31 replies to this topic

[dolomite]

The Accident Report on the crash of the Lear 35 at Lyon on 2 May 2000, which David Coulthard & co survived (despite the tragic deaths of the 2 pilots) has been released.

- Mechanical failure within left engine resulted in failure, led to engine being shut down.

- Aircraft made final approach on single engine but this was never stabilised.

- A little before the threshold and increase of thrust on the right engine was requested.

- The aircraft banked heavily to the left and struck the ground.

Probable cause: loss of roll control apparently owing to lack of monitoring of the flight symmetry at the moment that additional thrust was requested on the right engine, following non-stabilised approach.

Original in French

Altavista translation

[FERRARI WEAPON]

Couthard "I should be dead"

I remember the newspaper headlines about the accident, stuff like that can play with your mind, life can end any second really.

[Shepski]

Sadly, what it comes down to is pilot error.

Being a Learjet 35 series pilot myself, a single engine approach and landing is almost a non event. The jet trims out very nicely and with a stabilized approach in the correct configuration using the adjusted single engine speeds it is not a problem whatsoever.

Sounds to me like the pilot got too slow and behind the power curve on approach. A real tragedy to all involved.

FYI, we continuously train for situations like this in a simulator to ensure proficiency.

Just some inside perspective.

Cheers

[FlatFoot]

Great insight Shepski I live in Wichita, KS very close to the Bombardier/Lear plant. Took a tour of it as a kid and have been a Learjet fan ever since.

[wawawa]

Originally posted by Shepski
Sadly, what it comes down to is pilot error.

No doubt you're in a much better position to judge than most of the rest of us, but I was chatting to a crash investigation specialist the other day and his opinion was: "If you don't know all the facts, the last person you should ask for an opinion is a pilot!" His experience was that pilots tend to be so certain and yet often wrong, so its very misleading. I wonder if the same is true for "F1 pilots" when it comes to giving feedback ;)

Shepski: Don't shoot the messanger I'm just passing on another chap's opinion.

[TailHappy]

Originally posted by wawawa
No doubt you're in a much better position to judge than most of the rest of us, but I was chatting to a crash investigation specialist the other day and his opinion was: "If you don't know all the facts, the last person you should ask for an opinion is a pilot!" His experience was that pilots tend to be so certain and yet often wrong, so its very misleading. I wonder if the same is true for "F1 pilots" when it comes to giving feedback ;)

Shepski: Don't shoot the messanger I'm just passing on another chap's opinion.

I'd have to agree 100% there. Having only flown the mighty 2 and 4 seater single prop tubs here I dont know a thing about the plane in question. However, to assume a pilot should have managed fine in that situation without knowing absolutely all of the variables is being a little dis-respectful. I for one wouldn't being going to the pilots family saying "Sorry ma'am but it appears he just screwed up" unless I was 100% sure it was the case.

ps Shepski - I'm all for the "shoot the messanger" theory. So if you dont agree with me, shoot wawawa!

Cheers
TailHappy

[JForce]

Rumour has it DC heard a joke on one of the in-flight channels, and started laughing. The intense vibrations and forces involved with his chin movement brought the plane down.

[Terramax]

I don't think Shepski should be knocked on this one as he knows more about flying lear jets as all of you combined Despite what some crash investigator says, pilots do have an insight into how a crash might occur. Just like a computer programmer (me) has insight as to why a program freezes.

BTW Tailhappy, where did you get your sig from, can you post the link? I want to see history in the making.

[Terramax]

Original quote from JForce

Rumour has it DC heard a joke on one of the in-flight channels, and started laughing. The intense vibrations and forces involved with his chin movement brought the plane down.

Rumour has it that DC was infact used in the last five minutes of the movie PREDATOR, when that Alien was laughing so hard after initiating the self destruct. They didn't need makeup or special effects or anything ....

[TailHappy]

Originally posted by Terramax
I don't think Shepski should be knocked on this one as he knows more about flying lear jets as all of you combined Despite what some crash investigator says, pilots do have an insight into how a crash might occur. Just like a computer programmer (me) has insight as to why a program freezes.

