King Air down at LGB

RIP so sad :(

we took off from VNY with our king air just before 10 this morning and when we landed at SDL i had bunch of missed calls and texts concerned if I'm okay or asking where am i? and I had no clue what has just happened, so they thought it was our king air.

when we got back to Signature at vny, a gentlemen said he knew the pilot. he said the pilot was in his like early 40's and had two kids and wife, just breaks heart and just takes your mind away into deep thoughts you know :( my condolences to their families.
 
RIP
Thomas Dean, reportely one of those killed, had quite a few toys on the airport including a Grumman Albatross and a P-51. He also owned Catalina Flying Boats for a few years. The adults onboard were quite established in the community.
:(
 
Damn, that explains why that King Air was occasionally parked by the CFB hangar with the nice motorhome and a bunch of vintage dirtbikes in it. That albatros was awesome, didn't it compete in some round the world race?

RIP and thoughts to the families involved.
 
Damn... so scary seeing those pics of the burned out hull. An aircraft on fire is one of the things that really scares me. I am going to be closely following the NTSB on this one. It has to be pretty rare for a King Air to just go up in flames like this. RIP
 
SIUav8er said:
Damn... so scary seeing those pics of the burned out hull. An aircraft on fire is one of the things that really scares me. I am going to be closely following the NTSB on this one. It has to be pretty rare for a King Air to just go up in flames like this. RIP
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I don't think it just went up in flames, as if it spontaneously combusted. Nearly any aircraft that has an accident post-initial takeoff with that sort of damage, will more often than not have an associated fire.
 
I dunno why everyone is freaking out about the fire.

The airplane had some kind of engine failure on takeoff, and impacted the dirt full of fuel.

Of course there's going to be a post-impact fire.

It's not as if it burned to a crisp in flight.
 
Hacker15e said:
I dunno why everyone is freaking out about the fire.

The airplane had some kind of engine failure on takeoff, and impacted the dirt full of fuel.

Of course there's going to be a post-impact fire.

It's not as if it burned to a crisp in flight.
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I think part of it was that some of the reports sounded like engine fire on takeoff, which led people to think about burning to a crisp in flight. That plus the Franklins putting post-crash fires and entrapment on everyone's mind.
Plus I just read this NTSB report yesterday about Pilgrim 458: http://www.airdisaster.com/reports/ntsb/AAR82-07.pdf
 
post crash, or whatever.. its still bad. I have seen plenty of post crash photos of complete wrecks... very few being completely burned like this one.
 
SIUav8er said:
post crash, or whatever.. its still bad. I have seen plenty of post crash photos of complete wrecks... very few being completely burned like this one.
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Sure its still bad. But its nothing to be shocked or completely surprised about such as is being seen posted. With this kind of dynamic at this particular phase of flight, chances of a large post-crash fire are more likely than not.

If there was already a fire in progress of some sort and it was still going at the time of impact, then the chance is even greater of a post-crash conflagration. The crash dynamic will also determine if the deceased died of blunt trauma, smoke/fumes or thermal burns.

Id be interested what the condition of the aircraft was immediately post-impact and settle, the ARFF reponse time, and what ARFF encountered upon scene arrival.
 
It seems very similar to a crash that happened at Hayward a couple of years ago. That crash happened to the sister ship of the KA200 that I used to fly. Both of these crashes seemed odd in that they were both flown by a professional pilot and went of the side of the runway and caught fire. It made me wonder about the accuracy of the training King Air pilots got.
 
RIP... I sure hope they died on impact or were atleast unconscious. I can't imagine getting burned alived... I too am interested in seeing the NTSB report. An enigne failure/fire should be a non-event unless it was bad enough to start burning control surfaces.
 
Hacker15e said:
I dunno why everyone is freaking out about the fire.

The airplane had some kind of engine failure on takeoff, and impacted the dirt full of fuel.

Of course there's going to be a post-impact fire.

It's not as if it burned to a crisp in flight.
Click to expand...

I think everyone is freaking out because the possibility of it happening to them is real, and pictures like this solidify that. I also think that (and I'm shooting from the hip on this, so tell me if I'm wrong) that the military takes some of the sting of this out of it because of the mission that they train their pilots(you) for, so they are a little more used to in in some circumstances.
 
Saw my first fatal when I was young (11 or so - really good friend in a Culver Cadet) and some more since then. My Grandpa, being a man of few words, simply told me "Airplanes will absolutely kill you. Most of the time someone will do something to cause that, but sometimes things will just randomly happen and you buy the farm. If you're going to be around airplanes for any length of time you just need to get used to that fact and if you can't you shouldn't mess with airplanes."

He wasn't exactly The Great Santini, nor was he Dick Van Patten - kind of in between. True enough statement though. He also made me fly the Chief with him that afternoon after watching the wreck so I would get over the whole "thinking about it" thing.
 
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