On Aug 31, 11:40*am, Jim Logajan wrote:
Ian Strachan wrote:
On Aug 28, 11:27 pm, "
wrote:

some of us also fly Pawnee towplanes
and have a certain interest in what happened. *

This may already be known to you, and it may have nothing to do with
this accident, but it appears that Pawnees have been built with three
different types of fuel tanks, with one type accounting for a
disproportionate share of post-crash fires. In 1987 the U.S. NTSB issued
the following recommendation to Piper Aircraft regarding the higher
incidence of post-crash fire fatalities of those aircraft having a
fiberglass fuel tank:

http://www.ntsb.gov/Recs/letters/1987/A87_100.pdf

The accident aircraft had a serial number of 25-468, so if the NTSB
recommendation was not followed for that aircraft and it still had the
same tank, it may have had a fiberglass fuel tank and therefore among
the group showing the highest percentage of fatalities and injuries due
to post-crash fires.

Turning to this tragic accident, in very general terms, what happened?

That cannot be "secret", surely?

Gary Boggs' posts have the most pertinent information. Also, see news
video link I include below.

In particular, what were the approximate flight paths of the towplane
and also of the glider? *That will indicate a lot, and rule out some
causes such as structural failure (my club uses a 235hp Pawnee amongst
others, so I have a definite interest!)

A possible cause could be engine failure (full or partial, the latter
often being more difficult to deal with), although landing straight
ahead should not normally have fatal consequences. *Did the towplane
turn after releasing the glider? *Someone must know.

The towplane landed approximately straight ahead into a field at the
north end of the runway. There is a local TV news video at the following
URL, and in it they have a shot from a helicopter where you can see the
area of blackend burned grass where he landed at about 1:28 into the
video:

http://kezi.com/news/local/138834

Here's a Google map link of the airport:http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie...123.007479&spn...

The NTSB numbers would not seem to be statistically meaningful except
to say crashed Pawnees are known to burn regardless of tank type. The
number of crashes is too small to say one tank type is better than
another.

There are other airplanes with worse post crash fire records. The
Beechcraft Baron has fuel drains as the lowest part of the aircraft
with the gear retracted so in a gear-up landing they are the first
things to contact the runway. Fuel always spills and a fire almost
always follows.