Mooney down near Wikieup

[OR75]

http://www.azcentral.com/news/arizona/articles/20130328wikieup-plane-crash-abrk.html?nclick_check=1

please, fly safe. all data show that most accidents are preventable.

[Alan Fox]

M20A Held up nice considering its a wood wing , hard to believe that someone died in this one....

[robert7467]

Wow, considering the terrain, the pilot did a wonderful job putting her down. The fuselage was intact. I wonder if not having shoulder belts had anything to do with his death. Luckily I purchased some shoulder belts from Alan, and I will be installing them soon. This is a perfect example of why you need shoulder belts. My prayers go out to the family. 

[bd32322]

Thats sad news considering how well the pilot did in this situation. Although the force in the horizontal direction seems to have been minor (fuselage is not scrunched lengthwise), there might have been severe vertical forces from the bumpy surface causing spine injuries.

We should remember to adopt the brace position in all off airport landings I think (not sure how the pilot does that)

[Mooney_Allegro]

Thank God there was no fire. Sad though someone died.

[Hank]

I also wondered about shoulder belts in this accident.

 

My big question looking at the pictures is the gear. Both mains popped up through the wing. The way the ground is rolling in this area, would leaving the gear up have helped any? It looked like the ground scar was pretty short, but he could have impacted on the previous hill and skipped over to the next one. Gear down would certainly help reduce airspeed, though. Events like this make me wonder what would be the best preparation.

 

Gear up for water or trees; gear down on roads and pastures. What about the other half of potential forced landing situations?

 

Seeing the lack of cabin damage just points to the great design of the steel structure that protects us all. But my, the panel is close, and in events like this the plane stops quite fast throwing you forward.

[carusoam]

Hank,

We're sneaking back to the airbag discussion....

Unfortunately my iPad wasn't able to open the story...

I'llhave to catch up later.

Best regards,

-a-

[Hank]

Nah, I'm not talking airbags, I'm talking aircraft preparation for a forced landing. Obviously full flaps and pitch for airspeed like landing on a runway, but maintaining correct pitch and vertical speed over rolling terrain will be difficult, and the first impact will probably be the end of control. Is it best in conditions like this to have "first impact" be the gear or the belly?

 

Some situations are obvious--corn/beans, snowy field, water are gear up; level/hard terrain, gear down; undulating terrain, gullys, arroyos, rocky fields? What do you think would work best and why? These are the things we should think about in advance and be ready for, because when it happens we will be task-saturated and not capable of additional thought.

 

That is what I am thinking about now, as I prepare for Easter Weekend travel across the Appalachians. Weather is beautiful today, will be less so coming home Sunday. "Fly as far into the crash as possible" is always the goal, but sometimes details can make a difference. "Hit the softest thing around" is good advice, but there's not much soft in Arizona or WV [although we have more trees here and no cacti.]

[FloridaMan]

Had to have hit hard vertically. It's possible it may have been out of control and just happened to not hit nose-first -- I'm thinking maybe he was heading into the hill, pulled up hard and slammed the wheels into the incline? 

 

The lack of shoulder belts is a major possibility. 

[PMcClure]

No prop damage, no fire; no fuel???