Beaver down off Saturna island (Updates)

[xsbank]

deleted

[Doc]

Aw xs, you're seen enough of my preventable accident rants to know where I sit in this regard. I'm a hard liner on the subject. I don't know anything about this one though. I spent Sunday watching my poor Bears get the crap kicked out of them by Brett Favre, suffering the "slings and arrows" of piss poor American beer and coffee!
Hell, I don't know anything about float flying. Even less about coastal float flying. I didn't even know there were eight seats in a Beaver!
In the dark.

[North Shore]

Doc: 8 Seats: Pilot, front pax (2) + Main bench (3) + Sling (2) and one infant = 8 pax

Someone mentioned Gross Wt and CG issues - does anyone have a Beaver manual to run those figures, using full front, say? (not saying this was the cause, just curious as to whether it works on paper..)

[Rowdy]

Some put three in the back sling seat

It was not a pretty day. We were cancelled due to wx.

[xsbank]

That's pretty much a normal (full) load for a Beav, especially with the short legs flown on the coast. When I flew on the North Coast it was common to limit the load depending upon the weather as she was less agile on the water fully loaded, but that was entirely subjective and depended entirely upon your your experience and your peers and the immediate situation.

I do not have any conclusions about this accident.

Doc, you and I sing from the same sheet - you are usually one line ahead of me and I usually agree with bells-on every safety thing you have written here. I think we are all trying hard to improve the caliber of the conversation on this site and that means confronting safety and bad practices and complacency whenever we find it. A serious accident is an opportunity to examine ourselves and really ask whether we are doing all we can to keep our precious passengers safe. I really think that if this accident rate keeps up, we won't be able to bribe people to get onto a float plane; then where are we?

[sky's the limit]

I think we are all trying hard to improve the caliber of the conversation on this site and that means confronting safety and bad practices and complacency whenever we find it. A serious accident is an opportunity to examine ourselves and really ask whether we are doing all we can to keep our precious passengers safe.

Bingo.

stl

[floydb]

Some put three in the back sling seat

It was not a pretty day. We were cancelled due to wx.

Was in VR that day and flew in and out couple of times, one of the nicer days in some time, anyone know what the wind was at the accident scene?

[100LL81]

Quote:
A federal investigation concluded the pilot took off with frost adhering to the aircraft’s lifting surfaces, which increased drag and reduced the ability of the wings to produce lift. It also found that the aircraft was about 230 kilograms in excess of its maximum takeoff weight, adversely affecting aircraft performance. Appropriate entries were not recorded in the aircraft’s journey and maintenance logs.
"

And this is the owner of the company that is willing to put his own family in danger, WOW. That says alot to me. I don't speculate on these things, I just want the facts. I truly hope that the cause is not something as stupid as the quote above.

[barefootpilot]

Here are the pics of the beaver being recovered this morning. By the look of the prop, it seems to be in feather when it went. Engine Failure?

Thoughts go out to all involved and there families.

http://www.apimages.com/Search.aspx?st= ... sstyle=AND&

[Ogee]

Here are the pics of the beaver being recovered this morning. By the look of the prop, it seems to be in feather when it went. Engine Failure?

Thoughts go out to all involved and there families.

http://www.apimages.com/Search.aspx?st= ... sstyle=AND&

That's an interesting observation BFP. Anybody who can say what the significance is of the prop position in the picture is? Does a Beaver prop feather when the engine quits?

[ajet32]

"Prop Feather" Never heard of a Beaver with a feathering propellor. I imagine that is damage from hitting the water with the engine making close to full power. Certainly stand to be corrected if anyone has more information.

[Kilo-Kilo]

"Prop Feather" Never heard of a Beaver with a feathering propellor. I imagine that is damage from hitting the water with the engine making close to full power. Certainly stand to be corrected if anyone has more information.

With the top two prop blades in the photo being bent in opposite directions I would imagine full power not likely. But in all honestly I have no idea how props react to water strikes.

[glorifiedtaxidriver]

"Prop Feather" Never heard of a Beaver with a feathering propellor. I imagine that is damage from hitting the water with the engine making close to full power. Certainly stand to be corrected if anyone has more information.

With the top two prop blades in the photo being bent in opposite directions I would imagine full power not likely. But in all honestly I have no idea how props react to water strikes.

Well, It looks like two of the blades are bent as if they contacted the water at high power. The one blade that is bent the opposite direction likely contacted something on impact. I noticed the right wing is no longer attached. It may have come forward and bent the blade back. Also, the engine is significantly angled down which indicates a fairly heavy impact in a downward motion, not forward, as if the airplane got airborne and came down heavy on a swell and broke the engine mounts. All speculation of course. Either way, a tragedy for all involved.

[NWONT]

I hate to stir up more spectulation but...if that is a counterweight prop there are pins that can fail, and individual blades can go to the feather position. The few times I've seen this happen was always on takeoff. If its a hydromatic prop then a different story. I have never seen a spinner on a counterweight prop but there is a lot of things I've never seen.

[light chop]

With all due respect to everyone involved - how come this Beaver is being pulled up so quickly and it seems like the TSB is all over this one as compared to Widow's accident where it seems the TSB wasn't even interested in getting the plane out of the water? Am I missing something?

