Bangor Maine - private jet w/8 crash

[ZapBrannigan]

When I was with Comair many moons ago, the chief pilot sat in a truck in CVG and did a tactile inspection right before we took the runway. The hard wing on the CRJ200 was nothing to be messed with.

I flew corporate for Walmart for a while. I was in a Learjet 31, also in CVG coincidentally, when I watched the FBO staff do a pretty lousy job deicing a Citation.

I went and found the deicing crew and said "listen, I work for the biggest company in the world. When we depart, I don't care what it costs, make sure there's not a flake of snow on this thing"

Boy howdy did they ever. They practically drowned us in fluid. Later I was called on the carpet for the $8000 deicing bill.

"Flying airplanes is expensive" I said. "Don't want to spend money? don't fly airplanes"

The normalization of deviance there (even if it was deviance from airline procedures as opposed to industry standard corporate behavior) always bothered me. Guess I was just never meant to be a corporate guy.

 

[CoffeeIcePapers]

Boy howdy did they ever. They practically drowned us in fluid. Later I was called on the carpet for the $8000 deicing bill.

"Flying airplanes is expensive" I said. "Don't want to spend money? don't fly airplanes"

The normalization of deviance there (even if it was deviance from airline procedures as opposed to industry standard corporate behavior) always bothered me. Guess I was just never meant to be a corporate guy.

Wait until they get the fuel bill!

 

[Inverted25]

As a ex corporate guy who did this exact kind of flying…aka, small part 91 operation with 1 plane.

No one uses hold over times and nobody has an app for that.

They literally had no idea. 100% guaranteed.

We use APS HOTs app in our operation. It’s updated every year. It’s pulls in metar data to determine type and intensity of precip. You can set the alarms to both the low and high end of the holdover times.

 

[Boots2Wings]

I don't consider it to be a "big deal", but it can introduce additional complexity at certain airports, and for us NB peeps, it can turn that lovely 12 hr layover into straight min 10, or I guess could be on go-home leg, or whatever other reason a delay becomes annoying. None of those are reasons not to do it, you have to and you do it anyway, but those kinds of things I think make people annoyed by it.

Thats fair. It is annoying for sure, especially in the situations you described, each of which ive had the misfortune on many a moon to experience.

 

[guywhoflies]

Not helping the case for us from having to do the “walk of shame” after deice….

Tbh though, i REALLY do not get why people make a big deal about deice in 121. Youre paid by the minute, you dont pay the bill….just do it thoroughly and right ffs. If in doubt, even the slightest, call iceman, run the procedures and checklist. Of ALL the things people are concerned with “newer” FOs being exposed to before upgrade, why the f do we make deice a big deal?

Amen to this. Last year, I had something happen that I had yet to experience. We got deiced and then sat in the pad until our HOT expired. Didn’t move an inch as DEN was deciding if they were going to turn the airport around. When ground finally had a plan, we told them we needed to get sprayed again. It was super fun, over blocked by 1.5 hours.

 

[DE727UPS]

That's from hazy memory of my *extremely* dog-earred copy of a collection of Flying Magazine "Aftermath" columns (back when Flying Magazine wasn't just basically an advertisement for ways to kill yourself if you're rich). $10 says that particular article was written by Peter Garrison, he was the best.

Haven't seen that book for ~15 years, but I still (sort of) remember things like this. Now ask me what I ate for lunch yesterday. No idea.

I have stacks of Flying mags I saved from the 70's and 80's. My flight doc saved them, too, and gave me his collection when he stopped flying. It's sad what it is now but history has moved past getting your news from something on paper.

 

[Cessnaflyer]

As a ex corporate guy who did this exact kind of flying…aka, small part 91 operation with 1 plane.

No one uses hold over times and nobody has an app for that.

They literally had no idea. 100% guaranteed.

I know I am in the minority but we get the updated HOTS app every year. Several other operators in my Challenger recurrents get it as well.

 

[derg]

When I was with Comair many moons ago, the chief pilot sat in a truck in CVG and did a tactile inspection right before we took the runway. The hard wing on the CRJ200 was nothing to be messed with.

