ETLB Squawk Forums — Archive

You may have seen the news report of this crash, it gave little information and only a photo of the crashed plane. This video was taken from an on-board video camera, it presents a view some of us have seen before. Fortunately though, not with these results. The plane is a Belite, manufactured here at the factory in Wichita, Kansas. They may be involved in the plane's repair.

In retrospect, what would you have done differently than this pilot to effect a better outcome. Can we all learn more about emergency procedures from this video? The pilot suffered only minor injuries, and no, this was not me.

Paul Fiebich

Click here to see the video and at the end you may want to go to the pilot's blog.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0drAzJNY28&feature=youtu.be

What would I have done different?

This should have been an ordinary off field landing, but it turned into a crash due to a poorly planned approach to the landing site.  I've also had a few off field unplanned landings, but so far no bent airplanes.  During my pilot training (in a two place ultralight) and routinely during my flying over the years I have practiced for these type landings by shutting the engine off and gliding down to a smooth landing.  As I said the first time was during training.  My instructor shut off the engine and told me to pick a field and land.  He actually intended to restart the engine after seeing if I made the proper response, but it wouldn't start and we made the landing in a plowed dirt field with no issues.

I contend that doing actual engine off landings is a safe way to instill proper glide path control and landing techniques.  What's that you say...it can't be safe to shut off the engine on purpose.  Well, glider pilots seem to be OK doing it every flight.

The other thing that would have made for a better outcome would have been to make a precautionary landing at the first sign of an engine issue.  At least he would have had power for the approach and maybe enough to make a go around if needed.

Good points you made Charlie. I have had five off-airport landings, two things I always keep uppermost in my mind: 1) continually watch the ground for a landing place and 2) always be aware of the wind direction. During my flight instruction and every BFR since, the instructor stressed to select a field and stick with that decision. It has worked for me.

Lets be looking for comments from others regarding this situation on the video.

Paul Fiebich

Quoted from radfordc This should have been an ordinary off field landing, but it turned into a crash due to a poorly planned approach to the landing site.

That.

Something else:  if you notice a vacuum when removing the fuel cap....hello.  Stop, do not takeoff,  vent the bloody fuel tank.
Hint:  the cap vent may be plugged,  or the separate vent line.

I have had 4 succesful off field landings with very little warning. After watching the video he had several when the engine had the initial miss then another. This sends me a red flag and I would have started to prepare for an emergency landing and at that altitude and the several clear fields in view it would have been easy. I know my engine and the sound it makes when it is happy so when it warns me with a miss or other action that is not normal I forget about getting back to the airport and prepare for the worst. From what I saw he had a clear field ahead but instead to make a 270 deg turn at low altitude which adds more drag from the ailerons. He is very lucky the damage was only to the airplane. I starting practicing these emergency procedures on a regular basis because it can happen again. I am very happy he wasn't hurt.

Monte

Hi -

I posted the video in the off topic section earlier today.  There is quite a long thread over at homebuiltairplanes talking about what could have caused the engine to quit and what actions may have resulted in a different outcome.  The pilot actually responded to the thread and is taking all of the information in and learning from it; the discussion has also been pretty polite for the most part.  Looking at the video, it appears that he experienced an incipient spin while trying to make the 270 degree turn.  In the end, he did the right thing and pushed the nose down and managed to make a controlled crash landing.

He also has a website that covers the construction of the airplane:

http://flyscoundrel.blogspot.com/

Going through the photos you can tell that he put quite a bit of effort into it and did a nice job as well.  In the end, it may have been something as simple as not venting the fuel tank properly which cost him the airplane but at least he was able to walk away from it.

I work in automotive crash and safety and looking at the photos what caught my attention was how the shoulder belts were anchored and how easily the front fuselage crushed.  If you look at the photos, you can see that the propeller did not even break, so the landing gear coming off and the wings striking the trees are probably what stopped the plane.  Using aluminum channels to build the structure provides adequate strength for the flight and engine loads; however, by nature, a channel section is not stable and can be made to buckle easily in compression or bending if overloaded.

At any rate, I think that there might be lessons for all of us in the video and credit should be given to the pilot for posting it.  It definitely took some courage.