BTW Tailhappy, where did you get your sig from, can you post the link? I want to see history in the making.

Bira's confession

Post number 10.

Cheers
Tailhappy

[JForce]

Originally posted by TailHappy


Bira's confession

Post number 10.

Cheers
Tailhappy

It was the 8th April. Sort your sig out.

[confucius]

I'm sorry, you can say that I have no sense of humour if you like, but I don't think it's all that appropriate to make such a cheap (and utterly overdone) joke out of a tragic event.

(Don't get me wrong JForce, I have much respect for your other usual postings ;) )

[Terramax]

confucius, shouldn't you still be waving your 'September 11' sign, that only happened 2 years ago

I am not making fun about the 2 pilots that were killed, I am making fun of Coulthard, something that happens quite a bit on this forum.

You have NO sense of humour as far as I can see

[JForce]

Originally posted by confucius
I'm sorry, you can say that I have no sense of humour if you like, but I don't think it's all that appropriate to make such a cheap (and utterly overdone) joke out of a tragic event.

(Don't get me wrong JForce, I have much respect for your other usual postings ;) )

point taken, and I did even hesitate before posting, which is most unlike me. However, we must move on, despite the tragedy.

[Shepski]

Originally posted by wawawa
No doubt you're in a much better position to judge than most of the rest of us, but I was chatting to a crash investigation specialist the other day and his opinion was: "If you don't know all the facts, the last person you should ask for an opinion is a pilot!"

Hi,

Don't worry... I've heard that before too.;)

This is the translation of the "probable cause" from the report:

"The accident results from a loss of control in lace then in rolling which appears due to a lack of monitoring of the symmetry of the flight at the moment of the request of pushed on the right engine. The conduit of a not stabilized approach and the precipitation whose fact has show the commander after the appearance of the breakdown, apparently because of its difficulty of managing its stress, are contributive factors. "

After finally getting a chance to read the report, what I could of it anyway, I think I was wrong in my statement about them being too slow on approach. It looks like the unstable approach was too fast which then got too low and in trying to recover altitude by increasing thrust, the pilot lost control due in part to the stress of the situation and not controlling the resultant yaw as required.

Going thorugh the pilot voice recordings, the Emergency checklist drill wasn't performed and they didn't open the fuel crossflow valve which would allow the fuel in the wings to balance out since the shut down engine wasn't drawing fuel anymore. In the 20 and 30 series of Learjets with the big wing tip tanks, it's critical to prevent an out of balance situation. The max imbalance allowed is 600 lbs and they had 442 more pounds of fuel in the left wing then the right which would cause more controlability problems for the pilot. Having only dealt with engine failures in the simulator(knock on wood), after the engine is shut down it's not a big deal to get the plane on the ground. The pilot voice recordings showed that the Captain was rushing to get on the ground and missing an Emergency checklist drill, even after the Co-pilot reminded him of it, shows he was quite stressed.

FWIW, in the Lear 35 when you lose an engine at a high thrust setting, you need full rudder into the good engine and this requires a a lot of leg strength. On an approach with the engine shut down and a more moderate thrust setting, much less rudder is required and all the yaw is normally trimmed out to the point rudder input by the pilot isn't hardly required. You will have to use rudder when thrust is reduced or increased because it only gets trimmed out for that specific speed.

The report points at pilot error as I first assumed and BTW, over 75% of aircraft accidents are due to pilot error.

Cheers

[confucius]

Originally posted by Terramax
confucius, shouldn't you still be waving your 'September 11' sign, that only happened 2 years ago

I am not making fun about the 2 pilots that were killed, I am making fun of Coulthard, something that happens quite a bit on this forum.

You have NO sense of humour as far as I can see

Get over yourself, I wasn't talking to you. I didn't have a problem with the joke about Coulthard, I thought it was inappropriate to make a joke about the entire event in the first place and the fact that the plane went down. You wouldn't happen to be Canadian by any chance would you?

[Professor]

Shepski,

unbelievable...we have a pilot amongst us
Tnx for explanation.

btw I remember u from Flanker 2 days and Big Bear meetings...

cheers,
Prof

[Dudley]

So we're not allowed to make a joke about anything where anyone got injured in any way.

so not WW1 jokes

no saddam jokes

no car jokes because people die in cars.