I flew corporate for Walmart for a while. I was in a Learjet 31, also in CVG coincidentally, when I watched the FBO staff do a pretty lousy job deicing a Citation.

I went and found the deicing crew and said "listen, I work for the biggest company in the world. When we depart, I don't care what it costs, make sure there's not a flake of snow on this thing"

Boy howdy did they ever. They practically drowned us in fluid. Later I was called on the carpet for the $8000 deicing bill.

"Flying airplanes is expensive" I said. "Don't want to spend money? don't fly airplanes"

The normalization of deviance there (even if it was deviance from airline procedures as opposed to industry standard corporate behavior) always bothered me. Guess I was just never meant to be a corporate guy.

If they thought deicing was too expensive, I hope they considered the cost of the alternative.

 

[Fixtur]

If they thought deicing was too expensive, I hope they considered the cost of the alternative.

You know what else is cheaper than deicing? Hotel rooms and dinner for eight.

 

[CFI A&P]

I doubt any of that is in official evidence yet. But I'll be the witch in church and say that they pretty obviously tried to take off in a hard-wing jet with ice and/or "stuff" accruing to the wing, got airborne, stalled, flipped over, and hit the ground. Put me in the stocks and throw rotten vegetables at me if I'm wrong, but I'm not.

Is it known if they rotated yet? Or could this be a Gulfstream at KBED scenario, they had an overrun and went through the airport fence?

 

[KLB]

I know I am in the minority but we get the updated HOTS app every year. Several other operators in my Challenger recurrents get it as well.

It's all about knowing how to use the tables, understanding the information being provided, accepting the outcome of the information being provided, and acting accordingly.

The "make it happen under any circumstances" mentality has to be put in check. There is also trip planning where flight crews are leaving when the weather is good and avoid operating when the weather is "iffy". I have always been one to inform the client well ahead of time that it may be best to leave earlier or later than forecasted to avoid set backs. It would also be cheaper than spraying hundreds of gallons of deice fluid all over the plane when there is a low likelihood of keeping it clean. I understand the complexities of 91 international trip planning where where you have slots that you're trying to fit into and etc.... Part 91 international flying plus with inclement weather can add just one more hole in the swiss cheese.

 

[FXMXC]

Funny you mention that, I recently came across this 1991 article:

Crash Danger Looms While Experts Debate Rules For Icy Dc-9 Jets | The Seattle Times

The article talks about the lack of slats + icing being a bad combo. Though, probably because by 1991 every major/legacy except for Northwest and Midwest Express and future start-ups like Valujet would be dumping their DC-9-10s within 1-4 years, I don't think there was another takeoff crash in icing from the winter of 1992 onward that I can recall or find with a quick search.

Icing is one of those interesting things where we go from learning to fly and getting our ratings in planes that say "Do not fly into icing conditions" then go straight to "OK, now fly these people/this freight into icing big dawg". Much to learn on my end, and I have to say, de-icing a 757 in SMF when it was freezing fog and 26 degrees after some power point slides and spraying an imaginary airplane made me pretty anxious vs pretty much anything else I ever did involving an airliner.

F-28 as well has had a few crashes in icing on takeoff with a hard wing USAIR and Air Ontario being two off the top of my head

 

[Kingairer]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip5l8WIkcO0



Lots of clues here. Good video. Regardless of fault or outcomes, I really feel for the de-ice crews and how this will affect them for the rest of their life.
Wonder what that Allegiant pilot saw or wanted to talk about?

 

[T/O w/FSII]

Is it known if they rotated yet? Or could this be a Gulfstream at KBED scenario, they had an overrun and went through the airport fence?

They crashed halfway down the runway and never left the airport.

 

[MikeD]

The article talks about the lack of slats + icing being a bad combo. Though, probably because by 1991 every major/legacy except for Northwest and Midwest Express and future start-ups like Valujet would be dumping their DC-9-10s within 1-4 years, I don't think there was another takeoff crash in icing from the winter of 1992 onward that I can recall or find with a quick search.

No slats, much like the DC-9-10s, of which some insane percentage, like I want to say 10%? crashed on takeoff in icing.

