Goose crash in UAE (2011 thread)

[WallyB]

The General Civil Aviations Authority (GCAA) of UAE announced that the small passenger aircraft that crashed during takeoff from Al Ain International Airport, killing all the four persons on board, was operated by Triple S Aviation (TSA).

As the probe is still underway, a statement from the GCAA also confirmed that the four persons killed in the accident were U.S citizens.

The Grumman 21T aircraft was en route to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, when it crashed at the Al Ain International Airport at 8pm Sunday night.

The Texas-based aircraft service company TSA operates private charters including business aircraft and helicopters, it is learnt.

Apologies if this should be in the non-military forum, but if it's N221AG then it was JRF-5 BuNo 37819 a long time ago.

RIP

[CAPFlyer]

Wow, we were just talking about this aircraft not to long ago because of it's registration as a "McKinnon" Goose and I think someone involved with the operation even posted here. Sorry to hear about the loss of the aircraft. Bad for all around.

[flyingsailor]

Wow, we were just talking about this aircraft not to long ago because of it's registration as a "McKinnon" Goose and I think someone involved with the operation even posted here. Sorry to hear about the loss of the aircraft. Bad for all around.

It has been a bad day for many of us trying to deal with the loss of the crew members.

God speed and tailwinds to the crew and prayers to the families!

[Craig59]

One of our wide-body Captains was aboard (don't know if he was flying) and was amongst those lost. Very sad. Met him years ago when we were both doing union work and he was very dedicated to his profession.

[Cessna172RG]

Sad, I saw the plane when was registered in Chile (CC-CTG) circa 1994, some images before that registration here:
http://modocharlie.com/2010/07/un-ex-ch ... ough-2010/

[Roger Cain]

http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news ... lane-crash

I got the call about this last night, Chuck was a good friend and will be missed very much. I didn't know Tyler very well, but had the pleasure of doing a shoot from Eric Presten's Piper Clipper while Tyler flew Chuck's Stinson 108 for us, along with Rick Grant's HU-16 Albatross afterwards. Chuck was the organizer for both the Clear Lake Seaplane Splash-In's (CA) and also the Mike Brown (not the racer) Memorial Splash-In at Lake Tahoe each year. They will both be missed greatly within the Seaplane community. Yesterday was Tyler's 25th birthday.

[CAPFlyer]

Wow, I knew that Landon was heading over to the UAE recently, but I had hoped against hope that he wasn't onboard. This hits home even harder now as Landon was a guy who I really looked up to in Civil Air Patrol and was always great to be around. We've lost 4 great members of the aviation community and it will be felt for many years to come.

[Nathan]

We lost wixer's in a plane crash? Prayers and thoughts to friends and family.

[Dasher]

I've known Tyler since he was about 10 years old. He was one of those airport kids who was always there and always helping people at the airport. I've watched him grow up to be a wonderful young man. He was on his way to being a very accomplished pilot. He flew everything and flew it well.

He lived every day of his life - and his life was way too short.

I'll miss him.

[Rajay]

It's been more than a year now and there is still no word about the crash investigation revealing what actually happened or even what might have happened to N221AG.

Apparently, they (UAE GCAA, FAA, and NTSB) also still haven't figured out that the TPE331 engines were not mfg'd by Pratt & Whitney (as they indicate in their preliminary report released last April.) They also still have not figured out that "Grumman" and "McKinnon" are not equally valid or interchangeable identifications for the aircraft. A "Grumman" Goose is one that is certified under TC 654 and a "McKinnon" Goose is one that is certified under TC 4A24; one airplane cannot be simultaneously certified under two different type certificates!

I'm pretty sure that every time that they refer to it as a "Grumman" (or worse a "Grumman 21T") although it was registered as a "McKinnon G-21G" it was actually out of ignorance and not because they really know the difference. The fact of the matter is that N221AG was NOT a "McKinnon" aircraft at all because McKinnon did not "build" it and it was not a model "G-21G" because it both never conformed to that model's type design and McKinnon never certified it as one.

Everybody seems to know that it was actually "built" (i.e. converted) by the Fish & Wildlife Service in Alaska but nobody seems to know the regs (especially pertaining to production under FAR 21 and also identification and registration under FAR 45) well enough to know that FWS has never had (or even could have) authority to build a "McKinnon" aircraft; they could build only "FWS" aircraft, regardless of who the supposed original TC or design holder was. That's the rule for production; you build it and it's yours. Nobody is allowed to build a "new" aircraft and then say it was built by someone else - especially when it is built by an amateur and he claims that it was built by the "factory" when it was not. But that's exactly what happened in the case of the Aleutian Goose.

If FWS had built an actual (i.e. conforming) model G-21G, it would have been registered (if done properly anyway) as a "McKinnon-Fish & Wildlife Service" G-21G because it would have been an "amateur-built" copy of a certificated type design not built actually by the factory and because it was built without a PC, APIS, or other FAR Part 21 quality system. FWS never had any FAA approval or status under FAR Part 21 as an OEM. As such, it would have been required to have a non-standard serial number - one that was specifically precluded from matching the format of a factory serial number so that it would NOT be confused with a factory-built aircraft.

The Aleutian Goose was not only built by the Fish & Wildlife Service, it was their own in-house design as well. They collaborated and consulted with McKinnon and his contract engineering firm, Strato Engineering Co. of Burbank, CA. They derived some of their engineering analyses and documentation from existing McKinnon data for the model G-21G. They even discussed having McKinnon get their design fully certified under McKinnon's TC as a model "G-21F" - but that never happened. In reality, it was a 90% new and unique design that shared very little in common with an actual McKinnon G-21G. In fact, on just the basis of numbers of engineering drawings used, it was more "Volpar" turbine Beech 18 than it was a "McKinnon G-21G." The vast majority of engineering drawings used to build it, however, were completely unique to it and were drawn by FWS people. As such, it would have been more properly identified and registered as a "Fish & Wildlife Service G-21F" but like other homebuilts, because the model G-21F was not a type-certificated design, it should have never had anything more than an Experimental certificate of airworthiness.

Last edited by Rajay on Sat Nov 17, 2012 5:21 pm, edited 2 times in total.

[Roger Cain]

Rajay, thanks for the follow-up post and information on the difference between the various birds, much appreciated. It really is a bummer they haven't determined the positive cause of the crash yet, or if they ever will.

[CAPFlyer]

Rayjay,

1) The PRELIMINARY reports are often full of glaring errors. There's a reason that they have a very big disclaimer at the beginning to that effect. Please stop beating a horse that was never born.

2) It's been a year. The accident involved fatalities. The accident involves litigation. As such, it's extremely unlikely that a final report will be published until ALL litigation is settled. This isn't unusual. No one is under any requirement to release a report on a timeframe or deadline. We were fairly sure of the cause of the Air Tahoma Flight 185 accident not long after it happened. But it took 2 years for the report to come out because of litigation and the NTSB being delayed as some of their testing awaited results before they could publish.

[JDK]

In this case, and in cases like this it would be better to start a new thread with a non-worrying headline with a link to the old thread in it, rather than bringing up an old thread to the top after a long period with a 'crash' headline.

This has been discussed before, and a reminder for us all - please be careful when posting 'crash' / 'accident' threads / headlines as many of us know people operating these aircraft now, and don't want unnecessary worry.

Could a Mod please amend the thread headline?

Regards,

[WIXMOD-Charlie]

Done