G650 Down in Roswell, NM

Corporate Pilot said:
From the Savannnah news paper.

A Gulfstream G650 flight test aircraft was practicing a takeoff with the simulated failure of one of its two engines when it crashed on a runway in Roswell, N.M., Saturday, killing all four people on board.
In a preliminary report posted on its website late Wednesday, the National Transportation Safety Board said the aircraft “was performing a takeoff with a simulated engine failure to determine takeoff distance requirements at minimum flap setting.”
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If true, that would make sense.
 
pullup said:
What would cause that? Landing gear collapse?
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The initial thought seems to be that the aircraft rolled because of the simulated engine failure, and a wingtip caught the ground, spinning them out of control. The landing gear collapsed after that. Why the V1 cut went so far awry as to cause a wingtip hit is where the speculation will come in, at least until the NTSB gives more information that could shed light on other (real) equipment malfunctions or detailed crew flight control inputs. I would consider it highly unlikely that a V1 cut alone caused them to lose control, but beyond that...:dunno:
 
SteveC said:
The initial thought seems to be that the aircraft rolled because of the simulated engine failure, and a wingtip caught the ground, spinning them out of control. The landing gear collapsed after that. Why the V1 cut went so far awry as to cause a wingtip hit is where the speculation will come in, at least until the NTSB gives more information that could shed light on other (real) equipment malfunctions or detailed crew flight control inputs. I would consider it highly unlikely that a V1 cut alone caused them to lose control, but beyond that...:dunno:
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I wonder what kind of wingtip ground clearance they have at takeoff pitch attitude. I know that /can/ be an issue on some swept wing aircraft.
 
SteveC said:
The initial thought seems to be that the aircraft rolled because of the simulated engine failure, and a wingtip caught the ground, spinning them out of control. The landing gear collapsed after that. Why the V1 cut went so far awry as to cause a wingtip hit is where the speculation will come in, at least until the NTSB gives more information that could shed light on other (real) equipment malfunctions or detailed crew flight control inputs. I would consider it highly unlikely that a V1 cut alone caused them to lose control, but beyond that...:dunno:
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Thanks for the insight, I appreciate it.
 
SteveC said:
The initial thought seems to be that the aircraft rolled because of the simulated engine failure, and a wingtip caught the ground, spinning them out of control. The landing gear collapsed after that. Why the V1 cut went so far awry as to cause a wingtip hit is where the speculation will come in, at least until the NTSB gives more information that could shed light on other (real) equipment malfunctions or detailed crew flight control inputs. I would consider it highly unlikely that a V1 cut alone caused them to lose control, but beyond that...:dunno:
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Unfortunately, only the crew members onboard that day will fully know the chain of events that occurred to cause this horrible accident. Fly west and blue skies. RIP.
 
undflyboy06 said:
Unfortunately, only the crew members onboard that day will fully know the chain of events that occurred to cause this horrible accident. Fly west and blue skies. RIP.
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Might depend upon how much instrumentation was on board, and if the data can be recovered. It was a test flight, after all, so my uneducated guess was that they were tracking way more data points than a normal flight. It is conceivable that eventually we will know more about what happened then the pilots did.
 
SteveC said:
The initial thought seems to be that the aircraft rolled because of the simulated engine failure, and a wingtip caught the ground, spinning them out of control. The landing gear collapsed after that. Why the V1 cut went so far awry as to cause a wingtip hit is where the speculation will come in, at least until the NTSB gives more information that could shed light on other (real) equipment malfunctions or detailed crew flight control inputs. I would consider it highly unlikely that a V1 cut alone caused them to lose control, but beyond that...:dunno:
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We've got our cabin trainer and FTD #1 because a V1 cut in an airplane went badly. Frankly, our guys were lucky to walk out of it alive.
 
SteveC said:
Might depend upon how much instrumentation was on board, and if the data can be recovered. It was a test flight, after all, so my uneducated guess was that they were tracking way more data points than a normal flight. It is conceivable that eventually we will know more about what happened then the pilots did.
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Everything was being sent via telemetry to the ground. We are talking everything they were recording on the jet, which can be 1000's of measurements. GAC knows exactly what happened and when. Now we just wait for the NTSB to review and release that data.
 
Update straight from the NTSB mouth.

I was meeting with the Chief Investigator of the NTSB (on 5/5/11) in DC for a tour of the labs (and an hour long Q&A session, he was pretty cool) and he told me and the group of 4 people I was with that the fatal factor was a non-frangible runway sign that they hit on their way off the runway, that tore open a fuel tank starting the fire. I would hate to be an airport manager or FAA inspector for Roswell now...
 
tlewis95 said:
Update straight from the NTSB mouth.

I was meeting with the Chief Investigator of the NTSB (on 5/5/11) in DC for a tour of the labs (and an hour long Q&A session, he was pretty cool) and he told me and the group of 4 people I was with that the fatal factor was a non-frangible runway sign that they hit on their way off the runway, that tore open a fuel tank starting the fire. I would hate to be an airport manager or FAA inspector for Roswell now...
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Well thats not good at all for everyone involved. I can see lawsuits flying in the near future.
 
tlewis95 said:
Update straight from the NTSB mouth.

I was meeting with the Chief Investigator of the NTSB (on 5/5/11) in DC for a tour of the labs (and an hour long Q&A session, he was pretty cool) and he told me and the group of 4 people I was with that the fatal factor was a non-frangible runway sign that they hit on their way off the runway, that tore open a fuel tank starting the fire. I would hate to be an airport manager or FAA inspector for Roswell now...
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Unfortunately from Mike's photo I don't think blunt force trauma will be the cause of death.
 
Blackhawk said:
Unfortunately from Mike's photo I don't think blunt force trauma will be the cause of death.
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Somewhat obviously, but what I and the NTSB (Director of The Office of Aviation Safety, Tom Maughn) said was that the fire was there because the sign that they hit did not break, and instead ripped the fuel tanks up, starting the fire. If the sign would not have broken or been hit there would have been no fire, they would have slid to a stop in the dirt and probably walked away.
 
tlewis95 said:
Somewhat obviously, but what I and the NTSB (Director of The Office of Aviation Safety, Tom Maughn) said was that the fire was there because the sign that they hit did not break, and instead ripped the fuel tanks up, starting the fire. If the sign would not have broken or been hit there would have been no fire, they would have slid to a stop in the dirt and probably walked away.
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Thats a pretty big assumption there. Depending on where the sign was located on-field, not all signs are required to be breakable. It sounds like the sign was simply a factor. But the portion I bolded in the above, thats a VERY big assumption-turned-conclusion that I wouldnt go so far as to make. Aircraft sliding on parts other than their landing gear, along things other than pavement; thats a bad combo right there. That's a poor conclusion for the NTSB to be making, or for someone in the NTSB to be stating (unless its just how you wrote it). Any number of things could've sparked a fire in the dynamics the jet found itself doing. This just happened to be the one.
 
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