How to Crash-Land an Airplane

[Snake45]

If you absolutely HAVE to land a classic Piper twin gear-up, I doubt you could do any better than this guy. I don't think I could ride my bicycle down the runway centerline any straighter than he held it.


https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/loca ... 99813.html

(If this is the wrong forum for this, please move it.)

[AG pilot]

Even shut the engines down in time!

[CAPFlyer]

If you absolutely HAVE to land a classic Piper twin gear-up, I doubt you could do any better than this guy. I don't think I could ride my bicycle down the runway centerline any straighter than he held it.

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/loca ... 99813.html

(If this is the wrong forum for this, please move it.)

Actually, the FAA's position is that he just got himself a more in-depth investigation and he now has to explain why exactly he took a mechanical problem and made it significantly worse by shutting down the engines inflight. I cringe every time I see a pilot do that. I've had several FAA and NTSB inspectors tell me over the years when I've attended various seminars and classes about accidents that the WORST thing you can do when faced with a gear-up landing is to shutdown the engines. In fact, I had one seminar a few years ago which had a senior investigator for an insurance company (don't remember which one right now) who flat out said that you could, in the worse case, have your insurance claim voided for shutting down perfectly good engines.

Think of it this way - if your engines are working and you shut them down and someone runs out on the runway - what are you going to do? What if there's a last second gust of wind? You've just removed EVERY option from your toolkit but one - land.

The insurance company is going to pay for those engines and props to get inspected anyway. There have been too many times where you belly in an airplane and think it's all good and then find a weld broken on the engine mount, or a sheared bolt in the hub. They don't care if it was running or not - they're going to inspect it anyway. You're not saving yourself or anyone any "money" by shutting them down. Your deductible is the same whether there's a teardown or not. Your deductible doesn't do you any good if you're dead.

Another thing that came to mind while watching this too - I had the Chief Pilot of Cirrus tell me a couple months ago when he came through here on a cross-country that both Cirrus and the Insurance Companies both tell the owners that they are to pull the chute instead of attempting a forced landing. So any time you wonder why a guy who was in the middle of nowhere pulled the chute when his engine quit instead of gliding - it's because he listened to the manufacturer and insurance company and probably saved his life. The SR-20/22 is not a great "off field" airplane, so why not use the chute which the deployment of in an emergency is fully covered under your insurance policy?

[seagull61785]

All that may be true - but it still looked like he did a nice job. Not sure I could do better.

Barry

[ALOHADAVE]

I like how the pilot just puts his hands in his pockets and just walks away, barely looking back. I wonder what he was thinking?

[6trn4brn]

Kinda hard to say he shut the engines down in flight. He timed it perfectly. Just as he flared, he got them shut down. If something came out in front of him at that point, he was going to hit it no matter what. I am with the group that says he did a magnificent job!

[Matt Gunsch]

And a perfect example of a pilot not knowing the systems on his plane. On the Twin Comanche, to do an emergency extension of the gear you open a panel and lift a lever, the gear will free fall and lock, assisted by bungee cords on the main gear. When the lever is lifted, the gear motor is physically disconnected from the gear and the only way to reconnect it is when the plane is on jacks. The video I saw it did not appear that he shut the engines down, I thought I saw blade curls on the LT prop as it stopped.

[Rod Schneider]

The right main gear appears to be slightly extended--may have been a mechanical failure that prevented the gear from coming down either normally or with the emergency extension system. Not going to accuse the pilot of not knowing the airplane systems without knowing all the facts..........

[BigGrey]

The pilot did a beautiful job of landing that plane. I do not agree with his actions of shutting down the engines. He was already performing an approach to landing that was a departure from normal operation by having to do the gear up landing. Some bad accidents are not caused by a single event but by a chain of events initiated by the pilot. This pilot added an extra link to the chain that was not needed.
Interesting the aircraft is registered as restricted in the weather modification category.

[menards]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCto8Nm0Hf0

[phil65]

I wonder why he landed at such a small airport ?

Phil

[Snake45]

I wonder why he landed at such a small airport ?

Phil

It is his home field. Hopefully, they have a decent A&P shop there.

[Elwyn]

The luckiest I've seen that was caught on video was a small Cessna coming down on a small tree about 15 feet tall. The tree bent over and deposited the Cessna on the ground right-side up. Everything on the plane looked like it wobbled a bit after it came to rest but no parts seemed to fall off. I guess this would fit the old advice about hitting the softest and cheapest thing available if you have to crash.

[phil65]

This one ?

http://wtnh.com/2017/09/11/plane-crashe ... lainville/

I fly out of there and have rented that plane before.

Phil

[Elwyn]

That's the one. No doubt it was bent up pretty badly but still a lot better outcome Than you would expect from landing on top of a tree.