ATR-72 Down in Taipei
 

Stunning dash cam video of the crash:

<iframe width="570" height="428" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0fWhYJNZt08" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Holy crap! What would cause that?

Looks like it was trying (unsuccessfully) to recover from a stall.

Close one for the taxi driver:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1423030111.jpg

Yup, stalled on take off...

BBC News - TransAsia crash: Eight dead as plane crashes into Taiwan river
"The ATR-72 had just taken off from Taipei Songshan Airport and was headed to the outlying Kinmen islands, just off the coast of south-east China, CNA said."

At least nine dead as Taiwan plane cartwheels into river on take-off

and

At least 8 dead after plane crashes into Taiwan river | Fox News

Now reporting 12. Hope that's all...

Here's an enhanced version of the same footage.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qGeupj8b62k" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

It's amazing anyone lived through that.

Wow! Looks like the wing just nicked the taxi. It was his lucky day.

That was my first thought to. Pilot error?

If this picture is from the roadway where it clipped the taxi, it looks like the aircraft skidded to a relatively soft stop in the water.

Frankly, when I first saw the video, it looked like it slammed into the ground at nearly the same elevation as the roadway and all were lost.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1423036491.jpg

left wing stalls (loses lift) as it is slowest on the inside of an apparent turn, no altitude for recovery>>> into the water.

Could happen anywhere but seems to be in asia and/or involving asian aircraft disproportionately of late. Something is amiss there and with incidents of this frequency, the issue is either being covered up or is so deeply rooted that it is really tough to undo.

I am not a pilot but I can't really see the flaps deployed. Perhaps not required for that particular airframe ????

Pilot error. Lack of training.

Not a stall. The pilot was radioing that he had a flame out on one engine. At takeoff power with an engine failure you must add a lot of rudder to keep the plane level with all the asymetric thrust. It is completely within the capability of the aircraft to safely loose an engine on take off. Unfortunatly it was beyond the capability of these two pilots. Pretty lame. US airline pilots practice this stuff every year. It should be second nature, although it is challenging. They just let it get away from them.

Ran outta airspeed & altitude at the same time.

Crikey - I just left Taipei last Friday. I was driving that stretch of freeway every day.

I definitely have no desire to fly in that region of our world.

I saw theairspeed /altitude chart on another forum; dont think he ran out of airspeed(109knots just before impact) but he sure ran out of altitude.

At the start of the video you can clearly see that they hit a building and lost part of their left horizontal stabilizer.

It looks to me like the Prop on the failed engine did not feather, if that is the case the pilots did well if anyone walked away....
All speculation until they have a look at what is left.

Here's another clip of the same footage with the aircraft in view while still mostly level, but nose up during it's descent.

Tim, I can't see where it strikes a building because when it initially rolls left, the left horizontal stabilizer looks intact. As they cross the freeway, maybe the left horizontal stabilizer struck a light pole? But at that point it was doomed anyway.

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holy krapp

i just flew out of that airport!! i know that section of highway..damn.

they want close that airport. this will fuel that movement.

First video in the thread (the fuzzy one with the graphics all over it). As the aircraft comes into frame, it's fairly nose-up and pretty horizontal. There looks to be a tail strike on the building, the nose pitches down and it starts to roll. The clearer videos all seem to be cropped.

[edit] it's at about 45 degrees as it comes into frame. Which is a lot closer to horizontal than it is later. As it gets closer to the freeway, you can clearly see half the left stabilizer missing - although in some of the frames before that it looks like it's gone altogether - probably just lighting/lack of contrast.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1423080953.jpg

Yep... In the video I watched, I clearly saw a tail strike on the building which appears to have shortened the left hor stab a bit. Watch for the puff of debris as it passes the building at the start of the video.

The ATR-72 has a T-Tail and I think the view angle during the roll gives the impression that part of it is missing. And it's all the same footage, from the same source. The last link I added has the most complete, uncluttered footage.
Still unsure about building impact.

T-tail...
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1423083106.jpg

If not a stall, please elaborate as to how it came out of the sky. Is it almost entirely an issue with roll (lift force less than gravity force) in this situation?? Have never flown multi-engine so I don't fully understand.

Interesting. The tail looks intact to me, especialy as you see it just after dinging the van. Remember its a T-tail. Part of its is hidden from view until its rolled way over.

In an engine out situation, if you give up on the rudder or dont put enough in in the first place you get a huge amount of roll from the wing with the good engine going forward from (in this case) left yaw. As soon as you loose an engine one must immeadiatly counter the yaw with a lot of rudder and lower the nose a bit.

Im just arm chair QBing tho. Looks like he cleared the buildings almost level. We dont know when he lost the left engine. If it happened just before he comes into view, then the flight path is a classic case of dead engine, take-off thrust, low airspeed, and no corrective action with rudder-flight controls. I see current airline pilots do this in the sim more than you would like to know.

If he stalled, it would be very nose down. That never really happends. Just a lot of roll. Just my .02



.

I didn't see the actual building strike or the puff of smoke at that instant, but I did see the whole plane shudder and immediately roll left and descend towards the highway. Just the instant after hitting the taxicab with the end of the wing, you can see that the left rear stabilizer looks a bit chopped off.

You usually run out of airspeed immediately after you run out of altitude...

Some pundits are saying the failed port engine did not "auto-feather" therefore was a major contributing factor to the accident.

Wonder if the left prop feathered when the engine went out.

You're supposed to run out of altitude airspeed and ideas all at the same time.

Look at the whole video. You can see how it appears the pilot was probably trying to maintain a glide path that got them over the elevated highway and into the river. Going down in the elevated highway area would probably have resulted in everyone perishing. When they lost the left engine and the prop didn't feather, it was going down fast. Trying to maintain a glide path that got them over the highway most likely caused the airspeed to fall below blueline. That is the safe single engine airspeed above which you will not torque roll due to asymmetric thrust. With a windmilling flat pitch propellor on the dead engine, the BL airspeed might even be higher. There is some margin built in, but he probably got slow enough the the running engine pulled the right wing over the dead engine.

Sad to see and am glad there are some survivors.

Some of the "still" videos I've seen, looked to me like the left engine had auto feathered or was in process of feathering.....lotsa blade angle . I'm thinkin' the captain was trying to put it in the river & turned into a dead engine at a very low airspeed. The rudder then became an elevator after the left wing stalled. Sad.

Help me out here, I am not seeing any evidence of damage on the tail anywhere in these pictures or in the video.

Go forward a few more frames...