On Board Video - Bonanza engine out off field landing Alaska

[bizjets101]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=234_naonoH8[/youtube]

or click here for video

From Youtube;

Three high definition cameras were mounted to my Beechcraft Bonanza when the engine quit on takeoff from Fairbanks Alaska on July 26th 2012, One was pointed forward, one to the right side, and one to the rear. All three cameras caught the crash as it happened in HD. Both people on board survived with only minor injuries, but the airplane didn't.

The airplane was beautiful and well maintained with a brand new engine that suddenly quit about 200 feet above the ground. There was 22 seconds from the time of engine failure to impact. NTSB has not yet determined the cause of the crash and the engine has been successfully ran on a test stand. The engine quit without warning, no power surge, no hesitation, no advance sign of trouble at all. I had not previously had any signs of any issues with my airframe or engine.

If you watch closely you'll notice that after the engine failure I initially began a slight left turn thinking the road would be a good place to land because of obstructions elsewhere. Within a second or so I saw power lines beside the road and turned right to avoid a pistol range and a derelict DC-6 that was straight ahead.

From the last annual I knew the landing gear extension time was 12 seconds so I decided to leave it retracted since I didn't want to touch down with the gear in transition. I touched down as slowly as possible, just above a stall with the nose just slightly high. Any higher and the fuselage could have slapped down hard causing greater injuries to the spine and any lower the speed would have been higher and cause more frontal damage which could have shoved the yoke back into my chest more than it did.

The full NTSB report is here: Click Here.

[looproll]

Cool video, but where was the flare? Damn, he flew that thing into the ground pretty hard.

[willow burner]

I think that was all the flare there was left. Looked like a pretty good job to me.

Why d it quit though?

[white_knuckle_flyer]

Why d it quit though?

Yes, that's what I want to know. From the pilot's account it seems impossible that the engines could have quit, yet we know they did !

The whole "new engine" scenario sounds suspicious to me...kinda like "the plane just came our of its 50 hour inspection, so it should be really safe to fly."

With my untrained ears, I can't really hear when the engines cut out.

All I know is that he was lucky to make it across that water. Could have been bad, especially if he had been knocked out.

[into the blue]

This is a very disciplined response to an engine failure at the worst possible time. It does indeed look like he didn't have much energy left for the flare. To be fair, though, his chances of keeping the airplane undamaged it that situation were pretty slim anyway and I'm glad he was able to walk away from this accident.

[GyvAir]

I'd say the engine quit making power right at the 10 second mark of the video. NTSB report says that the engine was installed 165 hours before; certainly past the infant mortality range. And, there was nothing found wrong with the engine after the accident. There's a line in the NTSB report that seems to imply a lack of a preflight run up?: "During this hold short period the audio did not record any sounds consistent with the accident airplane operating at higher RPM’s."
He sure didn't have much altitude to work with no matter where he chose to go. I suspect after he traded all his airspeed off for altitude he flew across that last bit of water on pure pucker factor, with nothing left over for a pretty flare.