King Air crashed into FSI Witchita

Just to put a face on this, here is the instructor, Jay Ferguson.
fergeson_0.jpg
 
I've been kind of at a loss for words about this situation. I'm a new hire at FSI - Cessna. Thursday was my fourth day on the job. When the plane hit, it was kind of a surreal experience, and I was about 100-150 ft from where it hit. I honestly didn't know what had happened at first. I felt a pressure wave come down the hall, no really big boom or anything. I can't imagine what the folks in the sim bay went through.

The aviation industry in Wichita is a very tightly knit community. The losses from the folks in the FSI building and the pilot have had a big effect on a lot of people.

I'm not really sure what else to say. Everybody stay safe out there. It's been a rough year.
Thank goodness your okay...
 
? Not sure what you mean by that. But if you pitch up, you get slow. I dunno what happened here, but it seems like there was some directional control issue of some sort.
Well yeah duh you're gonna have problems if you get below vmc, but that is regardless of what direction you're turning. I stand by my original statement, keep the airplane coordinated and it doesn't care which way you're turning or how many engines are running.
 
Well yeah duh you're gonna have problems if you get below vmc, but that is regardless of what direction you're turning. I stand by my original statement, keep the airplane coordinated and it doesn't care which way you're turning or how many engines are running.

VMC speed does increase when banking into the bad engine though. So as long as you got plenty of speed it dont matter. When low on performance, banking into the good engine gives a touch more fudge factor.

That being said, I agree with you, if flown properly, blueline is much higher than VMC, so stay at blueline and it dont matter which way you turn.
 
VMC speed does increase when banking into the bad engine though. So as long as you got plenty of speed it dont matter. When low on performance, banking into the good engine gives a touch more fudge factor.

That being said, I agree with you, if flown properly, blueline is much higher than VMC, so stay at blueline and it dont matter which way you turn.
Again-keep the airplane coordinated and it doesn't care which direction you're turning.

Letting the airplane get below VMC is different discussion.
 
Going to bump this up because the NTSB released the factual narrative as well as some video and pictures I hadn't seen before.

If you can ignore the Monday morning QB'ing by the guy in the video (probably worth muting), it has a couple of different videos of the accident as well as some great shots of the building area.


NTSB full narrative: http://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/brief2.aspx?ev_id=20141030X24112&ntsbno=CEN15FA034&akey=1

Videos and pictures: http://www.kwch.com/news/local-news...r-NTSB-report-on-Wichita-plane-crash/38262192
 
I have a question about turboprops. I never flew any, so I'm clueless.

I was watching an air accident mayday series on that ASA E120 crash that killed a senator and a NASA astronaut. It was on approach to landing and the left engine had an issue and as it failed, the prop didn't go to feather. It went the other way, fully meeting the air head-on. That's a worst-case scenario for a failed engine propeller.

My question is, in a situation like that, can a pilot just cut all fuel to that engine, and then vary the power on the remaining engine (including pulling it to idle) and then just glide it in? I don't know, that video I watched made it sound like those E120 guys basically had no chance because the propeller failed in a position that was impossible to fly with. They entered a nose dive and impacted the ground.
 
I have a question about turboprops. I never flew any, so I'm clueless.

I was watching an air accident mayday series on that ASA E120 crash that killed a senator and a NASA astronaut. It was on approach to landing and the left engine had an issue and as it failed, the prop didn't go to feather. It went the other way, fully meeting the air head-on. That's a worst-case scenario for a failed engine propeller.

My question is, in a situation like that, can a pilot just cut all fuel to that engine, and then vary the power on the remaining engine (including pulling it to idle) and then just glide it in? I don't know, that video I watched made it sound like those E120 guys basically had no chance because the propeller failed in a position that was impossible to fly with. They entered a nose dive and impacted the ground.
That's because it's a terrible design. Most all turboprops go to feather with the loss of oil pressure. It's fails safe. The Bro fails deadly.
 
That's because it's a terrible design. Most all turboprops go to feather with the loss of oil pressure. It's fails safe. The Bro fails deadly.
The 120 prop requires oil-pressure to move the propeller in either direction. The aerodynamic forces are way to high for springs, counter-weights, and/or gas charges. (from our book, not my words). The Dash 8, Saabs, C130s, anything else with a large propeller probably have this issue as well I'm guessing. Someone with another large turbo-prop book can comment on how those props are moved. I have no idea.

There are safe-guards that would require some pretty extraordinary circumstances that need to all line up for this prop to kill you.
 
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