# plane water landing: why didn't they flare before touchdown?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plane-water-landing-why-didnt-they-flare-before-touchdown/832038>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 4, 2019, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plane-water-landing-why-didnt-they-flare-before-touchdown/832038 "2019-04-04T15:31:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\
**Post date:** [April 5, 2019, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plane-water-landing-why-didnt-they-flare-before-touchdown/832038/21 "2019-04-05T13:37:59Z")

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> [@pmwgreen](#):
>
> Off Topic: Is this the crash on 12-11-2013 where Hawaii health director Loretta Fuddy died? As I recall the cause was a heart attack caused by the stress of the crash.

Waddyaknow, she’s got [her own wikipedia page.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loretta_Fuddy)

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**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\
**Post date:** [April 5, 2019, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plane-water-landing-why-didnt-they-flare-before-touchdown/832038/22 "2019-04-05T15:11:47Z")

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> [@Hermitian](#):
>
> My only thing to add here is that I am not a big fan of those bolt heads on the back of the seat. Those look like they could do a lot of damage to your face in severe turbulence, not to mention a crash.

If that outfit was willing to keep flying that plane about a thousand hours past initially required overhaul time, I don’t think they’d care that much about potential impact hazards in a crash. See, the NTSB report linked in MachineElf’s OP: [https://reports.aviation-safety.net/2013/20131211-0\_C208\_N687MA.pdf](https://reports.aviation-safety.net/2013/20131211-0_C208_N687MA.pdf) Page 4 of the .pdf digs into the maintenance on the engine, or lack thereof.

Basically, the time between overhaul (TBO) was 3600 hours for that powerplant. P&W gave the operator an authorized additional 200 hours to that figure. Eventually, the engine type was placed on a Maintenance on Reliable Engines Supplemental Type Certificate, which extended the TBO to 8,000 hours, provided certain inspections were done during that time. It’s not clear to me that all of the manufacturer requested maintenance was performed in a timely manner. The report mentions that part of the hot section maintenance during the MORE STC was destructive testing on two of the blades in the compressor section, to check for metal fatigue, and there was no evidence that this testing was ever done.

FWIW, overhauls on a turbine engine are ridiculously expensive, about half the cost or more of a new engine, per [this article](https://www.avbuyer.com/articles/engines-biz-av/pt6a-engine-what-s-it-worth-in-today-s-market-112271) for P&Ws PT6A. Hot Section inspections, which is what the operator was doing here instead of overhauling the powerplant, are much less expensive.

Anyway the powerplant here threw blades and stopped working at 4,899.6 hours.

I also particularly enjoyed the cameraman’s paying attention to his camera, and not say, the condition of any of the other passengers. At least he was filming in landscape mode.

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