Bearskin Metro 3 CYRL accident - Speculation thread

[Illya Kuryakin]

The point of all the re-configuration is to reduce the drag. Gear is a source of very significant drag on the Metro, so the point is to clean the aircraft up. I was taught to retract the gear in case of levelling off at the MDA for sigle engine circling in the Metro. I do not know if I would have retracted the gear in this case. Anytime there is an issue with the engine, the spinning propeller should be the first concern, it has the potential to create many times more drag than any gear.

To reduce drag, select the gear and flaps up ONE TIME ONLY! The gear is a "very significant source of drag" on almost EVERY airplane. On the F27, for example, the main gear are used as speed brakes!
Retract the gear at the MDA for single engine circling, and you're VERY likely to forget to put it back down! You'll have your paws full just flying a circling approach at minimums on one engine! WHO taught you that wee gem. Really? It angers me that you were taught this! Personally, I don't do single engine circling approaches. If I can't land straight in on one, I go somewhere that I can. Of course, this assumes WX at minimums. I'll happily circle at 1000 feet.
I've been here. Several times. Once you've "given 'er all she's got" the next thing on the agenda is to clean it up.......including feathering the offending propeller. The airplane ALWAYS "points" to the dead engine.
Illya

[Ki-ll]

Well, it was a standard procedure for the non-precision approaches at Bearskin as shown on the diagram from the SOPs, I do not know if that's the case now. The diagram assumes that you are in IMC, so 100' above minimums you would retract the gear and bring the flaps to 1/4.
I agree with you, there is no value in retracting the gear if the airplane is flying and you are 1 mile away from the runway in VMC conditions. Moreover, it really is puzzling that feathering was not accomplished. TSB was so puzzled at that they actually could not come up with a definitive answer.

[ogc]

The point of all the re-configuration is to reduce the drag. Gear is a source of very significant drag on the Metro, so the point is to clean the aircraft up. I was taught to retract the gear in case of levelling off at the MDA for sigle engine circling in the Metro. I do not know if I would have retracted the gear in this case. Anytime there is an issue with the engine, the spinning propeller should be the first concern, it has the potential to create many times more drag than any gear.

To reduce drag, select the gear and flaps up ONE TIME ONLY! The gear is a "very significant source of drag" on almost EVERY airplane. On the F27, for example, the main gear are used as speed brakes!
Retract the gear at the MDA for single engine circling, and you're VERY likely to forget to put it back down! You'll have your paws full just flying a circling approach at minimums on one engine! WHO taught you that wee gem. Really? It angers me that you were taught this! Personally, I don't do single engine circling approaches. If I can't land straight in on one, I go somewhere that I can. Of course, this assumes WX at minimums. I'll happily circle at 1000 feet.
I've been here. Several times. Once you've "given 'er all she's got" the next thing on the agenda is to clean it up.......including feathering the offending propeller. The airplane ALWAYS "points" to the dead engine.
Illya

The metro II at or near gross weight likely wont maintain level flight with gear down and an engine out.

Never had to experience it myself, but its what i was trained. Thus if you are in the circle and not yet decending for the field the gear comes up. 3's and 23's are may be different.

I dont think anyone plans to do a single engine circling. But shit happens and on a very bad day you might have to so i dont see the harm in having run through the procedure before.

[Illya Kuryakin]

The point of all the re-configuration is to reduce the drag. Gear is a source of very significant drag on the Metro, so the point is to clean the aircraft up. I was taught to retract the gear in case of levelling off at the MDA for sigle engine circling in the Metro. I do not know if I would have retracted the gear in this case. Anytime there is an issue with the engine, the spinning propeller should be the first concern, it has the potential to create many times more drag than any gear.

To reduce drag, select the gear and flaps up ONE TIME ONLY! The gear is a "very significant source of drag" on almost EVERY airplane. On the F27, for example, the main gear are used as speed brakes!
Retract the gear at the MDA for single engine circling, and you're VERY likely to forget to put it back down! You'll have your paws full just flying a circling approach at minimums on one engine! WHO taught you that wee gem. Really? It angers me that you were taught this! Personally, I don't do single engine circling approaches. If I can't land straight in on one, I go somewhere that I can. Of course, this assumes WX at minimums. I'll happily circle at 1000 feet.
I've been here. Several times. Once you've "given 'er all she's got" the next thing on the agenda is to clean it up.......including feathering the offending propeller. The airplane ALWAYS "points" to the dead engine.
Illya

The metro II at or near gross weight likely wont maintain level flight with gear down and an engine out.

