C207 crash

Take a look at www.KTUU.com and click on the story of a 207 that crashed in Anchorage last night, right between a baseball game and a soccer game. No spectators injured, one passenger broke an arm, otherwise....just one bent plane. The unplanned landing was videotaped by a baseball fan. There's a video link with the story. A scary crash AND a happy ending. The written story is at www.adn.com.
SB
www.ktuu.com

Yeh, saw the story on the news sown here! The Pilot is obviously good! Nice job! Reminds me of a 185 that landed in the same spot? (down by the ice rink? about 15 years ago?

Tim

It will be interesting to see what the cause of the engine failure was first.

Mike V

I saw that on MSNBC this morning before going to work. Hope the occupants were not hurt bad. There is some substantial damage to that aircraft. They are very lucky.

Torch

Apparently, there was at least one broken arm, but everyone is okay. At least one of the aircraft occupants walked away, and declined a visit to the hospital.

Nobody on the ground was hurt, either.

Man, every time I cross that inlet, I think about how much fun an engine failure would be about mid channel. Especially if you follow the SFAR 93 rules, and fly at 600 feet, or whatever.

Mike Vivion

mvivion said:

Apparently, there was at least one broken arm, but everyone is okay. At least one of the aircraft occupants walked away, and declined a visit to the hospital.

Nobody on the ground was hurt, either.

Man, every time I cross that inlet, I think about how much fun an engine failure would be about mid channel. Especially if you follow the SFAR 93 rules, and fly at 600 feet, or whatever.

Mike Vivion

Click to expand...

Mike,

I know how you feel. I cross that water in a B737-200 every week and it doesn't look any better from the airliner. I have also flown across there myself. That cold swift water is very intimidating.

Torch

No fire, no fuel??

Anne.

No, Anne,
Look at the wings in the picture. Still in good shape inboard of the struts. The pilot had time to switch the master and fuel off. The engine seperated from the plane upon contacting the ground. Pretty good factors to not start a fire. The guy that walked away is an aircraft mechanic. He said in an interview that he thought the fuel pump failed. The NTSB has the plane. We shall see.
Mike and Torch,
When leaving Lake Hood strip on 31, I always try to get better than 1000' before the south shore, with 1200' being as high as you can go, (or above 2000' with a transponder.) Coming back, the pattern altitude is 600', but I'm usually at 1200' at the boat, 900-1000' at the ballpark.Those going to Merrill have the ability to stay above 2000' (with a transponder,) or at or below 600'. I'm surprised to see how many go at 600'. The ARR train yards don't look any more inviting than the water at 600'. Out of Hood I can get an altitude deviation better than half the time, but rarely ask. The same is available for Merrill.
SB

Stewart,

Yeah, I'm the same. I always climb to 2000 before crossing or ask for a deviation, which ATC seems to frequently be willing to give.

Nonetheless, I too see a lot of folks crossing low for whatever reason, mostly convenience, I guess.

If the fuel pump failed, there is a very convenient electric fuel pump to take it's place. Assuming that was functional, of course.

As I noted, I'm always interested in finding out why the fan stopped on these deals. We can always learn something from them.

Mine was a crankshaft failure, which didn't make my day and ruined a very nice airplane, but that's a different story.

Mike V

Who's betting that he ran out of fuel? That was my first thought. Those guy's fly the heck out of those 207's and I wouldn't put it past them to push the limits on fuel. Maybe the insurance companies should take a look at how the high cost's of insurance make operators cut corners and probably cost the insurance company millions in the end. They have made all companies, large and small, operate on such a fine line between being in the red or black by squeezing every dime they can out of them. They are the biggest detractor for becoming an aviation based business that I can think of!

http://www.adn.com/alaska/story/3611686p-3643657c.html


Ran out of gas on the right tank. Left tank still had 30 gallons.

This was one of the two things that will get you for sure if you're not careful - running out of fuel. The other one is weather. It's always obvious "afterwards."

Anne.

Yepper!!!!!

I'm not about to tell anyone that I'd never, ever do that.

But, I sure hope to heck I don't.

I would note that a VERY significant number of fuel exhaustion accidents occur with useable fuel left in the airplane.

That has to be a really bad feeling, but I can tell you that when the prop stops, brain fade is close at hand, and if you were over water, my guess is it would be really easy to focus totally on getting to land, and forget a couple details.

Mike V

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I've never flown a Cessna with the selector on anything but BOTH. My bet is this pilot forgot to check the fuel valve position at run-up. I've taken my plane out of my mechanic's hangar and gone to fly without checking the valve (which he turned off). A mistake you'll only make once. "Fuel valve" is now part of my run-up. ESPECIALLY important if anyone else flies that plane.
SB

I've got a 3/8" wood dowel, about 18" long, that I stick in the tank. My fingers aren't long enough to detect anything less than 3/4 full.

Anne.

stewartb said:

I've never flown a Cessna with the selector on anything but BOTH. My bet is this pilot forgot to check the fuel valve position at run-up. I've taken my plane out of my mechanic's hangar and gone to fly without checking the valve (which he turned off). A mistake you'll only make once. "Fuel valve" is now part of my run-up. ESPECIALLY important if anyone else flies that plane.
SB

Click to expand...

Pretty sure the C207 is one of the oddball Cessna Spam cans that has only Left and Right selection and no BOTH postion. Pilot admitted he always does the trip on just the right tank and uses the left as reserve, BUT of course commited the cardinal sin :evil: and didn't preflight his airplane prior to taking PAYING customers for their flight.

Fly safe and always know your fuel situation!
Wayne

Per the NTSB report, the accident aircraft fuel selector did not have a BOTH setting. Only LEFT, RIGHT, OFF.

Well, I hope for the pilot's sake that the initial comments about the fuel pump not working were correct. Switch to the full tank and hit high boost and the motor should have run. If that didn't work, switching back to the previous (empty) tank would probably be the automatic response, even if it's wrong. Regardless of why the motor quit, he still did a good job getting it down where he did. That area of town is hostile territory for landing planes. The altitudes they choose for arrival don't give a guy much time to go through an engine-out checklist. I wonder if the NTSB will comment on that.
SB

Cessna 206 and 207 aircraft (and 210's for that matter) have a right, left, or off fuel selector, no both position. That is a fine fuel system, and I actually like it better than the right/left/both systems in the 185's, for a lot of reasons.

But, when the motor pukes, your first response should be, switch tanks, fuel boost pump on High, while heading toward a safe landing zone. My guess is, he got totally focused on heading for a landing site. We train people that at low level, they should totally focus on flying the airplane, but that height should be like really close to the ground. At 600 feet, there's plenty of time to get a fuel starved airplane running again, and no excuse for endangering people on the ground, let alone wrecking a good airplane. That said, I'd never claim that I could never do this my own self. If I did, though, I'd feel pretty bad.

And sorry, folks, but even though SFAR 93 prescribes certain altitudes for crossing the inlet, there are also higher altitudes available for crossing, or you could do what seemingly everybody but these guys do, and ask for a deviation from 93. I can't tell you how many times I've heard pilots ask for a deviation for crossing to Merril and I've never heard one turned down. The regulation is no excuse for crossing at 600 feet in a wheel plane (and probably not in a float plane either, for that matter). It's a matter of convenience, and that is'nt always the best guide to safe flying.

Mike V