Fly It to the Ground

A Lancair was involved in a fatal accident near Dalton, GA yesterday. It
crashed in the median of a divided 4 lane highway. The airplane had engine
problems and had time to radio distress calls. Depending on the news source,
it appears that there might have been as much as 10 to 20 minutes between
the first distress call and the crash. One story indicated that the
aircraft crashed almost 10 minutes after emergency crews had been notified
of a plane in distress.

Apparently the pilot was trying to reach the Dalton airport, which was about
3 miles from the crash scene. The airplane didn't make the airport and the
pilot was almost certainly trying to land on the road. Having seen pictures
of the aftermath, it appears that the aircraft was not under control when it
hit the ground. Perhaps the pilot stalled trying to avoid landing in traffic
(this is a busy road), clipped a utility wire, or lost control trying to
avoid wires.

Plane crashes in north Georgia, kills 1 - Examiner.com

http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/sha...06/109692.html
(may require registration)

Anyway, the point that this accident brings home is that unless you have the
opportunity to land on a road that is free of vehicular traffic and which
you know to be free of utility wires, land the airplane in a field if you
have the chance. Even more important is that you need to fly the airplane
all the way to the ground and touch down as slowly as possible. Losing
control at 50' almost guarantees a bad outcome.

I fly over the crash area all the time and can tell you that there is a fair
amount of open land nearby. That pasture (or whatever) may not look as
airplane friendly as a paved road, but for a deadstick pilot a road is like
a sucker hole for a VFR pilot. It can be a killer when something that looked
good from afar goes to you-know-what when you get a look at it up close and
personal.

KB

"Kyle Boatright" wrote in message
. ..
A Lancair was involved in a fatal accident near Dalton, GA yesterday. It
crashed in the median of a divided 4 lane highway. The airplane had engine
problems and had time to radio distress calls. Depending on the news
source, it appears that there might have been as much as 10 to 20 minutes
between the first distress call and the crash. One story indicated that
the aircraft crashed almost 10 minutes after emergency crews had been
notified of a plane in distress.

Apparently the pilot was trying to reach the Dalton airport, which was
about 3 miles from the crash scene. The airplane didn't make the airport
and the pilot was almost certainly trying to land on the road. Having
seen pictures of the aftermath, it appears that the aircraft was not under
control when it hit the ground. Perhaps the pilot stalled trying to avoid
landing in traffic (this is a busy road), clipped a utility wire, or lost
control trying to avoid wires.

Plane crashes in north Georgia, kills 1 - Examiner.com

Fixed Link:
http://www.examiner.com/a-382498~Pla...kills_1.htm l


http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/sha...06/109692.html
(may require registration)

Anyway, the point that this accident brings home is that unless you have
the opportunity to land on a road that is free of vehicular traffic and
which you know to be free of utility wires, land the airplane in a field
if you have the chance. Even more important is that you need to fly the
airplane all the way to the ground and touch down as slowly as possible.
Losing control at 50' almost guarantees a bad outcome.

I fly over the crash area all the time and can tell you that there is a
fair amount of open land nearby. That pasture (or whatever) may not look
as airplane friendly as a paved road, but for a deadstick pilot a road is
like a sucker hole for a VFR pilot. It can be a killer when something that
looked good from afar goes to you-know-what when you get a look at it up
close and personal.

KB

"Kyle Boatright" wrote in message
I fly over the crash area all the time and can tell you that there is a
fair
amount of open land nearby. That pasture (or whatever) may not look as
airplane friendly as a paved road, but for a deadstick pilot a road is
like
a sucker hole for a VFR pilot.

Sucker holes can work. It depends on the pilot's familiarity with the area.
The only part of your blanket statement I can agree with is the part about
flying it all the way down. I disagree that fields are better than roads
when used as a blanket statement. Every crash scene is different.

D.

I read a statistic somewhere that if you touch-down at 50 mph, assuming
a constant 9G deceleration (Easily Survivable), you only need 10 feet
to come to a full stop.

Increase to 70mph, and you need 40 something feet.

Fly her all the way into the ground, make a shallow, full stall
landing, and you'll probably survive... The real danger comes when
people place too much value on not harming the aircraft.

EridanMan wrote:
I read a statistic somewhere that if you touch-down at 50 mph, assuming
a constant 9G deceleration (Easily Survivable), you only need 10 feet
to come to a full stop.

Increase to 70mph, and you need 40 something feet.

Fly her all the way into the ground, make a shallow, full stall
landing, and you'll probably survive... The real danger comes when
people place too much value on not harming the aircraft.

I'd been told some time ago that once something really bad starts to
happen, it's no longer your aircraft--it belongs to the insurance
company. Your job is to keep yourself and your passengers healthy.

wrote:
EridanMan wrote:


I'd been told some time ago that once something really bad starts to
happen, it's no longer your aircraft--it belongs to the insurance
company. Your job is to keep yourself and your passengers healthy.

That's only true for aircraft that have hull insurance. But your point
is valid that one should not try to save the aircraft.

Kinetic energy and thus landing distance, is proportional to the square
of the speed. (Students need to be told this when learning to land.)

EridanMan wrote:
I read a statistic somewhere that if you touch-down at 50 mph, assuming
a constant 9G deceleration (Easily Survivable), you only need 10 feet
to come to a full stop.

Increase to 70mph, and you need 40 something feet.

Fly her all the way into the ground, make a shallow, full stall
landing, and you'll probably survive... The real danger comes when
people place too much value on not harming the aircraft.

EridanMan writes:

I read a statistic somewhere that if you touch-down at 50 mph, assuming
a constant 9G deceleration (Easily Survivable), you only need 10 feet
to come to a full stop.

About 9 feet, 4 inches.

Increase to 70mph, and you need 40 something feet.

Nope. More like 18 feet, 4 inches.

The distance varies as the square of the touchdown velocity.

And human beings can survive up to at least 46 Gs if they are properly
supported and braced for impact, with some temporary sequelae. Nine
gravities of acceleration is trivial to survive, but some people will
black out if the acceleration is sustained (almost invariably with no
aftereffects). Aerobatic aircraft can generally withstand more than 9
Gs, and top aerobatic flyers can fly at such accelerations as well.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

"Stubby" wrote in message
. ..
Kinetic energy and thus landing distance, is proportional to the square of
the speed. (Students need to be told this when learning to land.)



You want to show us that in an equation?

--------------------------------------------
DW

FWIW, I found the actual numbers here, they were actually in the FAA
"airplane fliers handbook"

For a Constant, 9G deceleration (as I mentioned, easily survivable)-

at 50MPH, 9.4 feet
at 75MPH, 18.8 feet
at 100MPH, 37.6 feet

What to take away from this, is you will probably survive a full-stall
landing on just about any surface in your typical light single GA
aircraft... Hell, even in thick bushes or small trees... The key is to
strike A- as slow and B- as shallow as possible.

The risk comes almost invariably when a pilot passes up a "suitable"
landing zone (even the aformentioned tree canopy) for a "better" one
that is marginally outside of his energy-budget's reach... A full
stall 30 feet off the ground while trying to extend a glide will
almost always be fatal... the same full stall just 30 feet lower, even
in on a less than ideal surface, will almost always be survivable...

Something to remember.