Never had to experience it myself, but its what i was trained. Thus if you are in the circle and not yet decending for the field the gear comes up. 3's and 23's are may be different.

I dont think anyone plans to do a single engine circling. But shit happens and on a very bad day you might have to so i dont see the harm in having run through the procedure before.

I've flown Metro IIs. They will maintain with the gear down and one feathered. Been there, done that. Spade doors (most companies have removed them) can be a little more difficult. But, we didn't have them. I'd take the tail wind and land a bit longer rather than do a single engine circling. Every time. Or call it a missed. Your training otherwise is scary. In that scenario, I guarantee you'll forget the gear 1 in 5 attempts.
Illya

[boeingboy]

The point of all the re-configuration is to reduce the drag. Gear is a source of very significant drag on the Metro, so the point is to clean the aircraft up. I was taught to retract the gear in case of levelling off at the MDA for sigle engine circling in the Metro. I do not know if I would have retracted the gear in this case. Anytime there is an issue with the engine, the spinning propeller should be the first concern, it has the potential to create many times more drag than any gear.

I understand all that - I've done single engine work as well.

They were not talking about circling approaches......" Bearskin Airlines SOPs for a non-precision engine-out approach " Why in gods name would they be re-configuring 3 times??? Maybe if you were 8 miles back - fine, suck up the gear and flaps until landing is assured and the airplane is under control. Short final below 1000' (they were at 500') is not the place to be scr$ing around. Fly the airplane.

It almost sounds as if they forgot to do this....trying to do everything else.

[Ki-ll]

The point of all the re-configuration is to reduce the drag. Gear is a source of very significant drag on the Metro, so the point is to clean the aircraft up. I was taught to retract the gear in case of levelling off at the MDA for sigle engine circling in the Metro. I do not know if I would have retracted the gear in this case. Anytime there is an issue with the engine, the spinning propeller should be the first concern, it has the potential to create many times more drag than any gear.

I understand all that - I've done single engine work as well.

They were not talking about circling approaches......" Bearskin Airlines SOPs for a non-precision engine-out approach " Why in gods name would they be re-configuring 3 times??? Maybe if you were 8 miles back - fine, suck up the gear and flaps until landing is assured and the airplane is under control. Short final below 1000' (they were at 500') is not the place to be scr$ing around. Fly the airplane.

It almost sounds as if they forgot to do this....trying to do everything else.

Nowhere is says to re-configure three times. You configure the airplane once, with flaps at 1/2 and gear down. 100 feet above MDA you retract the gear and flaps to 1/4. Whe landing is assured you put the gear down and flaps to 1/2 then full. The purpose of this configuration change is to reduce the drag as pilots were told that the airplane would not fly with the gear down. I am not advocating for this, I am stating the facts.
We will likely never know why they cycled the gear. The fact that they did and the fact that they deemed a radio call a higher priority over identifying the problem (TSB said there was no discussion of this on the CVR) indicates a high workload situation.
Like I said before, it would be good to see the CVR transcript overlayed over aircraft flight parameters and crew actions. That might shed some light on the questions everyone has.

[boeingboy]

Well - maybe I misread this quote then...

".... requires the crew to change (re-configure) the aircraft flap and gear positions 3 times during the final stages of the approach "

Your explanation is more along the lines of what I said earlier, but to me "final stages of the approach" is different than what your talking about.

[Ki-ll]

Well - maybe I misread this quote then...

".... requires the crew to change (re-configure) the aircraft flap and gear positions 3 times during the final stages of the approach "

Your explanation is more along the lines of what I said earlier, but to me "final stages of the approach" is different than what your talking about.

I was the one who misread it, my apologies, it has been a long day today.
SOP's do require these changes of configuration, it is just hard for me to see how the SOP's would be confusing someone who is 5 miles final, visual and in control of the airplane. I think they retracted the gear to clean the airplane up, instinctively, out of stress, but then realized that it was not necessary.
What interests me are those two power reductions and the point where the flaps were selected to full. The collision with the trees was in full landing configuration, but the engine fault happened while they were partially configured.