Hard wing has its challenges, but isn’t impossible. Takes a heck of a lot more work to deice and remain that way. Consider the northern tier USAF bases and alert KC-135s and B-52s sitting outside in the snow/blizzard winter that had to be ready to launch in minutes from a cold start. They had to be kept deiced and protected at all times, HOT info would’ve been interested to see on those. Granted, they probably have endless quantities of Type I/II fluids available.

Even in Korea, we had extra jets more than we had aircraft shelters for, and if one of those had to be used as a spare, they had to get deiced and if it was raining or snowing at the time, same same.

 

[WacoFan]

Now ask me what I ate for lunch yesterday. No idea.

Syphilis can be brutal in that way.

Cosign on Peter Garrison Aftermath.

 

[knot4u]

Hard wing has its challenges, but isn’t impossible. Takes a heck of a lot more work to deice and remain that way. Consider the northern tier USAF bases and alert KC-135s and B-52s sitting outside in the snow/blizzard winter that had to be ready to launch in minutes from a cold start. They had to be kept deiced and protected at all times, HOT info would’ve been interested to see on those. Granted, they probably have endless quantities of Type I/II fluids available.

Even in Korea, we had extra jets more than we had aircraft shelters for, and if one of those had to be used as a spare, they had to get deiced and if it was raining or snowing at the time, same same.

It's odd that you posted about things I was wondering about right before I was going to ask you specifically about it. How do you keep a F-117 free from ice? Answer: You keep them in a hangar. I'm just going to assume if a spare was needed it would be brought into the hangar and prepped for a flight?

Pulling an airplane out of a warm hangar into a snowstorm is dangerous. The airplane's warm, the snow melts on the wing and then it freezes. I've been close to this situation, as in my ass was on the airplane, and we got a thorough deice before takeoff after the tower closed at Jackson Hole and obviously it worked because I can tell the story. That's the sort of thing I'll only talk about with friends and I have very few friends here so it's not worth it.

 

[MikeD]

It's odd that you posted about things I was wondering about right before I was going to ask you specifically about it. How do you keep a F-117 free from ice? Answer: You keep them in a hangar. I'm just going to assume if a spare was needed it would be brought into the hangar and prepped for a flight?

Pulling an airplane out of a warm hangar into a snowstorm is dangerous. The airplane's warm, the snow melts on the wing and then it freezes. I've been close to this situation, as in my ass was on the airplane, and we got a thorough deice before takeoff after the tower closed at Jackson Hole and obviously it worked because I can tell the story. That's the sort of thing I'll only talk about with friends and I have very few friends here so it's not worth it.

117s were always kept in hangars. No deicing preflight as they wouldn’t be flown. If airborne and running into icing, the biggest danger was ice forming in the grates of the intake covers known as the ice cube trays, as that’s what they resembled. To deice those (there was no anti-ice heating or such), you waited until an icing caution light came on and then activated the glycol wiper system. Which was a large car windshield wiper recessed into the bottom of the engine intakes at the bottom of the ice cube tray, and as it wiped across the tray, it sprayed a type 1 style fluid from ports along the wiper across the surface of the intake tray on one sweep, and wiped it away at the return sweep. That’s all there was, no other deice or anti-ice on any other the aerodynamic surfaces.

A-10s, we had some parked outside due to lack of shelters for all. And they’d be a spare if needed of one of the planes in the shelters broke prior to taxi, so they had to be kept deiced.

But it was the northern tier bomber bases that had the biggest work keeping the outside-parked bombers and tankers free of ice and within holdover times, as when the alert horn went off, whether real or practice, the jet had to be airborne from cold start, in 5 mins, after an all-engines start using starter cartridges. No time to taxi to a deice pad.

 

[adk]

That's the sort of thing I'll only talk about with friends and I have very few friends here so it's not worth it.

I’m a nobody here, but personally I find most of your aviation related stories to be really interesting and think it can be really helpful to get an A&P’s perspective of some of the topics discussed here. I am less of a fan of the posts where you and a handful of others choose to get combative, but please don’t think that many of us are writing off your extensive experience in this industry. I have learned a lot from you posting bits and pieces of your career.

Sorry for the thread jack y’all

 

[Fixtur]

^^^
It's the only time I use the "show ignored content" button.