Plane Savers Youtube series by Buffalo Airways

WIXerGreg · **Posted:** Fri May 03, 2019 11:57 pm

86583 wrote:

do you have personal knowledge of that, or are you the classic rumour monger?

pretty idiotic comment from someone that lives a few thousand miles away

http://www.aviation-accidents.net/buffa ... ht-bfl168/

Quote:

An accurate take-off weight and balance calculation was not completed prior to departure, resulting in an aircraft weight that exceeded its maximum certified take-off weight.

The right engine number 1 cylinder failed during the take-off sequence due to a pre-existing fatigue crack, resulting in an engine fire.
After the right propeller’s feathering mechanism was activated, the propeller never achieved a fully feathered condition likely due to a seized bearing in the feathering pump.

The windmilling right propeller caused an increase in drag which, combined with the overweight condition, contributed to the aircraft’s inability to maintain altitude, and the aircraft collided with terrain short of the runway.

The operator’s safety management system was ineffective at identifying and correcting unsafe operating practices.

Transport Canada’s surveillance activities did not identify the operator’s unsafe operating practices related to weight and balance and net take-off flight path calculations. Consequently, these unsafe practices persisted.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/buffalo-airwa ... 32497.html

From the owner of the firm Buffalo hired to review it's safety standards:

Quote:

"One of the problems Buffalo Airways has is when a Northern community calls with an emergency and needs an extra piece of something on a plane for whatever reason, Joe never says no," he said. "They load it on, and so they'd be overweight.

Mick G · **Joined:** Sat Feb 13, 2016 5:39 pm **Posts:** 213

Probably a safe assumption the were overloaded, but lets not jump to conclusions just yet, if they were having trouble with feathering the dead engine, then she was going down. Its a good thing they didnt have to ditch in water........maybe its tme to cash in all thier chips and buy a bastler.

86583 · **Joined:** Tue Apr 30, 2019 8:20 pm **Posts:** 13

I think you may find that culture has changed in that part of the world with the regulator breathing down their necks over the last few years..

the other thing that's a possibility is that they had a fire related to the failure that persisted and the prudent thing was to get it down ASAP..

either way, the guys flying had a bad day that could have been a lot worse, they got it down and walked away.. skill or luck, or a combination of the two.. doesn't matter, they just don't deserve to be made out to look like a couple cowboys flying a DC3 overloaded.. for all we know they were going home empty..

WIXerGreg · **Posted:** Sat May 04, 2019 10:44 am

For clarity, noone in this thread has blamed the pilots or overloading for the current incident. I was simply replying to the 'shouldn't they be able to fly on one engine' question.

86583 · **Joined:** Tue Apr 30, 2019 8:20 pm **Posts:** 13

It was certainly insinuated

As far as being able to fly on one engine it’s quite possible they could have flown on one engine but elected to do a precautionary off airport landing do to extenuating circumstances such as an engine fire

quemerford · **Joined:** Tue Jun 17, 2014 4:19 pm **Posts:** 1596

86583 wrote:

It was certainly insinuated

As far as being able to fly on one engine it’s quite possible they could have flown on one engine but elected to do a precautionary off airport landing do to extenuating circumstances such as an engine fire

...or none of the above. Pointless conjecture and not very helpful.

86583 · **Joined:** Tue Apr 30, 2019 8:20 pm **Posts:** 13

WIXerGreg wrote:

For clarity, noone in this thread has blamed the pilots or overloading for the current incident. I was simply replying to the 'shouldn't they be able to fly on one engine' question.

conjecture, absolutely... most postings on this site to do with these types of situations are conjecture.. the flying wing one is shaping up to be one of those as well..

pointless? well I disagree.. Greg has indicated all he was doing was addressing the "why didn't it fly on one engine" line of questioning.. which is also quite prevalent on some of the other sites as well, with the usual assumption that the airplane was overloaded..

what I'm saying is that there is another possibility that they could fly on one engine, but chose to put it down ASAP.. there's a few things that come to my mind that could cause that..

conjecture? absolutely.. but instead of beating the "overloaded" horse to death why not think of other possibility's.. one day the final report will come out and it may say "grossly overloaded" or it may say something that no one else here even thought about.. in the meantime, what ever the reason was cudo's to the pilots for getting it down, and getting out safely..

hbtcoveralls · **Joined:** Sun Jan 03, 2010 9:51 pm **Posts:** 151

I wonder if this will impact the DTD project

They borrowed a lot of parts from other DC-3s in the fleet to make DTD flyable Possible they may need to give them back?

Wish them well and happy that the crew walked away

Brenden S · **Posted:** Sat May 04, 2019 8:51 pm

The DC-3 on one engine is well known to be marginal. If it was overloaded it would have gone down pretty quickly. It appears that they nearly made it back and clearly something went wrong. Instead of being armchair experts lets see what comes out of the investigation. I am glad the crews exited safely and there are no injuries.

C-FDTD is continuing the restoration to flight.

TAdan · **Posted:** Mon May 06, 2019 6:47 am

DTD made significant progress over the weekend. Gear swings, prop feathering, tail structure repairs.

Spotted this nice story about one of the pilots at Buffalo. She was featured on one of the episodes talking about her Great grandfathers service.

https://www.toronto.com/news-story/9330 ... ra-planes/

DH82EH · **Posted:** Tue May 07, 2019 8:10 am

That's a cool link Dan.
I always say "airports need more girls"
Well done her. No doubt her dream of flying the Lancaster will come true.

Andy

Thomas_Mac · **Posted:** Wed May 08, 2019 8:04 am

bdk · **Joined:** Sun May 02, 2004 1:16 am **Posts:** 11324

WIXerGreg wrote:

For clarity, noone in this thread has blamed the pilots or overloading for the current incident.

Can I blame the pilots (and the culture of the operator)? Had the feather pump worked, the crew still may have not been able to make the runway due to the overloaded condition.

The effectiveness of an emergency system is predicated on the aircraft being operated within the published operating limitations. That's why the limitations exist.

How often are the feather pumps supposed to be tested?

OD/NG · **Joined:** Fri Dec 16, 2016 1:36 pm **Posts:** 750

bdk wrote:

WIXerGreg wrote:

For clarity, noone in this thread has blamed the pilots or overloading for the current incident.

Can I blame the pilots (and the culture of the operator)? Had the feather pump worked, the crew still may have not been able to make the runway due to the overloaded condition.

The effectiveness of an emergency system is predicated on the aircraft being operated within the published operating limitations. That's why the limitations exist.

How often are the feather pumps supposed to be tested?

Is it not standard operating procedure to do a feathering pump exercise/check on all constant speed propellers on the engine run-up prior to take off?

quemerford · **Joined:** Tue Jun 17, 2014 4:19 pm **Posts:** 1596

So. Plane Savers then (cos that's the thread title). Congrats to Mikey and his team for getting her 'live' again. The visual and technical transformation of 'DTD within the space of just a few weeks is an inspiration to us all.

:drink3:

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