[Maynard]

You guys are all acting like it was a 'kaboom, hard yaw left, all the bells and whistles telling them they had an engine failure'. It wasn't. Did anyone actually read the report, or jump to the end. With a low power setting, and gusty winds, at 500' the airplane is getting bumped around, and anyone who flies a metro knows how much it yaws back and forth. So with a low power setting, how obvious is it now that you had an engine fail? As for the gear ret/ext, after a failure, first thoughts are clean it up, so maybe they raised the gear, added the power, looked out the window, runway now probably only 1 mile away, ok put the gear back down, reduce the power to land, at which point the drag would have worsened to the point that it did. Now the airplane is banking hard left, and losing speed. We can sit here all day and wonder why they didn't pull the stop and feather. We will never know for sure, but given the 1 in a million scenario that it happened in, I have a good hypothesis that 9/10 people would have ended up in the same spot.

[JayVee]

You guys are all acting like it was a 'kaboom, hard yaw left, all the bells and whistles telling them they had an engine failure'. It wasn't. Did anyone actually read the report, or jump to the end. With a low power setting, and gusty winds, at 500' the airplane is getting bumped around, and anyone who flies a metro knows how much it yaws back and forth. So with a low power setting, how obvious is it now that you had an engine fail? As for the gear ret/ext, after a failure, first thoughts are clean it up, so maybe they raised the gear, added the power, looked out the window, runway now probably only 1 mile away, ok put the gear back down, reduce the power to land, at which point the drag would have worsened to the point that it did. Now the airplane is banking hard left, and losing speed. We can sit here all day and wonder why they didn't pull the stop and feather. We will never know for sure, but given the 1 in a million scenario that it happened in, I have a good hypothesis that 9/10 people would have ended up in the same spot.

+1

[Ki-ll]

You guys are all acting like it was a 'kaboom, hard yaw left, all the bells and whistles telling them they had an engine failure'. It wasn't. Did anyone actually read the report, or jump to the end. With a low power setting, and gusty winds, at 500' the airplane is getting bumped around, and anyone who flies a metro knows how much it yaws back and forth. So with a low power setting, how obvious is it now that you had an engine fail? As for the gear ret/ext, after a failure, first thoughts are clean it up, so maybe they raised the gear, added the power, looked out the window, runway now probably only 1 mile away, ok put the gear back down, reduce the power to land, at which point the drag would have worsened to the point that it did. Now the airplane is banking hard left, and losing speed. We can sit here all day and wonder why they didn't pull the stop and feather. We will never know for sure, but given the 1 in a million scenario that it happened in, I have a good hypothesis that 9/10 people would have ended up in the same spot.

Low power setting existed for the first three seconds. That is it. The rest of the flight there was 1000 to 500hp differential in power between the engines, even more so in thrust. They noticed the yaw, there is no doubt about it. The other piece of the puzzle which is confusing is that they trimmed the rudder 5 degrees nose left. It was a very difficult situation indeed.

[Dizzy D]

If you can't maintain flight in a Metro II with an engine out and the A/C configured for landing, then why the hell are operators still flying around with passengers in them. Am I the only one who thinks this? Is there a better tool for the job? Will the Metro III do the job?

[Crusty]

You guys are all acting like it was a 'kaboom, hard yaw left, all the bells and whistles telling them they had an engine failure'. It wasn't. Did anyone actually read the report, or jump to the end. With a low power setting, and gusty winds, at 500' the airplane is getting bumped around, and anyone who flies a metro knows how much it yaws back and forth. So with a low power setting, how obvious is it now that you had an engine fail? As for the gear ret/ext, after a failure, first thoughts are clean it up, so maybe they raised the gear, added the power, looked out the window, runway now probably only 1 mile away, ok put the gear back down, reduce the power to land, at which point the drag would have worsened to the point that it did. Now the airplane is banking hard left, and losing speed. We can sit here all day and wonder why they didn't pull the stop and feather. We will never know for sure, but given the 1 in a million scenario that it happened in, I have a good hypothesis that 9/10 people would have ended up in the same spot.

Exactly. Thank you.

