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Off airport landing in Jet

mvivion

SPONSOR
Bozeman,MT
There was an off airport landing by a Citation on the Yukon Flats yesterday. Here's a link to the article: http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1413,113~7244~3077115,00.html

These guys did a good job getting that thing down through a low overcast, and landing without hurting anyone.

I was just south of there yesterday, and there was a very solid cloud layer, with low bases and tops at 4,500 or so. Descending down through that without knowing what was under them could not have been a lot of fun.

MTV
 
Quite interesting event, and they were very, very lucky.

I wonder why both engines would quit at nine thousand feet in a Citation?
 
That is my question also. Although they did a fine job of saving their backsides, the Feds will find a way to make life miserable for them. I've flown CE 550's fuel management is a no brainer. Just speculating.
 
No uniformed opinion?
No uneducated speculations as to the cause of the engine failures?
No inexperienced blog about how the pilots handled the situation?
And the journalist has the nerve to call herself a “news” reporter?

Gawd I wish there were more Margarets' out there.
 
The men were engineers from Sikorsky, which designs and manufactures helicopters, Boyett said. The company designs the skis on the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter used by the 68th medical company.

Hmmm, I thought the skis for the blackhawk were designed and manufactured by Gary Landes
 
Same thing happened in northwest Nebraska last year.

If they had plenty of fuel, my best guess would be inlet icing.
 
It was clear on top, and the tops were at 4,000. Yeah, I noted the skis thing too. Wonder who built the helicopters? Maybe that was Landes?

:lol:

MTV
 
What is the terrain like at the location ?? Must be flat enough. How will they get the plane out of there???

S.
 
I'm sure that's on the insurance adjuster's mind right about now. Only way out of there is via a VERY large helicopter. And, those all live a LONG ways from here.

MTV
 
stretch said:
What is the terrain like at the location ?? Must be flat enough. How will they get the plane out of there???

S.

Put in on 31" Bushwheels and I'll fly it outta there. Crash
 
They probably didn't have prist in the fuel... It's a limitation for all of the citations.... Fuel turns to Jello without it....
 
No, they removed all the electronics, flew up there with an R-44 and a sawzall, and cut it into R-44 sling load sized pieces, and slung it to the dump in Beaver.

Apparently, it was a very old Citation, with a lot of hours, and the engines were junk, so the insurance co. opted not to try to salvage it.

Apparently, the inboard sections of the wings on early Citations are anti iced, with bleed air. The outboard sections are boots.

It is rumored that they were looking for ice for the helo certification, turned off the bleed air to build up ice, then turned it back on. Ice through jet engines, voila! Note that this is pure rumor, not NTSB finding.

MTV
 
"Hmmm, I thought the skis for the blackhawk were designed and manufactured by Gary Landes" ---aalexander

"Airglass" out of Anchorage makes the skis for our blackhawks. not sure if Gary Landes is the owner or not, very well could be.
wheel penetration skis. they are made primarily for muskeg landings. the snow is so powdery in the interior it doesn't really help. where the snow is packy they work good. i'm a blackhawk crewchief @ wainright. currently in the hellhole known as the middle east. Logan[/quote]
 
The University of North Dakota has one of, if not the most advanced aviation and aerospace departments in the world. Much of their research and testing has led to the advancement in not only aviation weather radar but the stuff on your local TV. In every research project there is some elment of risk. Sometimes the out come is not pretty. Try flying a Twin Comanche into a building t-storm, making drops to destablize it or a King Air or that Citation THRU it to take readings. All done hopefully to advance our warning systems, etc.
If the guy who was flying that thing is who I think it was, PURELY STUPID he is not. A gifted aviator with big enough Kahunas to do a job like that, he is. His post flight comment probably was "It would appear the system needs a little more work. Glad we were able to get it on the ground with out injury".

Bob D
 
Taledrger said:
....... A gifted aviator with big enough Kahunas to do a job like that, he is.


He has big Kahunas? No kidding? Does he keep them in a palm hut behind his house? Feeds them poi and kalua pig? Wonder how they like the climate in North Dakota? Uhhhh....... you do know a kahuna is a hawaiian tribal chief, don't you? or perhaps you really meant cojones (ku-ho-nees) which is spanish slang for testicles?