Teo

Termite you picked up what I did also.  This engine out should have never happened because he didn't listen to what his plane was telling him when he did his preflight and fueling. The fact that the fuel tank was under vacuum should have flagged him and grounded the plane. We must use "all our senses" during our preflight. Look, touch, listen and smell!  I haven't taste anything yet but I'm sure somebody has a story about when they did! LOL

Tjspindler

Hind sight being 20/20; I applaud the man for his discussion about the event and the damage that was done to his aircraft.I once owned a Global and ran it on a test stand. I could not get it to run to my satisfaction and sold it and bought a new 447. I never flew behind the Global but I am sure that someone out there could get it to run right but it was not me.  Again much gratitude to the owner of the Belite for his discussion of the incident.

Don't come here often, but this was interesting. I have had several in-flight incidents and one in-flight engine failure but in my Experimental gyro, not the Max (knock on wood here!). My take:

He was flying at 1000' AGL, an altitude I most often use. His rapid decent amply illustrates how quickly a high-drag low-mass aircraft loses 1000' without power. It is not an altitude that should induce a level of assurance. At 1000' I always have a possible landing spot in mind as much as possible. I know there will be only seconds should the big quiet occur. I always attempt to be potentially in the same relation to an emergency spot as I would be with a short base-to-final for a normal runway, so I have a somewhat familiar approach. Nose-down 90 degree turns would be acceptable. A 270? probably not at this altitude. I also prefer and fly near a sizeable 2-lane county road near my airport. It's the road I drive to the airport on and I have learned to become familiar with how power lines are strung and where they typically cross the highway. Traffic is generally light, but luck always is a factor should you choose this option.

I practice extreme slips frequently. The Max will drop like a stone and I can flare out of 70 MPH and get quite a bit of float before settling in from that speed. There is plenty of time to get the nose up for a 3-pointer. If you don't have familiarity with these slips you will be very reluctant to try one in an emergency. The pucker factor surely goes up when you're in one. This pilot had a decent field right in front of him. If he had immediately initiated a full side slip it seems he might have been able to put himself right at the beginning of that field in a way that would have allowed him to use the remainder of it for his flare. I would have preferred an un-plowed field but....

It should be mentioned that I have never practiced by shutting down the engine. And I never will! I am not going to risk damaging or destroying the plane should I err in practice maneuvers. I would prefer to be as familiar as possible with how the plane handles and flares with the prop turning. In an engine out situation I will just assume less glide and more drop than normal. In that situation I will be writing off the plane in my mind and using it just to absorb my touchdown and preserve ME!. Stretching the glide in any manner will NOT be an option.

I fly in a cowardly manner, but at my advanced age I am not willing to tempt fate. It's not a matter of dying...but being a quadriplegic for the remainder of my time would be decidedly inconvenient. Just having to find a way to retrieve the pieces of a destroyed aircraft from some remote fenced pasture would also make for an unpleasant day. I got away with some stupid stuff in my younger years. Why push my luck now? I still feel privileged any time I fly over the long line of trucks plodding below me on the interstate.

This gentleman seemed to have ignored several clues which might have made it possible to achieve a better outcome, but you never know until it happens to you. He checked the fit of his cap and walked away. That's still a pretty good outcome in my book.

Quoted from Bill Metcalf
He was flying at 1000' AGL, an altitude I most often use. His rapid decent amply illustrates how quickly a high-drag low-mass aircraft loses 1000' without power. It is not an altitude that should induce a level of assurance.

My new Eindecker replica glides somewhat like a streamlined brick.  From 1000 ft., with power at idle, I will land somewhere within a 1/4 mile radius.  The final approach must be flown faster than 60 mph in order to have energy to flare smoothly.

Quoted from Bill Metcalf I practice extreme slips frequently. The Max will drop like a stone and I can flare out of 70 MPH and get quite a bit of float before settling in from that speed. There is plenty of time to get the nose up for a 3-pointer. If you don't have familiarity with these slips you will be very reluctant to try one in an emergency.

