Kenn Borek Antarctic Cause/Speculation Thread

[sky's the limit]

Hi All,

Let's leave the initial thread surrounding Bob, Mike, and Perry's accident for condolences and well wishes.

Any and all thoughts or speculative discussion can be done here.

RIP guys, you will be missed.

stl

[xsever]

With all the technology surrounding us, it's about time something VERY ACCURATE is developed that has every single cliff/mountain/hedge on this earth mapped out and documented so that accidents like these are mitigated.

Just think of how TCAS changed aviation and try and imagine something as robust and effective. Too many pilots have died flying through mountains and elevation (a la Russian Superjet).

I am very mad since we keep loosing quality pilots because of this, yet smartphones these days can almost do anything you can think of. Something has to change!

[Cat Driver]

The cost of developing and manufacturing an electronic device that can read mountain wave activity far enough ahead of the airplane to allow a course correction to avoid it would probably be prohibitive for airplanes as small as a Twin Otter or similar types of airplanes.

[ehbuddy]

Impact angle will play an important part in this. Was the aircraft in Straight and Level flight or was it Climbing?

Did the a/c have a CVR/FDR?

[sky's the limit]

With all the technology surrounding us, it's about time something VERY ACCURATE is developed that has every single cliff/mountain/hedge on this earth mapped out and documented so that accidents like these are mitigated.

Xsever,

I see what you are saying, but having flown in the mountains my whole career, and being involved with several accident scenes in them, it's not that simple.

This case excluded, as Bob's mountain flying skills were excellent, the single biggest cause of the accidents you're referring to is knowledge of the environment, training, and the subsequent development of pilot skills. In fixed-wing in particular, the level of understanding surrounding mountain ops is generally very low - shockingly in some cases. While it would be nice to have a device to show us everything, that is just not enough. Knowing what to expect, how to mitigate the risk, and how best to escape the many traps is the most important thing. That can only be accomplished with in-depth training, and then a great many hours of experience in the mountainous environment.

Sometimes, the environment wins no matter what you do. I don't think most pilots truly understand what enormous forces are at play in large, coastal mountain ranges.

stl

[Cat Driver]

Think about this.

The winds were reported to be in the 100 knot range a couple of days ago in the area the Twin Otter went down, the mountains in that area are very high and the wave action could have been beyond the ability of any airplane to out perform. I have no idea what the winds were at the time of the accident but I do know winds can change in a very short time in Arctic areas.

Mountain waves can be very deceptive because the air can be smooth as glass turbulence wise and you can lose or gain altitude very quickly once in the wave...


...and radar altimeters are useless for determining your altitude in mountains such as those in the accident area.

I probably should not even be discussing this at this time because I am in a state of disbelief and shock trying to accept what happened to such an experienced crew.

For sure there is no " normal operation " in the high Arctic or the Antarctic in the mountain regions.

[grimey]

...and radar altimeters are useless for determining your altitude in mountains such as those in the accident area.

Is this because of the snow, or because the rapid changing elevations make them far less useful, or something else?

[Redneck_pilot86]

...and radar altimeters are useless for determining your altitude in mountains such as those in the accident area.

Is this because of the snow, or because the rapid changing elevations make them far less useful, or something else?

Rapid changes in terrain. You could quite easily be lower than terrain ahead, despite the fact that your rad alt is indicating you are well above the terrain that is straight down.

[sky's the limit]

...and radar altimeters are useless for determining your altitude in mountains such as those in the accident area.

Is this because of the snow, or because the rapid changing elevations make them far less useful, or something else?

That is correct Grimes.

The rapid change in elevation in high relief terrain makes them useless. Also, it should be noted that in forested terrain like the Coastal Mountains in BC where the timber is up to 225ft tall, they will often give false readings. The device has its uses, but just not in this fashion.

[xsever]

I assume there are no IFR services in Antarctica, so if they were flying VFR, did they get trapped in IMC conditions or were they still in VMC?

Excuse my lack of experience as I am a new pilot, but if I am VFR and I start loosing visibility and ground reference, I get out of there. Does this logic make flying down south almost impossible as it's almost never clear? ( I had to do that today on my cross country)

[blueoval56]

...

