The Great Ongoing Aviation Thread (general and other) (Part 2)

Yeah. Engine running at impact sorta removes the obvious cause. Although running and developing useful thrust are two different things. A prop going flat or feather would leave the engine running, but developing negligible thrust. As would the engine rolling back to near idle due to some engine control malfunction.

If they care to, NTSB can probably derive something close to actual airspeed from either ADS-B or video analysis. Which will rule in or out a simple stall spin due to inattention after engine partial failure or airspeed indication malfunctions. Or just inattention: pilot drops something in the cockpit, or gets focused on something on the ground and suddenly he’s on his back. Or distracted by some other malfunction like an electrical failure (or fire!) that would leave rather little physical evidence in such a hefty post-crash fire.

After that you’re sorta left with some manner of control jam, perhaps from somebody in the copilot’s seat. But that doesn’t seem to have been occupied.

I noted they put more fuel in right than left tank. Suggesting they’d burned from the right more than the left on earlier flights. In any case, the side taking the heavier fuel onload was the wing that went up, not down, as they lost control. So if there was a fuel imbalance favoring left roll, it would have been worse before refueling than after. IOW worse at the previous landing than it was at the mishap takeoff. And obviously the previous flight landed with no excitement.

Hmm. Not straightforward at all.

Is a shifting load a posible concern with a plane full of skydivers? Maybe they heard something that made them think there was a problem and, since they were already wearing parachutes, started trying to get to the door to jump out. Could the resulting weight shift put the plane out of CG limits and uncontrollable?

I suppose it could. The seating arrangements on those planes are sorta makeshift. Everybody has a place and a belt, but if somehow an entire bench broke loose and the whole unit of bench w 4 attached divers all ended up piled up back at the aft end of the passenger compartment it’d probably get real exciting real quick.

On the other hand, nobody is successfully jumping out of a plane at 200-400 feet where they apexed. If I was the parachutists immediately at the door I might risk it but nobody else is getting out while the plane is falling. So I discount the idea they got hinky about something and disturbed the CG in an attempt to beat a hasty exit.

The NTSB prelim had a single still from some security cam footage that probably recorded most of the event. A major CG excursion is real dramatic. I speculate that if there’d been one on that vid, NTSB would have said something about it, and probably included still(s) of it.

The “seating arrangements” on the Cessna jump plane I was treated to were something called “the floor”. No seats, no belts. No snack or beverage service, either!