Witnessing an Accident

[pelmet]

I have been at one airshow where a fatal accident happened. I saw the smoke but not the actual accident. I have also seen the smoke from a widebody airliner crash. I saw it fly low overhead me on final approach until it disappeared from view and later drove over and saw it on fire.

Perhaps quite a few here have seen a crash. This is the story of one person and the effects on him.

http://www.nycaviation.com/2016/07/unth ... rash/39260

[cncpc]

Saw the Voodoo explode at Abbotsford
Saw the Snowbird come apart at Grande Prairie and Captain De Jong lost
Saw the aviation coroner Joe O'Connor (or Connors) and a boy killed right in front of us just short of the button at Mike in YVR, 172 lost in wake turbulence landing behind a 737, I think it was.

[Steamchicken]

I was also at the air show with my Dad in 1973 when the Voodoo came apart. Even from the age of 15 I remember it well. I think they both ejected? About ten years later I was inbound to the south side of YVR from the north in a helicopter. The tower told me to hold by the CP hangar for the L1011 (pretty sure) on final. I watched the 172 with the coroner turn final for 26 behind the jet and thought it was pretty close. The 172 rocked 90 degrees left and right and hit short of the runway and slid into a ditch. I recall both wings bent forward so the impact was substantial. It initially looked benign from my vantage but clearly wasn’t.

[Skythings]

In August of 1978 I was working on the ramp at the Calgary Flying Club in Springbank. I was up on a ladder fueling a C-172 when I noticed a yellow and white Apache landing on the then runway 34. I noticed immediately his landing gear was only half extended and I watched the aircraft flying 50ft off the runway under full power. It appeared he was in an overshoot but was not climbing and was very slow. The aircraft maintained runway heading and continued northbound at between 50-100 feet AGL. At approximately 1 1/2 miles north of the airport I observed the aircraft enter a shallow left turn to a westbound heading. At this time I could see the aircraft profile from the side and he was slowly descending. I said out loud to a couple other guys now watching "he is going to belly it in". Just as I said that, the aircraft entered a rapid left turn and I watched the aircraft from a side profile enter into a 90 degree bank towards me and the nose struck the ground 90 degrees vertical and the aircraft cartwheeled wing tip to wing tip and disintegrated into a pile of wreckage.

I ran into the Club and called my house which was about one mile from the crash site. My Mom was a Registered Nurse and she jumped into the farm truck and my brother onto his dirt bike they both rushed to the crash site which was in the middle of the dried up lake. My brother arrived at the crash site first about 10 minutes after the crash and could not find the pilot in the wreckage. He said that was very difficult as he approached the wreckage as he expected to find the worst. Luckily the lone pilot was not seriously injured and was able to extricate himself from the wreckage and began walking back to the airport. The little crash jeep and the airport manager couldn't get to the accident site because of a fence and picked the pilot up a 1/4 mile away and took him back to the airport and an awaiting ambulance just as my brother arrived.

The crash investigators arrived from Edmonton the next day and asked me to meet them at the crash site to interview me. I was able to take my own pictures. We eventually learned the pilot was familiarizing himself with the aircraft and had intentionally shut one of the engines down in the practice area and was unable to re-start it. He flew single engine back to Springbank and on final discovered the gear hydraulic pump was on the dead engine and proceeded to hand pump the gear down. When he arrived at the runway with the gear only half extended, he decided to overshoot single engine with the gear partially extended. This was a loss of VMC accident.

As fate would have it the pilot several years later conducted my own multi-engine ride on an Aztec. On the ride he asked me on the single engine landing approach on the same runway what I would do if an animal walked out onto the runway that moment. I answered continue my landing to the side of runway or strike the animal- but no go around. I passed and never did tell him I was one of the witnesses to his own accident.

44 years later I can vividly recall that accident like it was earlier today. It looked very bad and at the time I expected the worst and I was numb with shock. I never want to see anything like that ever again.

[cykj]

I saw a Canso crash after takeoff on Rwy 30 in Thunder Bay in 1984. The right engine quit just after rotation due to water in the fuel. They tried to bring it around for Rwy 07 at a very low altitude but ended up pulling up to clear a power line and crashed in someone's front yard. Luckily both pilots survived despite the fact the entire nose broke off forward of the pylon.