[co-joe]

Since I read about the missing aircraft in the paper all I have been doing is going over in my head scenarios where they are patiently waiting for the SAR team well fed and warm. Now all I can do is run scenarios to try to explain this tragedy. I have to admit I'm at a loss. There just isn't enough information to make any educated guesses yet. I will leave this one to the experts. Will the NZ gov be sending investigators or is the TSB going to be involved? Did the machine have a CVR? Way more questions than answers for a while I bet. sadness...and from blue oval criptic weirdness.

[Cat Driver]

This is posted on Pprune.

Former general manager Steve Penikett said a computer program monitoring the plane tracked a dip, climb and a sudden stop, Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail reported.

Penikett watched on his computer as the plane was detected flying at just under 4000m, dropped to 2700m, then climbed back to its former height, travelling at 140 knots (260kmh), before suddenly recording "zero air speed".

If the above is factual what else could be responsible for the above flight path outside of mountain wave airflow?

It is highly unlikely they were sight seeing and also unlikely it was an engine failure.

[blueoval56]

...

[captcrunch2013]

Can anyone tell us if the aircraft had any kind of terrain mapping notification?

The fact is, he was on a direct line to the location of the summit and
flew into rather than anywhere else.

that indicates to me the GPS was set to take them to the Mountain Top
rather than around it.

Sounds like a repeat of the Air New Zealand accident.

Let's hope the GPS is recovered with the cockpit cameras
if they were running.

[URC]

Missing Antarctic plane may have turned too soon in mountains

Canadian Press, January 26, 2013

A Canadian plane that crashed in Antarctica appears to have been on course but may have turned too early while flying through a mountain range, says an official with the agency that confirms the aircraft has been found.

Chris Henshaw, a search and rescue officer with the New Zealand Rescue Co-Ordination Centre, says the wreckage of the Twin Otter lies along the route the plane was intending to fly between the South Pole and an Italian base in Antarctica’s Terra Nova Bay.

The plane, operated by Calgary-based Kenn Borek Air, was reported missing after it failed to reach its destination on Wednesday.

Search crews in aircraft have confirmed that the wreckage has been sighted on a steep slope near the summit of 4,480-metre Mount Elizabeth in the Queen Alexandra range, but New Zealand officials said the impact appears to have been direct and the three crew members could not have survived the crash.

“From looking at the maps, it is a logical route for it to fly through the mountain range,” Henshaw said about the location of the crash.

“There is a path that they actually sort of follow through. And it looks like the pilot made a turn too early. We don’t know at this stage,” he added.

New Zealand officials say the next of kin of the three men have been informed.

The pilot has been identified by friends as Bob Heath of Inuvik. Media reports have identified a second crew member as Mike Denton, a newlywed from Calgary whose photographs of planes appear on the Kenn Borek website.

The third crew member had not yet been identified.

According to a statement released Friday by Kenn Borek Air, mountain rescue personnel would try to reach the crash site if weather conditions were favourable.

Henshaw said the weather in the area has improved and it sounded like a helicopter would be capable of landing close to the site. But he said he was still awaiting word on a decision about how they would proceed.

Julie Leroux of the federal Transportation Safety Board said that since the Twin Otter was operated by a Canadian company, officials in Canada have already started working on a probe into the crash.

Leroux said Canadian investigators have already collected data and conducted interviews, but she said they don’t know yet whether it will be possible to reach the remote crash site.

“The Transportation Safety Board is waiting for more information to determine our next step,” Leroux said Saturday, speaking from Gatineau, Que., where the board is based.

Henshaw said New Zealand’s minister of foreign affairs is working with American and Canadian officials about where to go next with the investigation.

A signal from an emergency locator beacon had been detected from the site early on, but rescue teams were hampered by bad weather that made it difficult for planes flying over the area to see anything.

On Friday, a break in the weather allowed rescuers to set up a forward base at Beardmore Glacier, about 50 kilometres from the crash site, where there is a landing strip and a fuel depot.

A statement on the Kenn Borek Air website said visual contact with the wreckage was first made by a C-130 Hercules aircraft of the New York Air National Guard, and the sighting was later confirmed by another Twin Otter deployed by the airline.