[flyinthebug]

With all due respect to everyone involved - how come this Beaver is being pulled up so quickly and it seems like the TSB is all over this one as compared to Widow's accident where it seems the TSB wasn't even interested in getting the plane out of the water? Am I missing something?

Id like to think that Widow and many others efforts with the TSB and TC are finally starting to make a difference? Just a thought.

[Bulawrench]

It is important to raise the aircraft as soon as possible. The magnesium goes on the engine very quickly.
There was no sign of engine failure. the TSB will report clearly what happened. Give some distance on speculations in respect of the departed. A very sad time for all in the industry. We must carry on but please be safe out there.

[Olpucker]

With all due respect to everyone involved - how come this Beaver is being pulled up so quickly and it seems like the TSB is all over this one as compared to Widow's accident where it seems the TSB wasn't even interested in getting the plane out of the water? Am I missing something?

I would like to hope that Widow's efforts along with others is making a difference as well.

Other factors to consider is the fact that they had a pretty good idea of where the plane was from witnesses, it was in shallower water and the pilot survived. Not too many times are the TSB going to be able to fully investigate an accident where a float plane crashes, and for that matter crashed in to water. By a full investigation I mean one in which they can not only analyze the aircraft, but the pilot's story and that of a passenger. Small aircraft crashes normally kill the pilot on impact.

[RatherBeFlying]

News reports have a witness stating he saw a flash and turned his head to see the a/c in a nose dive.

Possible sources of a flash are: wire strike, structural failure, sun glint perhaps from piece coming off.

The AP pics show a wing missing.

There was a spar failure on a seaplane in Florida not long ago.

[MichaelP]

There are many concerned people reading this thread, I had a PM from one saying the weather conditions were good enough for normal operations.

Sunday
On my note pad I was airborne from 13:00 to 13:52 PST at Boundary Bay in the Citabria.
I commented: "A lot of windshear" on my pad... I have notes for every flight I make.

I was airborne again from 15:14 to 16:26. At around 16:20 the wind was reported between 150 and 160 degrees 10G15. I looked at the windsocks and there was between an 80 degree and 90 degree crosswind on 25. It was not outside my ability to land with this amount of crosswind.
But
On finals the wind was very different to that shown by the windsocks, gusty and backed... I went around and landed on 12.

What I saw that afternoon was winds that were inconsistent and very difficult to predict.
If you combine terrain with such winds it would be very difficult to judge.

On the lee side of the buildings here it was calm, yet step out and there was the wind, climb a little and there was more wind and from a different direction.

Propeller.
The propeller on the R985 on the front of the Stearman I used to fly always stopped in coarse pitch.

Accidents we are told are caused by a chain of events.
How many things contributed to this chain?

We await the accident report, and regardless of the media reports discounting this and that, I am sure the investigators will take everything into account.

[viccoastdog]

"Propeller.
The propeller on the R985 on the front of the Stearman I used to fly always stopped in coarse pitch."

The three bladed prop mod often seen on Beaver around these parts normally stops in fine pitch and is moved to coarse pitch by oil pressure. There is most certainly no way to feather a prop on a Beaver.

[viccoastdog]

"Someone mentioned Gross Wt and CG issues - does anyone have a Beaver manual to run those figures, using full front, say? (not saying this was the cause, just curious as to whether it works on paper..)"

It works on paper. From a W & B I have for a Beaver that's worked on the coast with the same types of mods as the accident plane: With 150 lbs in the front tank, 4 male, 3 female, plus 1 infant and 100 lbs of bags the plane would still be almost 300 lbs shy of gross weight (not assuming an up-gross mod) and right at the rear C of G limit.

[North Shore]

^OK, thanks. According to this morning's paper, w&b and Cg has been ruled out.

Possible sources of a flash are: wire strike, structural failure, sun glint perhaps from piece coming off.

No wires across that area.

[xsbank]

On the counterweight Beav prop whenever we shut down for the night we used a bit of power and pulled the prop into coarse to retract the piston inside the drum to prevent corrosion on the barrel. You were also taught to pull the prop into coarse in the event of an engine quitting - you would get a better glide. That prop in the photo would appear to be severely damaged from hitting something while the blade tips were at T/O speed - those blades are soft and those tremendous crash forces will just twist everything into junk. It shed its wing and floats so it hit hard.

Gust of wind? Shear? All more likely than a prop failure, IMHO.

Terrible loss.

[HS-748 2A]

I have extreme doubts about the witness accounts.

Every airplane has to emit fire balls, cough and bang, shed a few parts and then "nose-dive" before it crashes. People have just seen too many movies.

There's no point really in my saying that though untill the investigators release their findings but I doubt I will be eating crow.

RE: The prop, The impact damage to me looks pretty consistant with it chewing into the floats / water / cowling while producing high RPM. The one blade which has been commented on appearing to be bent backwards is actually bent the same as the other one but has completely broken it's lock and is turned 180'

Those Hartzells are rather wimpy compaired to the Hamilton Std 2Ds.

'48