Taledrger said:
His post flight comment probably was "It would appear the system needs a little more work. Glad we were able to get it on the ground with out injury".

I would hope not, if he is truly a gifted aviator (I have no way of knowing) it would be very disappointing to hear him shrug responsibility for causing a very preventable accident by not thinking things through, instead, passing it of falsely as being a victim of unavoidable circumstance .. that isn't the mindset of a truly gifted aviator. Ice ingestion is not some mysterious, little understood, uncontrollable random event. It's very simple, if you have surfaces which will collect ice in front of a turbine inlet, it is very likely that ice shed from them will damage the engines, so it is important to never let ice form ahead of an engine inlet. It's real, it's well understood and has been for a long time, in fact that's *why* the citation deice system is designed that way, so the engines aren't fodded out by ice shed from boots. I've never flown a citation but I'm guessing that the manual (like many other jets) emphasizes activating at least the anti ice system components ahead of the engine inlets before entering icing conditions (again I don't fly citations so I don't know if the heated LE and engine inlets can be operated separately from the boots, but I suspect they can). Now, if it is indeed true that the pilot intentionally deactivated the deice system and intentionally entered icing conditions. he is without question guilty of not thinking his actions through and anticipating a very foreseeable result.

Gifted or not, we all do dumb things at one time or another, and this pales in comparison with some of the dumb things I've done, I've just been luckier. However, let's not try to pass it off as some unforeseeable risk of the mission. It's not.
 
My understanding is that they were video taping the ice accretion to document for the upcoming helo tests. They were intentionally building ice, in other words.

Sounds to me that, had they simply left the ice alone, they may have been okay, but in any case, the experiment, if this is what actually happened, was not very well designed, it seems to me. The pilots should have figured that out ahead of time, I would think.

Even had they left the bleed air off, they would have encountered above freezing conditions at some point in their return to Fairbanks that day, so they may have still killed the engines lower to the ground.

In any case, they were really lucky to land where they did.

MTV
 
mvivion said:
My understanding is that they were video taping the ice accretion to document for the upcoming helo tests. They were intentionally building ice, in other words. Sounds to me that, had they simply left the ice alone, they may have been okay, but in any case, the experiment, if this is what actually happened, was not very well designed, it seems to me. The pilots should have figured that out ahead of time, I would think.

Even had they left the bleed air off, they would have encountered above freezing conditions at some point in their return to Fairbanks that day, so they may have still killed the engines lower to the ground.

In any case, they were really lucky to land where they did.

MTV

Yeah, I realize that intentionally building ice was their goal, but like you, I think they might have thought it through a little more thoroughly ... for example: turning on the inlet and inboard LE head, and letting the ice accumulate on the outer wing LE for videotaping purposes. then they could habe all the ice footage they wanted without losing the airplane
 
Seems kinda like going up and running all of the gas out of both tanks at the same time to see how much endurance your plane has. Or takeoff and see if it will really fly with the gust locks on.

The fallacy of their plan should have been obvious. BTW I have no Citation experience either, but AA's explanation is pretty straightforward airman logic. Plan ahead, especially the faster and bigger the iron is.

:angel:
 
AA,
Thanks so much for the vocabulary lesson. As far as ice accumulation on a jet I have more experience with that than I care to remember. The only point I was trying to make is that calling the pilot "PURELY STUPID" was out of line. He and the outfit he works for, UND Aerospace, have done a great deal for the advancement of aviation safety and for him many times at great personal risk. He is not a daredevil but an experienced test pilot. I'm not saying they did not make mistakes and I didn't mean to imply he would not take the responsibility. He will. The bottom line is it was a bad day and I wonder how you all would fair if you were totally judged on YOUR worst day.
Bob D
 
Taledrger said:
The bottom line is it was a bad day and I wonder how you all would fair (sic) if you were totally judged on YOUR worst day.
Bob D

I believe I already addressed that issue in my previous post. re-read if you missed that.
 
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