Kenn Borek Air, which is also a fixture in Canada’s North, has been sending planes to Antarctica for the past 28 years.

Heath has been described as a highly experienced pilot by friends.

Fellow pilot Sebastian Seykora said Heath had been flying in Antarctica for at least a decade.

Would they have had a GPS route charted that would take them through the mountain valleys in the event of a problem, IMC weather, engine failure escape route, etc. ?

[bkn4thr]

My sincerest sympathy to all involved!

Bkn

[grimey]

Does anyone know which country has responsibility for investigating the crash? NZ, US, Canada?

[captcrunch2013]

There is a remarkable coincidence in that KBC flew into the
one of the tallest mountains in Antarctica which suggests
that it was position fix in their GPS or that they planned to
fly near it as it it would make for spectacular pictures and video.

It reminds of the Air New Zealand accident.

The other factor is Mountain Wave effect. I've seen some high speeds
in the Rockies and that was enough to kill a lot of people in similar aircraft
here, let alone down there.

That sudden descent and climb adds weight to that probable cause.

Terrain Warning if it existed in their equipment probably made no difference
to the outcome that was going to happen.

[captcrunch2013]

It's called common sense, just a small variation of human thought process.

This accident will add a section to the AIM on mountain wave and its
avoidance.

Not to mention some additions on factors to be considered in arctic and antarctic operations.

The cost of developing and manufacturing an electronic device that can read mountain wave activity far enough ahead of the airplane to allow a course correction to avoid it would probably be prohibitive for airplanes as small as a Twin Otter or similar types of airplanes.

[Sidebar]

Does anyone know which country has responsibility for investigating the crash? NZ, US, Canada?

Antarctica is not a sovereign state. As the state of manufacture, operator, and registration, Canada has jurisdiction to investigate. As pointed out a couple of posts above, the TSB has already begun collecting information. I just watched CBC national news which had an audio clip of a TSB spokeswoman stating that they are still assessing what their response wil be.

[gopher_killer]

I assume there are no IFR services in Antarctica, so if they were flying VFR, did they get trapped in IMC conditions or were they still in VMC?

Excuse my lack of experience as I am a new pilot, but if I am VFR and I start loosing visibility and ground reference, I get out of there. Does this logic make flying down south almost impossible as it's almost never clear? ( I had to do that today on my cross country)

I won't speak for the Antarctic, but you can be uncontrolled IFR. In fact that is quite common in remote areas in Canada. These guys would be IFR cretified (by TC) and know the rules. What's more, I expect these guys would have a great deal of respect for mountain wave, temp changes, etc. From what I know, none were better than Bob.

If you are a PPL and encounter cloud, get the hell out. TC has a great article entitled 178 Seconds to Live. Google it and take it to heart as it could save you life and your friends.

Fly safe!

GK

[Mr. North]

It's not really the time or place for me to speculate on what happened here but I found this information interesting and thought I would share..


Snapshot of their flight path.

Larger version of this image is found here...
http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/plane-that- ... -1.1130533

At 4480m, Mt. Elizabeth is the tallest obstacle in the area by a fair margin. Had they delayed their final left turn it appears they would have been in the clear.

Map of Mt. Elizabeth for reference:
http://maps.pgc.umn.edu/antarctica/usgs ... zabeth.jpg

[GRK]

If you are asking about the similarities between this accident and the ANZ Mt Erebus, the only commonality so far is an impact on a mountainside. The ANZ accident was a sight seeing flight that went wrong because ANZ management changed an IRS waypoint in a database, and told no one about it. The crew of that DC10 flew the flight plan without knowing there was a wrong lat/long which doomed them from the start. Read Countdown To Erebus and then rethink how this sad event matched that sad event. Not much in common in my opinion. Sad news, we were hoping for a happier ending, and our sincere condolences go out to the families and to the employees of KBA.
GRK and family.

[sky's the limit]

It is certainly starting to sound more like a navigation mishap than a mtn wave encounter. Have a few bits of information pointing that way, we'll see what comes out over the next few days.