Piper Lance crash in Nashville

[Sym P. le]

cp24.com - Five Canadians dead after small plane from Ontario crashes near Nashville

Two things, the flight profile seems odd given a spike in speed approximately 15 minutes before the crash (12 minutes before passing over the field). It's as though the engine went full throttle during the descent and then remarkably corrected to nominal. Also, another situation that struck close to home when a family was lost to pilot error, losing power and crashing after passing over the field, unable to cue up the runway on the first pass and trying to double back. Are pilots just not ready/prepared for out of ordinary approaches in adverse circumstances? I don't want to cast aspersions. I have flown but it's been too long to contemplate what would be going through ones mind when the pressure is on to stick a landing and the engine is unreliable.

Flightaware.com

 

[BrianPetersen]

Flight originated at a small airport local to me.

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.757694,-79.8732706,15z?authuser=0&entry=ttu

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Anyone with a sac of money can purchase an aircraft. Not anyone with an aircraft has the patience to develop a full skillset complete with accumin, muscle memory, flight management and contingency planning. Add complicating factors such as night flying or instrument conditions and the time investment requirements grow accordingly.

Yep and its been happening for decades, which is why the term doctor killers is used.

These machines and flights are vastly more complex than the stuff we fly commercially.

I got warned very early on stay away from that crowd of "customers" quite a few wanted safety pilots with them. But realistically us PPL instructors with under 500 hours didn't have the experience, currency on type or knowledge either.

Currency is another huge factor with competency which gives the PPL instructor a slight advantage. But that's also linked to machine type.

These complex single engine, single crew do require you to be able to resemble an epileptic monkey sorting the engines out and aircraft for just a normal approach never mind an emergency.

Hence the reason why they have gone fadec engines, ballistic parachutes and the like on modern types.

Once a PPL instructor got more than 500 hours they wouldn't go near them either because they knew what the risks were and how they really weren't the aviation gods they thought they were when issued a CPL.

I wouldn't fly one, because I know I don't have the competency.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

oh just a hint.

Stop thinking of stall as speed related.....

You can be un stalled at zero airspeed and be fully stalled at V never exceed.

Its purely Angle of attack exceeding Critical angle of attack. And boundary layer separation.

And even critical angle of attack isn't set in stone, a layer of rime ice can reduce the critical angle of attack by 5 deg's in the space of seconds in icing conditions.

And all your flight control surfaces can stall its just normally its the main wings that stall first. You can get allerion, rudder and elevator stalls as well.

This time of year icing may be a factor. Both of the engine with carb ice and of the control surfaces.

This angle of attack and stall quite a few commercial pilots don't really get or buy into. They fixate on a number and don't listen or feel what the control surfaces are telling them.

 

[3DDave]

When there isn't enough dynamic pressure to produce enough lift at the maximum attached flow AoA to keep the aircraft from plummeting to the ground, then speed is related to describing the accident, and the fact that at the low speed that wing was stalled it does matter. Lift, AoA, Cl, area, A/R, airspeed, dynamic pressure,surface roughness, turbulation to energize the boundary layer, lift augmentation extensions - all work together.

In this plane all that mattered was lack of airspeed due to lack of thrust to overcome drag and the aerodynamic reactions from that.

More photos and it looks like a pancake crash rather than lawn dart. See

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/352204

That fits with the following:

It appears to be a t-tail version, which the Wikipedia article, sourced apparently from a Buyers guide, says:

PA-32RT-300 (1978–1979)
After the first half of 1978, Piper modified the tail to a "T" design with the stabilator (horizontal stabilizer/elevator) moved to the top of the vertical tail. Many pilots and owners complained about the T-tail's lack of authority at low speeds

Specifically a Piper PA-32RT-300T Turbo Lance II. On typical turbocharged engines there is excess heat coming from the turbo,

Stabilator is a full flying stabilizer, no separate elevator. They have less drag from the lack of the elevator hinge gap, but they aren't very popular and neither are T-tails for small aircraft. I suppose there is more trouble sealing the inboard gap along the vertical stab or the fuselage and that the fuselage typically had an odd pinch to allow clearance for movement that is more than a typical trimmed stabilizer requires. It sure does make a plane easier to find if the pilot cannot remember where they parked.

