The first time I saw Beyond the Thunderdome I didn’t even realize that was a real plane; I just assumed it was something the prop department created to look like something the pilot pieced together from the wrecks of a bunch of old planes. Later I leaned, nope, that’s a real plane the really looks like that.
It somehow reminds me of the ocean sunfish:
Which likewise looks like someone just went to the fish parts pin, plugged a bunch of random bits together, and also left out some important-seeming things…
That is a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter - Wikipedia, not a Short 360 - Wikipedia. The article even says it’s a DHC-6
Looks like a pretty darned good forced landing on nearby open land. Calling it a “crash” seems like unwarranted sensationalising to me, but I’m not a journalist.
One of my co-workers and best friends was a jump instructor and one of two survivors of an accident involving a Twin Otter jump plane w about a dozen people on board. Difference was they stalled/spun in from ~500 feet.
The other survivor lived 3 days. He spent months in a coma and was thereafter a paraplegic. Until he committed suicide ~8 months later.
I haven’t skydived. I don’t fear the parachuting part. But between bad maintenance and bad piloting, I do fear jump planes. So I don’t skydive.
So is it a extra shorts now?
What’s that line about no need to bail out of a perfectly good airplane? Sounds like they didn’t bail out of this one, & its not exactly perfectly good anymore, is it?
The fact no one was hurt says it was a good landing. The fact the airplane is not reusable says it was not a great landing.
It looked too boxy to be a Twin Otter but I see the wing strut is more inboard and the rear door matches up.
It will be interesting to learn what happened. If they lose an engine there is still 700 hp to work with. And it’s supposed to have good stall characteristics.
Another tell between Twotters & 360s is the twotter has a long gear strut poking directly out of the lower fuselage Cessna style, whereas the 360 has stubby gear poking straight down out of a sponson like a C-130.
Here’s a pic of a standard Twotter that shows off the gear and the slab-sided nature of the thing; it’s very much a box fuselage, not a circular cross section like a jet or a Swearingen Metroliner. de Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter
Conversely, the Short takes boxiness to an extreme on the sides & bottom, but has a smoothly curved top like an ancient Lockheed Constellation. This article has a bunch of interesting factoids and good pix:
One of my longtime coworkers & best pals flew the USAF version for most of the few years USAF had them. Not a very ego-satisfying airplane as USAF machines go, but he said it was great at its mission & fun to fly.
LSL, Nice background on the Shorts aircraft. Thanks.
Plane crashed on take off in India. Yes, it’s a Boeing.
Over 240 people on board and it crashed into a residential area. The plane would have been full of fuel so let’s hope the area wasn’t too densely populated. The pilots did declare an SOS but the aircraft was in the air for less than a minute.
The footage I’ve seen of the crash doesn’t show any smoke or damage to the aircraft, there is some talk that the flaps may have in the wrong position but I think that sort of talk is jumping the gun. It should be straightforward to recover the flight recorder.
It was a Boeing but the 787 has an excellent safety record.
Reports are saying it crashed into a doctors’ hostel at Ahmedabad’s civil hospital. What an utter horror.
There is a separate thread for the Air India crash:
That’s a ref to the current bottom of the thread, not the OP. If you see this note soon enough you might fix that.
The Mentour Now! YouTube channel just posted an interesting video (see below…26 minutes) about a technology that would help make planes more safe but the FAA is thwarting (so far).
Most here (I think) are familiar with the Sioux City DC-10 plane crash of United Airlines Flight 232 where the plane suffered a complete loss of hydraulic pressure (they could not control the plane). The pilots managed to control the plane enough using only engine power. Even though it crashed in the end and many died many also lived and the pilots pulled off a near miracle to manage that.
So, some smart people at NASA figured they could use computers to do the same thing but better (because what they did is astonishingly difficult for a human). And they succeeded! Really well it seems. Remarkably well.
But, the FAA certification requirements have not allowed this system to be installed in planes.
I get the FAA’s stringent requirements keep us all safe and flying today is super-safe because of it. No problems there. What I do not understand is blocking something that can save the plane when pretty much all hope is lost? I mean, if you’re fucked anyway then why not press the button that might save you? That button may also kill you but, since death is almost certain anyway, why not take the chance? Kinda like some drugs are now approved for people who have no other hope even if the drug as not been fully vetted.
Am I surprised? No. No, I am not. Thanks to Monty for this:
If you HAVE to land on a roof.
IMHO just having a private is not an issue – plenty of admins have had no certificates at all.
Now claiming certifications / endorsements you don’t have that is the big issue.
Brian
I don’t have time just this moment to watch that video. But my quick thought is that such a system is only really needed for a flight control failure. That’s vanishingly rare these days. Lots of backups, which may lead some to question the value of the expense and complexity of installing that system.
For example, my current bizjet has hydraulically boosted controls. But even in a complete hydraulic failure (which is itself very unlikely and has never happened on this type) the controls would revert to mechanical. They would be heavy, but it would work fine. There are also backups for the trim.
Not to say it couldn’t happen, but a failure requiring that sort of system would be extremely unlikely in my plane and most modern aircraft. But I’ll watch the video and see if it changes my mind.
You are correct and they note this in the video. These are “black swan” events (super unlikely).
But, the thing is, the system has been invented already and plugs in to the existing autopilot system so there really is minimal cost to it (just computer code added to the autopilot). Maybe it is not perfect but, again, if you are in that situation why not go for it? Not much to lose by using it at that point and everything to gain.
(It should definitely be a distinct mode in the autopilot that the pilots would have to intentionally engage.)
The cost of certifying such a system would probably make it untenable, especially given the “black swan” thing. You’re adding something to the aircraft: What if it fails? Will it interfere with existing systems? Will it be using ship’s power, and if so, how does that affect overall electrical usage? What sort of training is required to use it? What sort of maintenance needs will it have over time?
Mnemosyne has expertise in this area and will likely have more to say. But nothing is cheap or simple when it comes to installing and certifying aircraft equipment.