[confucius]

Hey, I was just voicing my personal opinions ok? Don't make it sound like I'm commanding or ordering any of you in any way It's not like I tried to ban JForce for making jokes.

[TailHappy]

Originally posted by JForce


It was the 8th April. Sort your sig out.

It was the 7th! Dont make me come up there an slap you round!

[confucius]

lol yes I visited that thread and noticed that it was indeed the 7th

[BRG]

Originally posted by Terramax
Despite what some crash investigator says, pilots do have an insight into how a crash might occur.

I think that crash investigators probably know a lot more about crashes and their causes than working pilots do (although of course many crash investigators ARE pilots). Crash investigators specialise in investigating crashes, whereas pilots specialise in not crashing planes. Most aircraft crashes are down to pilot error - a fact that pilots have traditionally found rather unpalatable.

[holiday]

Originally posted by Shepski

Sounds to me like the pilot got too slow and behind the power curve on approach. A real tragedy to all involved.

Remember when Ralf said he didnt want to depend his and his families live on what the pilots were having for lunch? Now I am beginning to understand why he is doing the flying...

[masterhit]

Originally posted by Terramax
Just like a computer programmer (me) has insight as to why a program freezes.

But do we really? I program for a living. I know that the more you know, the more things you realise are out of your hands. I mean did you code the whole operating system, as well as create the programming language? Are you in control of the whole world around you? Or are you just saying that it would give you more insight than a non programmer?

I'm being blunt to make a point - uncertainty is a sad fact of life. Nothing is certain.

[Shepski]

Originally posted by Professor
Shepski,

unbelievable...we have a pilot amongst us
Tnx for explanation.

btw I remember u from Flanker 2 days and Big Bear meetings...

cheers,
Prof

No way!!

What was your nick at Big Bear 98?

That was a great time.. have you been following Lock On's progress?

Cheers,

Mark

[Shepski]

Originally posted by BRG
I think that crash investigators probably know a lot more about crashes and their causes than working pilots do (although of course many crash investigators ARE pilots). Crash investigators specialise in investigating crashes, whereas pilots specialise in not crashing planes. Most aircraft crashes are down to pilot error - a fact that pilots have traditionally found rather unpalatable.

Our job as a pilot is to not only not crash airplanes but to also study accidents and learn from the mistakes made by others so if we find ourselves in a similar situation, we won't make the same mistakes.

A lot of pilots move to accident investigation in the later stages of their careers, especially if they lose their medical.

Cheers

[Jykä]

NTSB Preliminary summary of the accident available at:

http://www.ntsb.gov/...212X21024&key=1

-Jykä

[Shepski]

disregard

[MarkWRX]

Very poor taste to make a joke at DC's expense when the end result was the death of the two pilots. Some people can't resist the opportunity to take a shot.

Mark

[Professor]

Shepski,

I was at Big Bear 2000 I think (not really sure) and on a couple of small meetings organized by Jeroen, off course
I know that the people all over the world came to visit...we had a couple of guys from Greece (Panther), from Hong-Kong, Germany, Croatia and England...we had a really good time, not only with F2

Yeah I follow the progress of Lock-on...I hope it will blow me away like F2 did. It's a shame that Carl Norman left the company, but I have full confidence in Matt...
Are u still involved in Lock-On as you were in F2?

Cheerss,
Prof

[Shepski]

Originally posted by Professor
Shepski,

I was at Big Bear 2000

Hi,

I was only at the first meet in 1998... those are a great bunch of guys and I had so much fun in Amsterdam while I was over there!

I'm actually more involved in Lock On then I was with F2.x.

Glad to see you're still interested.

Cheers

[Terramax]

In response to BRG and Masterhit:

I didn't say crash investigators had more insight than pilots, I said that a pilot has more insight than non-pilots posting on this BB.

Secondly, I would have more insight into why a program froze than a non-programmer. So when people try to question a persons opinion which is based on experience, as what happened with Shepski, then that is stupid.

Really just stating the obvious here fellas .....