When your landing goes wrong.

15 posts in this topic

Posted

If this helps anyone at all I'll be happy.   And I did get on video as well.  You tube -kitfox crash when things just happen- and you'll see the crash.  Super bummed about it.  Below is the narrative sent into the FAA and NTSB, should help explain the video as well.

 

 

 

 

 

Tell me your story/narrative:  I came in from the North (winds 9 GST16 when I left Cloquet) and set up for a South landing( South landing involves coming in over tall trees forward slipping down into a Left dog leg approach) I decided to use no flaps due to the winds, and the extended float rate they produce ( flaps on a Kitfox do not produce the kind of drag that conventional aircraft flaps will, they produce alot of lift with a more nose down attitude) as I would be performing a Short field landing to full stop.  I came over the first set of trees and performed a Left slip to drop 20' and cross the second set of trees at a stable approach attitude for the transition to left turn on the Dog leg, I entered the Dog at 40-45MPH, through the turn with increased angle my air speed will drop to 30-35 at roll out ( I have practiced this a lot at altitude and am aware of the possibility of accelerated stalls when performing this and at this airspeed, angle and tightness I have another 7 to 12 mph before the sink) I rolled out of the dog leg and had the set up for touching the wheels down at 2 ft past the compacted snow ( and in order to perform that I chose to ride the tires just over the terrain until touchdown)  as I touched the tires to the terrain a gust of wind picked up the Right side wing ( Normally this is not a big deal ) which in turn pushed the left tire into the snow causing it penetrate through the hard crust,and I would say normally this would not be a big deal either however I think with the angle that the cross wind was from turned the rear of the aircraft which in turn turned the wheel to have a more forward facing angle, this I think caused the snow to grab the rim and act like an ice cream scoop driving the left side down causing mass deceleration and overturning the plane.  

 

Lessons learned/areas of focus that could have decreased the risk/perhaps avoided the situation:   In the pursuit of Perfection, Perfection can be too Perfect. My landing configuration and execution was too good and it bit me.  Please don't think I am being cocky because that is not what it is, I don't have enough experience to be that yet, however MY failure to leave my self with adequate margin for error unforeseen or not was ultimately the root cause of this accident!  Had I Executed a higher approach angle( even just a foot )this would not have happened!  Had I Executed a steeper Dog leg to approach and come in over the compacted snow to the West more this would not have happened.  I failed to take an extra precautionary step to ensure my Golden rule and that is have at least 2 outs, I did not do that.  I had it set up perfect, so perfect there was NO ROOM FOR ERROR! 

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Posted

That sucks! But it does happen on a rare occasion. Only remedy is to pick yourself up, brush off the snow, make repairs and carry on.

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Posted

Just watched the video and all I can say is that happened damn fast. Kind of spooks me out about winter flying on wheels now. Even if you operate out of a nice, well plowed airport, an emergency landing into snow is pretty much guaranteed to get a similar result. Sorry to watch but appreciate you posting, glad you're ok.

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Posted (edited)

 Glad you got out ok, and welcome to the group Dakota.  JImChuk

PS.  I know we had 3 below 0 last night, but this must have been last winter sometime??

Edited by 1avidflyer

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Posted (edited)

Thanks for posting so we can all learn from each other.  And dang..  sorry it happened and had to go as far as the faa & ntsb.

 

Edited by Yamma-Fox

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Posted

Hey, thanks for putting in here...not that savvy yet.  I actually contacted the NTSB 10 15 minutes after it happened. Never been through this before so I figured I better let em know right away.  

 

Thanks Jim, happened Feb 28th 2019.  In the process of rebuilding now, leading edge wing spars out, 4 ribs on the right wing replaced so far. Unfortunately I didnt get materials till Sept and it's that time of year so the push is on to complete all the sites I have before end of 4th qtr.

 

I appreciate the well wishes everone, only site I've been on so far that a bunch of hangar queens and know it alls haven't stated how 10million hours behind d my belt would have prevented this, so it's good to see that mabe I've found the group that enjoys this type of flying as much as me without the nose in the air attitude.

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Posted

Ha! This site was conceived, started, maintained, manned by misfits. Everybody is welcome, most stick around.

:welcome:

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Posted

Ha! This site was conceived, started, maintained, manned by misfits. Everybody is welcome, most stick around.

:welcome:

That's a pretty damn accurate statement.  You did forget snake oil salesman though!  :lmao:

 

You sound like you will fit right in around here.  Sucks to see a bird bent and yes, it is amazing how damn fast shit goes wrong.  I have learned one thing. NEVER, EVER volunteer info to the feds.  If they didn't see this happen there is no way I would have let them know.

Welcome aboard and keep us posted on your progress!

:BC:

 

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Posted (edited)

X2 on everthing that ^^ guy said.  Plane looks bad on it's back but hopefully it isn't hurt too bad and hopefully it won't even meet the definition of "substantial damage".

And Flightguy, was this mostly that you touched down a smidge early in the unplowed portion, or am I misreading the way you described it?

Edited by Yamma-Fox

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Posted

So the intent was to ride the tires just on the terrain until full touchdown....think of a water assisted landing approach, without fully submerging the wheels.  The snow wasnt that deep either mabe 7inches with a hard crust, you can see when I get out I'm actually standing on it.  But when the left wheel penetrated the crust that crust grabbed my rim and acted like the old school ice cream scoops, with that happening I think the deceleration was quick enough to cause the prop to hit the hard crust and finish me off.

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Posted

big lesson learned here.  water is hard when ya hit it fast and it lets you skip across it (surface tension and all that)  Snow has none of these properties and as you learned really quick, SUCKS to play on with tires.  

I had a big wake up call the first year I got my ticket.  Was in a 152 and landed for a pee break on a strip that had 4" of snow on it.  The deceleration was astonishing and even with the best soft field take off I could have ever done, I burned up 3000' + coaxing that poor bird into the air after said break.

Several times a year guys up here think that by having 35" bushwheels on their cub they can land in the deeper snow.  More often than not it ends with a chopper ride and a totaled bird.

Glad you walked away from your sudden arrival and the damage is really not all that bad considering.

:BC: 

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Posted

Fed here. 20 year NTSB investigator. Taking the approach of not telling anything is up to you but it makes you look like your hiding something, and is basically you giving up your opportunity to tell your side. There have been those that tried to hide accidents, and I'm sure many have succeeded, but I have been involved in several where someone somewhere knew and reported it. At that point the simple accident investigation becomes an adversarial enforcement investigation for not following what is essentially federal law (49 CFR 830).

NTSB regional investigators are just regular folks like myself, many of us homebuilders, owners of classic airplanes, etc. Our goal is to find out what happened to promote accident prevention, not to nail you to the wall if you are involved in an accident.

Do what you want but I wouldn't recommend trying to hide an accident.

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Posted

This is one peeing contest I don't want to get into. I can say from previous and current experiences I am having brought on by trying to "do the right thing" I personally will never volunteer a single thing again.  I get it that there are good and bad eggs in every basket.  Most of the folks I have dealt with have actually been like yourself, pretty damn cool and easy going, however, it only takes one time with a ding dong to make one rethink ever doing things the "right way" again.

 

:BC:

 

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Posted


Holy cow that was fast!!! Important thing is you're okay!!! :o

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Posted

Thank you for posting and yeah that would upset me as well big time, and it has I've had three mishaps but you've got to pick yourself up dust yourself off and start all over again. good to see you get out OK and I wish you all the best with fixing that lovely aircraft up and getting her airborne again.

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