site.

My understanding is that the minimum crossing altitude at JOXOX is 1280ft at 2.4nm from the runway. Given a TDZE of 520, at 1.2 miles the altitude on glidepath should be 900ft which is 380ft AGL. This is 111ft above minimums of 789ft MSL which won't be reached until a bit closer to the runway.

Perhaps someone with some math skills can share with us at what exact altitude the airplane should have been at this position 1.22 miles from the runway given the approach profile. And what kind of deviation one might expect on the CDI and glideslope in such a position. Are we talking about one dot off or major deflection?