Addison airplane crash

[expatriot98]

This King Air was carrying 10 souls and crashed just after takeoff. One person, Steve Thelen, was a friend. He was one of the best people I've ever known. This video has just been released. There are reports of a problem with the left engine. This vid shows the plane in what appears to be a radical side slip and possible stall? What do you airplane knowledgeable folks think?

[john70t]

I'm sorry for the loss of your friend.

It looks like the pilot gunned it (side slip), and then used full right rudder and ailerons while trying to climb which slowed the plane too much to recover (stall and roll).

Is it possible he could have held it in a long circle while maintaining altitude and gaining some airspeed? idk what I would do in that situation. Got a lot of respect for the people who do that as a profession.

[island911]

Massive yaw in the last moments, likely induced by full throttle on one engine and not enough rudder airflow, and not enough elevation to bank right.
Left engine out at just the wrong moment. (novice speculation)

Sad.

[crustychief]

classic VMC roll

[crustychief]

lost a friend to this earlier last month.

[Eric Coffey]

Originally Posted by island911

Massive yaw in the last moments, likely induced by full throttle on one engine and not enough rudder airflow, and not enough elevation to bank right.
Left engine out at just the wrong moment. (novice speculation)

Sad.

Originally Posted by crustychief

classic VMC roll

+1

Asymmetric thrust + below Vmc + little/no altitude = bad news.

Just speculation, but weight & balance might have been a contributing factor. Sounds like it was at/near max capacity, and given the destination I am guessing the tanks were full.
The relatively high wing loading of that A/C probably didn't help matters, and the density altitude might have been a bit up there as well.

Ughh, I hate hearing about these. Sad indeed...

[javadog]

That crew had precious few seconds to do what they needed to do to correct the problem. They correctly identified which engine was at fault but I noticed the gear was still down, so it doesn’t look like they reacted fast eough to get the plane stabilized in a straight climb. I always hate takeoffs when I’m riding in a twin.

My condolences to the loss of your friend and everyone else on board that plane. Truly sad.

[island911]

Originally Posted by crustychief

classic VMC roll

Had to look that up. . . V_mc = Velocity, minimum controllable.

[smokintr6]

https://flightsafety.org/ap/ap_june05.pdf

^^Interesting read, I was trying to do quick research to see if the King Air can actually be configured to climb with one engine. From the flight safety link It looks like take off rotation is around 90 knots, and minimum speed to climb on one engine is around 107... Recommendation looks like aborted take off if the engine fails below 107 *even if it means crashing off the end of the runway*. Who knows when the engine failed in this case, but I bet the chances of getting it right were pretty low for the pilot. Power loss on take off is pretty much a nightmare scenario.

[flipper35]

They stopped climbing almost immediately so I would guess it failed just after rotation. All he could do at that point was get the nose down which didn't happen for some reason and he didn't have enough rudder authority at that speed to fly straight. Pulling the power would have helped keeping it straight and may have allowed him to get the nose down.

Hard to say what happened since we were not there and some situations you don't have much control over. I am sure the pilot was not sitting in the cockpit thinking "Hmm, now what?".

This is a good example of why they aren't going to a single engine per pod in the B52 as it barely has enough rudder to deal with an engine out as it is.

[javadog]

From what I’ve read, a King Air can climb with one engine but there’s not a lot of margin between typical rotation speeds and the minimum controllable speed. Cleaning up the airframe quickly and perhaps even a power reduction on the good engine might be needed. If I remember correctly, that runway is pretty long and a better response might’ve been to put the thing back on the ground.

A Google search will pull up quite a few incidents like this for that type of plane.

[speeder]

Sorry for the loss of your friend. Every one of these tragedies affects someone on a personal level but most of the time, it's someone we don't know. I've lost a few people in small plane crashes. At least it's very sudden. RIP.

[flipper35]

Originally Posted by javadog

From what I’ve read, a King Air can climb with one engine but there’s not a lot of margin between typical rotation speeds and the minimum controllable speed. Cleaning up the airframe quickly and perhaps even a power reduction on the good engine might be needed. If I remember correctly, that runway is pretty long and a better response might’ve been to put the thing back on the ground.

A Google search will pull up quite a few incidents like this for that type of plane.

I don't think he had time to clean it up and if they had reduced power and were able to go straight ahead, they would have probably wanted the gear down.

Had the left engine quit before VMC, they would never reach VMC so your options are pretty limited.

Most twins can climb on one, but they better have the speed needed before they become a single engine.

[javadog]

All the pilots I have flown with retract the gear just after they get airborne, so whatever happened probably occurred within a second or two after he got airborne.

Vmc is probably 5 knots below rotation speed so if it failed before that the only response is to abort the takeoff.

It’s really hard to watch the video of that.

[flipper35]

Also, to me it looks like there is fire just before impact. A fellow pilot friend looked and saw the same. If so, that might explain a lot.

Normally you retract as soon as you have established your climb. I know some pilots that have ground contact switches put the gear lever up during the takeoff roll so the gear go up as soon as they take off. This works almost all the time.

The lack of climb makes me think the engine died as they broke ground or immediately after. Some situations have no answer.

[javadog]

I didn’t notice any fire but it looked like I saw some white smoke.

[expatriot98]

Thanks all for your thoughts.Steve was one of the most successful and well respected commercial real estate brokers in Dallas. Always had his act together and highly organized. It hurts to think what he and the other souls went through the last few seconds.

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by expatriot98

Thanks all for your thoughts.Steve was one of the most successful and well respected commercial real estate brokers in Dallas. Always had his act together and highly organized. It hurts to think what he and the other souls went through the last few seconds.

Best to you and Steve's family...

I have chaired a few accident boards and I can guarantee you they will drill down on this because the King Air is ubiquitous in aviation, they are everywhere for a good reason.

Don't obsess on the video, trust me, I know.

[javadog]

I lost a friend once in a collision between two biplanes at an air show. It was hard to think about what happened.

[Brown747]

Sorry for the loss of your friend. RIP.
Findings from a similar King Air accident in Australia last year.
https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/5775073/ao-2017-024-final.pdf