Local Aeroclub lost an instructor and a student today in a fatal Super Declathon crash
Posted by lordtema@reddit | flying | View on Reddit | 25 comments
The plane has yet to be found but based off witness accounts and a mayday that was dispatched, it is assumed it lost engine power and crashed while trying to do an emergency landing in a lake.
A SAR heli was on station after only 5 minutes but did not find anything, and large areas was searched with subsequent helis and divers & boats but did not find anything, as of now the plane is presumed to be at a depth of 39m given that divers reached 20m of depth but did not see or find anything due to a lack of visibility. No debris or oil slicks have been observed.
lordtema@reddit (OP)
https://www-nrk-no.translate.goog/vestland/savnet-smafly-med-to-omkomne-funnet-i-vinddalsvatnet-1.17369556?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=no&_x_tr_pto=wapp
They found the plane today at a depth of 30 meters, one of the pilots was found outside the plane while the other was found in the plane, both have now been retrieved from the water.
The Navy will assist in raising the plane tomorrow and the Norwegian Accident Investigation Board is on site!
Heel-Judder@reddit
Jeez man. You hate to hear it. I'm sorry for what you're dealing with. Feel free to seek counseling as needed. Grief counseling or talking to someone will not open your medical up to liability.
That being said, flying single engine airplanes is dangerous. Most of us who have been in this industry for more than 10 years have lost several friends, maybe even a loved one, in a small plane crash.
This is a US website from the Bureau of Labor, but aircraft pilots are the 4th highest risk of fatal injuries, along with construction workers and refuse collectors.
Flying small single engine airplanes carries a lot of risk. Luckily, a lot of that risk can be mitigated by your decisions (flight planning, fuel planning, etc).
Please take some time to reflect. Don't cast spears. Just relax and know...you can make a difference. You can avoid being the next statistic.
mikasjoman@reddit
I have a serious question as a pilot student. Why aren't we installing like an extra electric motor that folds out during emergency? Building with electric motors is my hobby, and something like a 5kwh battery pack should give you around 20hp for 10+ minutes for an additional weight of around 45kg including the motor...
Sure not enough but I guess it would makes a huge difference.
But if I understand it correctly, twin engine planes are way more expensive to insure.
vtjohnhurt@reddit
Ballistic Parachutes work pretty well.
jamvanderloeff@reddit
20hp would be barely enough to make the glide shallower, and with the weight and drag, could end up worse than nothing.
mikasjoman@reddit
Cool. Yeah don't know why I got down voted, since it was a serious question.
A Cessna needs about 35/40 hp to maintain its altitude. But if the motor was possible to connect to the shaft of the existing propeller, making it a hybrid, 20hp would essentially double the glide time from about 10min at 5000 feet to 20+ minutes.
Probably real tricky though, but hybrid tech is not a novelty these days. Guess it could help during climb too, since you would essentially have extra thrust when you need it otherwise too.
I googled and they seem to already exist for ultralight planes. So there's that.
jamvanderloeff@reddit
Connecting your extra motor to the single prop in a way that isn't going to either die when the engine does anyway or add to the risk of losing the engine in the first place is gonna be a real hard challenge, especially when you have to certify it.
Having half of the minimum power isn't going to halve your sink rate, it's going to be pretty nonlinear there, especially if you're trying to operate the original prop way outside of the range it's designed to be efficient at.
Where do you figure 40HP for a Cessna from? Minimum power for level flight should be = power for max endurance, and the tables in a random C172 manual I'm seeing don't even list anything under 80HP
mikasjoman@reddit
I googled it and maybe I got it wrong. Cool, just wanted to know.
I was just thinking that we strive to have everything duplicated for safety, but when it comes to one of the biggest killers - losing our engine, we have no backup.
F.eg take my trainer. A Sila450 rated 475kg MTOW, but my instructor told me it was built for the US LSA rules for 600kg. Im flying an airplane that has the potential to carry 125 kg more than today. It just seems reasonable to me that an hybrid should be possible to designed to some of these airplanes that kicks in if there's an emergency. My old Prius disconnects it constantly and I have a button to engage it manually if I want to. Surely with 100kg+ it would possible to get something like that going.
jamvanderloeff@reddit
Prius style would be about as simple as you can get mechanically with only the differential as the big new part and no clutches/brakes to worry about but even there you're adding some not so great failure modes, if you lose your engine with locked crankshaft now you can only use your MG2, so limited power, and worse if you lose MG2 (either through dead motor, dead inverter, dead battery) and it's freewheeling, now neither MG1 or the engine can deliver power to the prop, your transmission is just spinning, unless you add complexity with dropping in an emergency clutch or brake too. Certified pilots already get worried when the only complexity you're doing is a single reduction gear on a Rotax etc, adding more and more parts is going to be a hard sell. It also does still weight quite a bit, around 100kg for your differential + motors package, then add on your electrics and batteries.
