News Cockpit video of Idaho plane crash

[Andy44]

Four guys in a small plane crashed into the trees; all survived. One guy was shooting video as it happened. Scary stuff.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-9jMrD3fVQ"]Plane Crash in Idaho Forest (Caught on Tape) Everyone Lives - YouTube[/ame]

 

[jthill]

Might want to watch [ame="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=835_1344412426"]the full video[/ame], it's ... well, watch.

 

[Quick_Nick]

Wow. They obliterated those trees on contact. Looks like the ground did the real injury.

 

[icedown]

Damn that's scary. There is a big national forest just northwest of my house. I hate flying over it because of having to do this if something went wrong.

 

[Cairan]

Fuel rich takeoff at high density altitude (>6000' + warm day) makes crashes happen. He never got above 100' AGL, might as well say he almost surfed on his ground effect the whole time... for 2 minutes. Even with forgetting the fuel mixture on full rich, he could have saved the day if he put the flaps full down when he failed to gain altitude and ease her down with a soft field landing at a much lower velocity than clipping those tree tops at full speed.

---------- Post added at 01:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:21 AM ----------

Dear God! It's his second crash in two years... and the guy is a "pro" ... I'm starting to doubt maybe he's loosing the pilot's edge...

http://kathrynaviationnews.com/?p=64421

 

[Aviator]

I know here in Australia at least we are taught to always have mixture full rich for all full throttle operations to aid in engine cooling.
Common sense would be to lean it for a high altitude take off though
but i can see how it might have just been a force of habit.

As for flaps i used to fly a wood and canvas plane much like that one which didnt actually have flaps - im not sure about this one but it's something to have a look at.

I agree it looks like he took off hot and high and overweight (4 people? he wouldnt be able to carry much fuel..) and didnt have the power to clear the rising terrain

It's so easy to criticize sitting here at home in our chairs but in the heat of the moment the right thing to do isn't always clear.. mixture, flap settings.. it might or might not have helped so in this case i would be placing the blame on his pre flight planning rather than anything he did in the cockpit.

 

[Hielor]

I know here in Australia at least we are taught to always have mixture full rich for all full throttle operations to aid in engine cooling.
Common sense would be to lean it for a high altitude take off though
but i can see how it might have just been a force of habit.

For the fixed-prop-pitch C152 and C172s I learned to fly on here in Seattle, high density altitude (>3000ft) procedure was to do a full-throttle runup prior to takeoff and lean the engine to max rpm.

 

[Aviator]

I do my flying at a sea level airport so i can definately understand why procedure might be different.
Even mt kosciusko biggest mountain on the continent is only 7,300 foot :lol: not many hills to clear over this way.

 

[Linguofreak]

Fuel rich takeoff at high density altitude (>6000' + warm day) makes crashes happen. He never got above 100' AGL, might as well say he almost surfed on his ground effect the whole time... for 2 minutes.

For a plane of that size 100 ft is high for ground effect (ground effect applies within about 1 wingspan of the ground. One of the links says the aircraft is a Stinson 108, for which a quick Google reveals a wingspan of 34 feet).

Keeping the thing in ground effect longer (obstacle clearance permitting) might actually have saved the day (if it could be saved at all). Then again, his best option was to abort the takeoff.