Sad sight

[flyboy0681]

I came across this today at KIMM during a fuel stop.

[exM20K]

http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2021/02/mooney-m20l-pfm-n63mp-incident-occurred.html

"Aircraft struck powerlines on final approach."

Lucky to be alive and unhurt, I'd say, though I really don't know what the mechanism of such a mishap looks like.

Does the plane pull the powerlines off the pole, or part the lines, or get trapped like Maverick snagging a 3 wire, only with a 30' fall?

Probably all of the above and more are possible.

-dan

 

[flyboy0681]

1 minute ago, exM20K said:

http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2021/02/mooney-m20l-pfm-n63mp-incident-occurred.html

"Aircraft struck powerlines on final approach."

Lucky to be alive and unhurt, I'd say, though I really don't know what the mechanism of such a mishap looks like.

Does the plane pull the powerlines off the pole, or part the lines, or get trapped like Maverick snagging a 3 wire, only with a 30' fall?

Probably all of the above and more are possible.

-dan

 

That was an incident from 2021. This one occurred a few weeks ago, on June 1st.

[exM20K]

6 minutes ago, flyboy0681 said:

That was an incident from 2021. This one occurred a few weeks ago, on June 1st.

Holy cow! That's a hard luck aircraft.  My bad, though.  I assumed a wire strike was curtains for a plane.

That flight looks like a lot of work / stress

-dan

[1980Mooney]

See comments from @kortopates June 2 page 17.

This plane is a M20L 3 time loser - was also damaged at Mod Works during hurricane at time of PFM conversion.

[Danb]

Looks like his ride home with a new to him plane, apparently a rough ride. Assume just forgot to put the wheels down, rattled?

[Pinecone]

I don't think gear up.  One main is collapsed and one partially. Nose tire is flat.

Hard landing?  Maybe after a few bounces.

[1980Mooney]

29 minutes ago, Pinecone said:

I don't think gear up.  One main is collapsed and one partially. Nose tire is flat.

Hard landing?  Maybe after a few bounces.

If you blow up the pic of the nose gear doors, the bottom looks ground down.  That is classic gear up damage. 

In most cases, after they lift up the plane from the runway, they try to lower the gear.  I have to admit that the airport seems to have done a proper job lifting - I don't see any creases at the firewall or behind where the step used to be.  Sad unicorn of converted M20L.  Look at the lousy paint job - all the paint peeling off.

 

Edited June 18, 2023 by 1980Mooney

[flyboy0681]

4 hours ago, Danb said:

Looks like his ride home with a new to him plane, apparently a rough ride. Assume just forgot to put the wheels down, rattled?

Probably rattled. According to FlightAware, he came down from 11,600 feet to 1,600 in four minutes and the weather at the destination looked dicey at the time. 

[Pinecone]

So how do you end with with one main up, one partially and the nose tire flat. And the nose gear looks close to fully extended.

[1980Mooney]

25 minutes ago, Pinecone said:

So how do you end with with one main up, one partially and the nose tire flat. And the nose gear looks close to fully extended.

Don't know.  You may be right.  But I would expect more visible damage to the right wing if the right main collapse on landing. And if you porpoise so bad and hard that you bend 1 foot of your propellor blade back. generally you break the nose gear linkage and collapse the nose gear.  With the nose gear fully extended he would have needed to be at about a 30 degree angle to bend the prop that much - it's not just the tips.

Maybe we will see more detailed pics when this goes up for auction on one of the Salvage sites.

[A64Pilot]

2 hours ago, Pinecone said:

So how do you end with with one main up, one partially and the nose tire flat. And the nose gear looks close to fully extended.

And the prop bent up that bad, I don’t know

[kortopates]

Clearly the nose tire is not flat although the gear does look damaged, but it wouldn't be the first time that a pilot damaged the gear by selecting the gear down lever after landing gear up! Only point to that statement is there are many possible explanations consistent with the FAA Inspector claim that this was a gear up landing, whom I assume had a conversation with the pilot. I wouldn't second guess that determination based on these photo's. That said, preliminaries often get corrected but its usually in the opposite direction since pilots are reluctant to admit they had a gear up thinking incorrectly it will make a difference with the insurance company. Yet the truth always comes out with the submitted damage inspection report. 

Edited June 19, 2023 by kortopates

[ilovecornfields]

2 hours ago, kortopates said:

Clearly the nose tire is not flat although the gear does look damaged, but it wouldn't be the first time that a pilot damaged the gear by selecting the gear down lever after landing gear up! Only point to that statement is there are many possible explanations consistent with the FAA Inspector claim that this was a gear up landing, whom I assume had a conversation with the pilot. I wouldn't second guess that determination based on these photo's. That said, preliminaries often get corrected but its usually in the opposite direction since pilots are reluctant to admit they had a gear up thinking incorrectly it will make a difference with the insurance company. Yet the truth always comes out with the submitted damage inspection report. 

Dumb question, but why don’t the insurance companies offer a rebate to install a landing height system or something else that yells at you if you forget to put the gear down? Seems they would make that money back quickly with the rate of gear up landings we have.

[EricJ]

31 minutes ago, ilovecornfields said:

Dumb question, but why don’t the insurance companies offer a rebate to install a landing height system or something else that yells at you if you forget to put the gear down? Seems they would make that money back quickly with the rate of gear up landings we have.