Biggest alternative thing you could do with your ~100kg budget for a get out of jail alive when your single engine becomes a zero engine is an airframe parachute, they've been pretty damn effective at making a lot of situations survivable, and not just engine failures.
mikasjoman@reddit
Cool. We have a parachute on all planes in our club planes so I guess that's good enough 😃
Heel-Judder@reddit
You got downvoted because that idea is absolutely ridiculous. The enormous complexity, engineering, certification cost, extra weight, physical space, acquisition cost, installation cost, etc., would far outweigh the benefits.
mikasjoman@reddit
Ok fair
lordtema@reddit (OP)
Im fine, my friend who flies for this club occasionally is safe so i do not know anyone who`s affected im glad to report! But yeah, im well aware of the risks flying single engine airplanes, this one feels a tad bit extra tragic due to the knowledge that they would have been fairly close to a grass strip..
Heel-Judder@reddit
When an emergency happens, your situational awareness bubble gets really tiny. Grass strips are notoriously hard to spot. If you didn't already have eyes on it, and you're dealing with an engine failure...you won't have the time or where-with-all to spot it. You cannot fault the pilots for missing a grass strip.
lordtema@reddit (OP)
Oh absolutely not faulting the pilot in anyway shape or form! It`s more of a "There would have been a huge flat area" very close to where the plane went down!
Witnesses are of course notoriously unreliable but apparently the engine just suddenly gave out from reports!
micropIasticsenj0yer@reddit
So sad. I am moving to this area soon and I randomly looked up local flying clubs the night before yesterday and i came across this club. Looked through their website and their fleet and everything and it looked really good. Then maybe 15 hours later so shocked to see this beautiful airplane with two people missing :(( rest in peace to the two guys 🙏🏻🙏🏻❤️🩹
Grand-Amphibian-3887@reddit
That link is pretty much worthless..
lordtema@reddit (OP)
https://www-nrk-no.translate.goog/vestland/smafly-sakna_-startar-arbeidet-med-sok-etter-antatt-omkomne-1.17366307?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=no&_x_tr_pto=wapp non paywalled link
lordtema@reddit (OP)
Ah fuck, didnt realize it was a paywalled article, gimme a sec!
lordtema@reddit (OP)
Navy EOD divers are searching for the plane now but still nothing, the names of the two suspected deceased pilots have been released and they were both very experienced pilots, the instructor was 71 and the student (who was doing some refresher acro training) was 61.
ResponsibilityOld164@reddit
absolutely tragic :(
lordtema@reddit (OP)
Im extremely curious as to what happened because shit must really really have hit the fan fast, there would have been a grass strip around 3 miles from where it went down.
ResponsibilityOld164@reddit
hoping for a miracle.
lordtema@reddit (OP)
Yeah not gonna happen unfortunately. Plenty of airborne & ground resources have scoured the whole area but found absolutely nothing, so they are fairly certain its lying on the bottom of the lake.
They didnt wanna drag out any underwater resources besides the divers that have been in the water because it was getting dark and if they are underwater they are unfortunately deceased by now.. Really sad day!
rFlyingTower@reddit
This is a copy of the original post body for posterity:
The plane has yet to be found but based off witness accounts and a mayday that was dispatched, it is assumed it lost engine power and crashed while trying to do an emergency landing in a lake.
A SAR heli was on station after only 5 minutes but did not find anything, and large areas was searched with subsequent helis and divers & boats but did not find anything, as of now the plane is presumed to be at a depth of 39m given that divers reached 20m of depth but did not see or find anything due to a lack of visibility. No debris or oil slicks have been observed.
https://www-bt-no.translate.goog/hendelser/i/KM7xx4/gaar-over-til-soek-etter-antatt-omkomne-skuffet-og-preget?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=no&_x_tr_pto=wapp
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