[Ki-ll]

If you can't maintain flight in a Metro II with an engine out and the A/C configured for landing, then why the hell are operators still flying around with passengers in them. Am I the only one who thinks this? Is there a better tool for the job? Will the Metro III do the job?

The crew encountered a condition which happens twice in a million flight hours. It was not a simple engine out condition, hence no one trains for it and the airplane is not certified for that either.

[wheelz]

If you can't maintain flight in a Metro II with an engine out and the A/C configured for landing, then why the hell are operators still flying around with passengers in them. Am I the only one who thinks this? Is there a better tool for the job? Will the Metro III do the job?

Can we please stop talking about Metro II's?? FZN was a Metro III.

[fche]

The crew encountered a condition which happens twice in a million flight hours. It was not a simple engine out condition, hence no one trains for it and the airplane is not certified for that either.

It was a partial single engine failure on final. What aspect of it exactly is untrained-for and uncertified-for?

[Ki-ll]

The crew encountered a condition which happens twice in a million flight hours. It was not a simple engine out condition, hence no one trains for it and the airplane is not certified for that either.

It was a partial single engine failure on final. What aspect of it exactly is untrained-for and uncertified-for?

The aspect is such that the engine is neither in NTS mode, nor feathered. It was producing zero torque, but that does not mean zero thrust. If you look at the table TSB provides, it shows LH propeller RPM constant throughout the accident sequence at 96%. The point is that the engine did not slow down. Had it been an NTS failure, engine RPM would decrease over time and with it the drag. This engine supplied just enough torque to keep that propeller spinning at near maximum rpm. Now imagine a propeller spinning that fast at low pitch and the drag it creates. That drag was there the whole time, versus a simple flameout where it would decrease fairly quickly. Add to that the fact that engine gauges were showing normal indications on all but one parameter and you have a situation which no one trains or certifies for.

[fche]

The aspect is such that the engine is neither in NTS mode, nor feathered.

Yes, it was a partial engine failure. Since the aircraft lacked autofeather, it was up to the pilots to do that.

Add to that the fact that engine gauges were showing normal indications on all but one parameter and you have a situation which no one trains ...

What kind of partial engine failures are trained for, where the possible range of symptoms exclude what happened here?

... or certifies for.

I'd love a reference to that. If true, couldn't this undermine people's trust in the airframe or certification process? A commuter category aircraft with one fully functional engine and no airframe damage, not certified to be able to stay airborne?

[Ki-ll]

Yes, it was a partial engine failure. Since the aircraft lacked autofeather, it was up to the pilots to do that.

Agreed.

What kind of partial engine failures are trained for, where the possible range of symptoms exclude what happened here?

Example. Operator I flew a 200 for did not train for engine failure combined with auto feather failure on take off. The closest we would do is engine failure in the missed approach where the "dead" engine power lever was held back at whatever the approach setting was, which is actually more that zero thrust. As I already mentioned, in the accident the LH engine was producing a lot of drag. This type of failure where several things refuse to work at once can be trained in a simulator, not every operator decides to do simulator training.
So there are actually quite a bit of scenarios that are not covered or discussed in training. As TSB discovered, this scenario was not trained for at Bearskin before the accident.
Maybe I am the only unlucky one who received crappy training.

I'd love a reference to that. If true, couldn't this undermine people's trust in the airframe or certification process? A commuter category aircraft with one fully functional engine and no airframe damage, not certified to be able to stay airborne?

Was the crew of this fight trained and was the airplane certified for this occurrence?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauda_Air_Flight_004

I am not trying to say this was an unrecoverable situation and that the crew was doomed from the start. All I am saying is that they were dealt a pretty difficult situation.

[Illya Kuryakin]

I'm still struggling with the fact the SOP calls for gear up 100 feet above MDA, then put it down again for landing. You have be kidding. Right? People DO this? Why? Hundred above.....gear up????WTF!
The airplane is obviously stable with the gear down. It's trimmed correctly. All is at peace. Just at the time when the PNF's eyes should be out the window searching for the runway, the gear is retracted, changing the whole stability the airplane is in, diverting the PNF's attention from his duties and......WHY?
I've seen SOPs that make no sense.....this one is KING!
This needs a total rethink.
I would not do this.
This scares the shit out of me. Thanks, I'll walk.
Illya