Slips are a good tool for dead stick landings.  Here is a video of my only Sonex dead stick landing while test flying a friends new plane.  https://youtu.be/45khkO4hvnY

Quoted from Bill Metcalf It should be mentioned that I have never practiced by shutting down the engine. And I never will! I am not going to risk damaging or destroying the plane should I err in practice maneuvers.

I used to shut down the engine in my Airbike routinely for practice.  I flew off of a grass strip located in the middle of a 1000 acres of flat farm land.  It was fun to judge the approach and landing so that I could touch down and roll to a stop directly in front of the hangar.

Quoted from Bill Metcalf I fly in a cowardly manner, but at my advanced age I am not willing to tempt fate. It's not a matter of dying...but being a quadriplegic for the remainder of my time would be decidedly inconvenient.

I always say that you should fly "a little bit scared"....it keeps you very alert and on your game.

I don't know what the glide angle on my Max would be, dead stick, but I generally don't think much beyond a cone of around 45 degrees from my current position. That's where the big slips come in handy. I would rather feel like I'm too high and might overshoot rather than feeling I don't have enough glide to reach the intended spot.

That's a great video of the Sonex. Illustrates exactly what I was describing. Use the slip to shoot for a fast and accurate arrival at the intended flaring position with plenty of energy left in the bank. (don't think I would expect that much float from a Max!) Don't even contemplate a standard-type turning approach. The incredible maneuvering capability of the Max allows for some extreme last-second gyrations to get alignment for touchdown. If you have enough experience to know what the plane does when you pull the nose up from a fast and steep approach like that, you still have a few options in maneuvering to avoid whatever hole or obstruction rears it's head at the last moment.

I could see maybe trying a couple of shut-offs If I had the grass field situation you describe, but a busy airport with a 7000' runway doesn't leave me feeling I have that option. Of course, If I was flying the Nemesis to a world speed record I could just have the entire airport shut down for my exclusive use, like they did over several days here last summer!

I've had a couple of experiences that had me thinking I had bought the farm for sure, and after fighting through them, was shocked to find I was still alive. After one of those, most people tend to re-arrange their thinking about taking risks, or putting off til later fixing that pesky little problem you discovered during your pre-flight.

I don't know what the glide angle on my Max would be, dead stick, but I generally don't think much beyond a cone of around 45 degrees from my current position. That's where the big slips come in handy. I would rather feel like I'm too high and might overshoot rather than feeling I don't have enough glide to reach the intended spot.

That's a great video of the Sonex. Illustrates exactly what I was describing. Use the slip to shoot for a fast and accurate arrival at the intended flaring position with plenty of energy left in the bank. (don't think I would expect that much float from a Max!) Don't even contemplate a standard-type turning approach. The incredible maneuvering capability of the Max allows for some extreme last-second gyrations to get alignment for touchdown. If you have enough experience to know what the plane does when you pull the nose up from a fast and steep approach like that, you still have a few options in maneuvering to avoid whatever hole or obstruction rears it's head at the last moment.

I could see maybe trying a couple of shut-offs If I had the grass field situation you describe, but a busy airport with a 7000' runway doesn't leave me feeling I have that option. Of course, If I was flying the Nemesis to a world speed record I could just have the entire airport shut down for my exclusive use, like they did over several days here last summer!

I've had a couple of experiences that had me thinking I had bought the farm for sure, and after fighting through them, was shocked to find I was still alive. After one of those, most people tend to re-arrange their thinking about taking risks, or putting off til later fixing that pesky little problem you discovered during your pre-flight.

Quoted from Bill Metcalf
That's a great video of the Sonex. Illustrates exactly what I was describing. Use the slip to shoot for a fast and accurate arrival at the intended flaring position with plenty of energy left in the bank.

Having extra airspeed when reaching the runway isn't a bad thing.  It's far better to touch down fast and roll the length of the runway...even if you run off the end you should be going slow enough to avoid injury.  It's far worse to have too little speed and altitude and come up short of the runway.  Dead stick approaches (in an ultralight type plane) should always be done a little high and fast.  Aim for a point 1/3 down the runway so that if you do come up short you've got a margin for error.

Here's an example of what a well-executed slip can do for you - and good point about aiming farther down the intended spot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2CBx7x5GCI

When you learn to fly on these , your odds of making a successful dead stick landing increases about 100 times.