FL PC-12 Accident Kills Family of 6

Does anyone know, or has anyone seen video of a PC-12 spinning? Do they go flat and unrecoverable after a time? Didn't they have to spin these to get certified? Just curious about these questions. Would be interesting to see the path just prior to where it came to rest - relative forward motion vs. flat-spin.
 
WacoFan said:
Does anyone know, or has anyone seen video of a PC-12 spinning? Do they go flat and unrecoverable after a time? Didn't they have to spin these to get certified? Just curious about these questions. Would be interesting to see the path just prior to where it came to rest - relative forward motion vs. flat-spin.
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PC12 stalls look pretty violent
 
AND it looks like they have all of thier wing(s)! Take off about 6 feet of the right wing and we can see what the Bramledges were dealing with.

This is a sad, sad deal. This is what I fear the most in flying. When I go, I don't want to know it's happening.....
 
SteveCostello said:
That looks more like spin testing as opposed to stall testing. But that is quite a snappy little roll it does.
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Fresh from TBM school, my instructor talked about how violent the PC-12 stalls were. Which is one of the reasons for a shaker? or a pusher? can't remember which one.
 
It has a pusher. But as dustoff points out, talking about the stall seems pretty far off target if pieces of the thing fell off at 25,000 feet.
 
Boris Badenov said:
It has a pusher. But as dustoff points out, talking about the stall seems pretty far off target if pieces of the thing fell off at 25,000 feet.
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Can a spin that develops into a flat spin start to tear things off the airplane? Or, is it more likely that things fell off the plane causing lack of control/spin?
 
WacoFan said:
Can a spin that develops into a flat spin start to tear things off the airplane? Or, is it more likely that things fell off the plane causing lack of control/spin?
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All depends on what was happening. The most likely cause for the wing to rip off would be after the spin and recovering over zealously with the elevator to get back to level.
 
Cessnaflyer said:
All depends on what was happening. The most likely cause for the wing to rip off would be after the spin and recovering over zealously with the elevator to get back to level.
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You're right - just like we all (hopefully) learned when we got our spin training. I was asking (and assuming) more of a flat spin - I've never done that. I wonder what kind of stresses are on the plane. I also wonder how this plane hit the ground - pancake like it was in a flat spin? What kind of marks are there - lots of forward motion, or a pancake? Just a strange wreck. Unbelievably sad, but equally strange.
 
I'm no expert but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Under the bed. With the dead hookers. It's exceedingly unlikely for anything to depart the airframe in a stall/spin scenario. As CessnaFlyer observed, it might happen in the recovery if the pilot freaked out (or was way too low not to freak out), but neither seems likely given the dispursion of the wreckage. If it fell apart at FL250, I think it's extraordinarily unlikley that it was a pilot-induced airframe failure. Either he found himself in an unforecast and unknown level 5-6 (this has happened before...in florida...to a mitsi) or there was some other type of catastropic failure. I do not think that this happened because the dude got too slow, overrid the pusher, and spiraled in.
 
Cessnaflyer said:
I agree with Boris, it seems more like an inflight breakup caused by convective activity.
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I certainly hope it was more than this. The storms that day (in that area and time) were very scattered and isolated; no need to go through them.
 
Boris Badenov said:
I'm no expert but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Under the bed. With the dead hookers. It's exceedingly unlikely for anything to depart the airframe in a stall/spin scenario. As CessnaFlyer observed, it might happen in the recovery if the pilot freaked out (or was way too low not to freak out), but neither seems likely given the dispursion of the wreckage. If it fell apart at FL250, I think it's extraordinarily unlikley that it was a pilot-induced airframe failure. Either he found himself in an unforecast and unknown level 5-6 (this has happened before...in florida...to a mitsi) or there was some other type of catastropic failure. I do not think that this happened because the dude got too slow, overrid the pusher, and spiraled in.
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Thank you. Just an all-around sucky deal, but fascinating.
 
dustoff17 said:
I certainly hope it was more than this. The storms that day (in that area and time) were very scattered and isolated; no need to go through them.
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There's never need to go through them, but people constantly do and end up paying for it. If it was an inflight breakup, I hope it wasn't anything more than them flying through the storm. I hate the idea that a plane like the PC12 suddenly broke apart in flight for no reason.
 
I'm leaning towards the sudden convective activity theory as well... I'm certainly not the most experienced pilot here, but I think we can all agree that violent updrafts associated with a T-storm can come out of nowhere. And it doesn't take a massive cell, just a medium to smaller one being fed by a small centralized vertical shaft of rising air at high speed. Really tiny and the odds of hitting one are like hitting the lottery in a bad way.

Either way, still an absolutely horrible way to go.. RIP :(
 
Boris Badenov said:
I'm no expert but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Under the bed. With the dead hookers. It's exceedingly unlikely for anything to depart the airframe in a stall/spin scenario. As CessnaFlyer observed, it might happen in the recovery if the pilot freaked out (or was way too low not to freak out), but neither seems likely given the dispursion of the wreckage. If it fell apart at FL250, I think it's extraordinarily unlikley that it was a pilot-induced airframe failure. Either he found himself in an unforecast and unknown level 5-6 (this has happened before...in florida...to a mitsi) or there was some other type of catastropic failure. I do not think that this happened because the dude got too slow, overrid the pusher, and spiraled in.
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Could be, but I thought there was no way a crew would take off on a runway half as long as the one they intended, that an airline captain would forget how to recover from a stall, or an FO would slam a rudder back and forth so hard it would break off. Hopefully the investigation will tell.
 
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