PA31 Navajo crashes in Florida

[flyinthebug]

http://www.npr.org/2013/03/15/174454787 ... ills-three

My condolences to the family/friends of the crew and passenger.

[vcollazo]

It was a turboprop Cheyenne doing a test flight after being down several months after an avionics install. The deceased were the chief pilot for an FBO and a father and son who owned the avionics shop. That is a 6000' runway and this plane should have been airborne in less than 2000'. At the end of runway should have been well above VMC and Vyse. Should have easily climbed out with one of those turboprops going. Either the pilot screwed up hugely or there was a fuel or control problem.

[Canoehead]

"Easily" climb out as long as the prop attached to the failed engine was feathered.

Sounds like a major avionics job... you gotta wonder if flight controls got put back/rigged correctly. It wouldn't be the first time a plane went down on a test flight for such a reason.

[tsgas]

A very sad ending to a test flight. That's why ,IMHO , there shouldn't be any pax allowed on test flights.

[Colonel Sanders]

As I keep telling people ... the more maintenance
you do on an airplane, the more dangerous and
unreliable it is.

I agree 100% for "no pax" on first flights after
heavy maintenance.

[Doc]

As I keep telling people ... the more maintenance
you do on an airplane, the more dangerous and
unreliable it is.

Words to live by. SO true.

[TG]

As I keep telling people ... the more maintenance
you do on an airplane, the more dangerous and
unreliable it is.

Yes.
And it doesn't take much to make it unreliable.

Back in the 90's I flew 8hrs in a C206 with a prop bolted by hand (not torqued)
When they realized their mistake and gave us a call, amazingly only three bolts out of nine, I think, were loose.
A simple distraction during an engine change from a reputable maintenance organisation

No vibration whatsoever by the way..

[crazy_aviator]

Nine bolts on a 206 prop? i thought it was 6 nuts ! Anyhow, i recall working at city express YTZ, MANY moons ago, when the Israeli mechanics put a prop on a dash 7, It came back from Ottawa i believe and i did a walk around,,you could grab a prop blade and move it forward about 6 + inches !!! Turns out it was an incompatible prop for the engine and the prop was not seating on the crank but was resting ( teetering) 1 inch forward on the crank flange,,we were happy their "assistance" was short lived in Canada