Being ineffective the pilot is limited as to the amount of stall that can be maintained as the turbulent flow from the wing disrupts flow over the stabilator.

Ref: The Illustrated Buyer's Guide to Used Airplanes by Clarke, Bill

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

When there isn't enough dynamic pressure to produce enough lift at the maximum attached flow AoA to keep the aircraft from plummeting to the ground, then speed is related to describing the accident, and the fact that at the low speed that wing was stalled it does matter. Lift, AoA, Cl, area, A/R, airspeed, dynamic pressure,surface roughness, turbulation to energize the boundary layer, lift augmentation extensions - all work together

This is very true and a different situation to a stall. And in that situation your best using your best angle of attack for glide

Every landing is your described situation. Although we do try not to plummet with varying levels of success.

The other time it occurs is icing, the killer is freezing rain.

 

[3DDave]

I doubt very much that every landing is like that. I don't want to fly with you if you regularly plummet. The wings during landing had better be supporting the weight of the plane until the tires are on the ground, by which point it is in post-landing operation. I have often seen auto-spoilers to keep the plane from resuming into the air after that contact.

I missed that there was freezing rain in this accident.

Do you have an explanation for the panel method for prediction of sonic and supersonic flow my co-worker in McDonnell's advanced aero department where I worked directly out of college? Part of what they were working on was the canard attachment to an F-15. Not sure why; they did build and fly it. He wrote the software and jealously guarded how it worked.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

I was being sarcastic about how successful we are as pilots on how gentle we are landing. In fact in certain conditions a greaser is actually quite dangerous and very expensive due to burning the tyres.

At the point of touch down there are several things going on.

The planes energy reference plane changes from airflow to a ground based coordinate system. The relative energy states change due to this coordinate system change.

But in essence we are setting up a drag, low powered situation where the lift is less than the weight and the energy input of the engines is less than the energy output via drag and the other energy outs.

The difference between your lift and the weight is the variable which effects the rate of decent on touch down. because of the coordinate reference change I suspect the engineering maths is rather complicated as its a 3D dynamic system.

I am not sure if freezing rain is involved. But freezing rain is an absolute killer of aircraft be they light aircraft or specialist hurricane penetration aircraft. As pilots we just don't mess with it. I know a couple that have and survived and one of them hasn't flown again since.

The other one landed in Helsinki with max RPM, max torque, clean flaps with gear down at just above the stall and he had absolutely zero control left he hit the ground at the vertical speed he was doing which was 650 ft/min. We worked out he had picked up over 3 tons of ice in the space of 2 minutes, and landed 2.5 tons over max landing weight BAe agreed with our calcs. But surprisingly it passed all the inspections. It took 3 days in a heated hanger to get rid of the ice and inspected to get a release from BAe. They had to NDT all the gear and main spar.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

zero clue about that, the only aerospace engineering I did FEA was critical crack lengths in load bearing brackets and beams.

I do have above average tendency's of working out effect and cause of various things the aircraft do and being able to interpret the theory into something your average line pilot can grasp.

But the hard core aerodynamic stuff truth be told not many at the OEM's have a full grasp of what's going on. Especially when you start talking about transonic.

Not many have a clue what happens when a wheel touches the ground either. Tyres are one of the most abused systems on an aircraft. I utterly respect them for what they have to do. Most just see them as things you kick and expect to work every landing and taxing however much abuse gets inflicted on them

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

I have just pulled the METAR for KJWN · John C Tune Airport

METAR KJWN 050555Z AUTO 19005KT 10SM SCT036 BKN042 17/14 A2998 RMK AO2

It won't be icing related or freezing rain.

 

[MintJulep]

I didn't notice the time.

At 19:30 the farm fields that could have offered a good choice would be black unknown

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

I can't really emphasize how complex handling one of these machines is when everything is working never mind when something isn't.

Add in screaming kids and family scared it would be absolutely hell.

 

[Sym P. le]

newschannel9.com - NTSB releases preliminary report, new details in deadly West Nashville plane crash

I've attached the NTSB report below.