Like a gear horn?   

[flyboy0681]

Anybody notice the elevator is set for nose down?

[A64Pilot]

8 hours ago, ilovecornfields said:

Dumb question, but why don’t the insurance companies offer a rebate to install a landing height system or something else that yells at you if you forget to put the gear down? Seems they would make that money back quickly with the rate of gear up landings we have.

Because believe it or not, but there is no evidence that they work, if they did I bet insurance would likely require it, but not give a discount, that way they save money but don’t cut profits. That’s not meant as a dig at them, just acceptance that they are in business to make money.

I think it’s because most gear ups are caused by the pilot being overwhelmed by too much going on, and while I don’t know what it’s called but when it’s overloaded the brain begins to ignore things, so the whole time the gear warning is going off, but the pilot doesn’t hear it.

Piper used to have automatic gear extension triggered I assume by low MP pressure and airspeed?, but they were removed for some reason, must have caused other problems?

I would say heck with a buzzer or verbal warning at 100’ put the gear down below a certain MP?

I think we have so many gear ups largely because of lack of experience, training and or aging pilots, all of it. I admit to being old and forgetting things more easily now

Edited June 19, 2023 by A64Pilot

[A64Pilot]

54 minutes ago, flyboy0681 said:

Anybody notice the elevator is set for nose down?

I don’t know which model this is, but apparently the later or bigger models don’t have the bungees like our J’s do, they drop like a Cessna.

Is this airplane one of those models?

[N201MKTurbo]

5 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

Because believe it or not, but there is no evidence that they work, if they did I bet insurance would likely require it, but not give a discount, that way they save money but don’t cut profits. That’s not meant as a dig at them, just acceptance that they are in business to make money.

I think it’s because most gear ups are caused by the pilot being overwhelmed by too much going on, and while I don’t know what it’s called but when it’s overloaded the brain begins to ignore things, so the whole time the gear warning is going off, but the pilot doesn’t hear it.

Piper used to have automatic gear extension triggered I assume by low MP pressure, but they were removed for some reason, must have caused other problems?

I would say heck with a buzzer or verbal warning at 100’ put the gear down below a certain MP?

I think we have so many gear ups largely because of lack of experience, training and or aging pilots, all of it. I admit to being old and forgetting things more easily now

The Piper system uses airspeed. It will put the gear down below a certain airspeed. You will notice a weird looking pitot tube on the side of the airplane. That is the auto extension sensor.

I don't recall what the issue was that caused them all to be disabled. It still worked on the Saratoga I was flying a while back.

[A64Pilot]

7 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

The Piper system uses airspeed. It will put the gear down below a certain airspeed. You will notice a weird looking pitot tube on the side of the airplane. That is the auto extension sensor.

I don't recall what the issue was that caused them all to be disabled. It still worked on the Saratoga I was flying a while back.

I think there was an accident or two that someone got behind the power curve and the gear came down making it worse.

Not that my opinion means anything but if their system was triggered by both A/S AND low MP, then I think it would work better, or tie it to an IR altimeter as they are cheap AND MP, if your below 100’ and say 15” MP it may be good to put the gear down? Same system advance power above 20 MP if the gear switch is up, they come back up.

‘Don’t take those numbers as hard numbers, it’s more than likely testing may come up with better ones

Edited June 19, 2023 by A64Pilot

[Pinecone]

11 hours ago, kortopates said:

Clearly the nose tire is not flat 

Maybe not totally flat, but look at pics 2 and 3.  It is definitely very low.

[Pinecone]

You MAY disable the Arrow auto extend.  It is not required to do so.  As I understand it, the rental one at my home field still has it operational.

IIRC, it is purely airspeed (did my Comm ASEL and CFI ASE in Arrows).  Including MP seems like it would have been a smart move.

[GeeBee]

The Piper system sucks. Unless you remember to disable it, the gear often remains extended during high altitude take offs and it is difficult to get the airplane to accelerate.  Especially the 180 and 200hp Arrows. Seen a lot of people struggle during hot and high takeoffs when they needed to tuck the gear away and it just hangs there. When it first came out, Flying Magazine said it would take a "special idiot" to land gear up. Three weeks later that special idiot was identified. 

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, N201MKTurbo said:

The Piper system uses airspeed. It will put the gear down below a certain airspeed. You will notice a weird looking pitot tube on the side of the airplane. That is the auto extension sensor.

I don't recall what the issue was that caused them all to be disabled. It still worked on the Saratoga I was flying a while back.

IIRC there were some fatals where either the gear came down at an inopportune time (e.g., water landing, trying to glide the last bit to a flat spot, trying to climb over an obstacle), or it wouldn't go up when needed.    There is an inhibit function to keep it from coming down if you know you're going in the water or something, but that's probably easier to forget than putting the gear down.

The Arrow I used to fly had it disabled.   

[201Mooniac]

2 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

The Piper system uses airspeed. It will put the gear down below a certain airspeed. You will notice a weird looking pitot tube on the side of the airplane. That is the auto extension sensor.

I don't recall what the issue was that caused them all to be disabled. It still worked on the Saratoga I was flying a while back.

I was flying a rented arrow out of Truckee once and after takeoff when turning crosswind, there was a gust of wind, a rattle of turbulence, and the gear fell down (that might have been the turbulence), made for a fun climbout situation.  Never flew the plane again.