PA28 Fatal, Panama City, 6/6

Ugh! I was just down there a week ago…

Sad to see this! :(
 
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Last four pings show ground speed 66-71kts, with METAR at KECP 190@10kts with A/C course 330 deg -- about a 6kt tailwind if my math is correct, so airspeed would have been 60-65kts. Please cross-check my math there...

KECP 062126Z 21010KT 10SM SCT050 29/22 A2987 RMK AO1 T02940217
KECP 062053Z 19010KT 10SM SCT050 30/22 A2985 RMK AO1 LTG DSNT NW SLP119 T03000222 56019


N160LL.jpg
 
Last four pings show ground speed 66-71kts, with METAR at KECP 190@10kts with A/C course 330 deg -- about a 6kt tailwind if my math is correct, so airspeed would have been 60-65kts. Please cross-check my math there...

KECP 062126Z 21010KT 10SM SCT050 29/22 A2987 RMK AO1 T02940217
KECP 062053Z 19010KT 10SM SCT050 30/22 A2985 RMK AO1 LTG DSNT NW SLP119 T03000222 56019


View attachment 107548

Attempted the impossible turn over some of the most flattest survivable terrain. Sad.
 
Attempted the impossible turn over some of the most flattest survivable terrain. Sad.

Does appear to be the "impossible turn", but the terrain looks to be heavily wooded and/or swamp. Options probably were limited, but arriving at the surface, under control, wings level, at the lowest possible groundspeed, would still give the best chance of survival.
 
I cannot find tower audio for this -- it would start around 20:05Z on 6/6/2022. Does anyone have a source for that?
 
Comment on KR:

This airplane lost the vast majority of it's oil on the ramp and then bled out for 2 more miles while he taxii'd north to RWY 16. By the time a line crew member put 2 and 2 together it was too late to notify tower, this airplane was already climbing out. He thought he was having a fire when the motor ceased and tried to turn back. The wreckage was pointed in a Southerly direction indicating a possible stall spin trying to extend the glide. The sole survivor was airlifted to Tampa and is in critical condition
 
So what did he do at run up and during the roll? Never looked at the temp and pressure? How can you lose most of the oil on the ramp and not notice?
 
Comment on KR:

The A/C flew in from Orlando earlier in the day, and was at Panama City for over six hours. I wonder if an oil change was done by the FBO? Or maybe a quick-drain plug got stuck open? Filter or drain plug not safety wired? What else could cause that?
 
Any breached oil line could do it. Heavy vibration environment, old lines, plausible.
 
The temp and pressure gauges don’t detect volume. It can get pretty low before the pressure goes down.

With a low oil amount the temp might come up but not likely until the engine was making significant power. You are correct with regards to the pressure as it will read good as long as there is enough for the pump to pickup. Once the sump is near empty and the pump strainer is not in a supply of oil the pump loses pressure and the engine is quickly toast.
 
I’m not convinced this should be labeled a failed impossible turn. He was a little over 1000 AGL when it failed. Had he kept going straight he would have ended up in the bay/lagoon, a turn left or right would have solved that. He decided to turn left, made the 180 successfully and had room to spare. It was after that when something went wrong. He may have done fine keeping a safe glide speed but then hit some trees and got spun around. I’d wait to see a picture of the actual site.

As far as “flat land” around there, even though there aren’t any hills to speak of, there are plenty of tall trees that would have made this much more than a simple off-airport landing. Maybe there’s a case to be made about just going straight ahead and putting it down in the water vs landing in the surrounding vegetation and trees.

Scouting suitable landing sites during climb out from an unfamiliar airport is not always an easy task.

Looking at the registration and recent flights I hope this is not one of those cases of an airplane that’s been sitting for an extended period of time only to get sold to someone that gets to experience how much it wasn’t maintained.
 
With a low oil amount the temp might come up but not likely until the engine was making significant power. You are correct with regards to the pressure as it will read good as long as there is enough for the pump to pickup. Once the sump is near empty and the pump strainer is not in a supply of oil the pump loses pressure and the engine is quickly toast.
Oil temp might actually go down a little. There is less volume, so more of what there is gets through the oil cooler
 
The A/C flew in from Orlando earlier in the day, and was at Panama City for over six hours. I wonder if an oil change was done by the FBO? Or maybe a quick-drain plug got stuck open? Filter or drain plug not safety wired? What else could cause that?
It sat at FBO parking. No maintenance was done by the shop on the field. I heard they were in town for a business meeting.
 
Oil temp might actually go down a little. There is less volume, so more of what there is gets through the oil cooler

There would be less oil to absorb temperatures as they came up. Either way I don't think on a short run up at fairly low RPM that it would be noticed. I fly an experimental and my engine takes quite a while for the oil to achieve take-off temps.

I do a near full power runup before take-off. I want to see that both ignitions work at high RPM and that it will make static or better. The brakes usually start slipping when I get near WOT. I'd like to say that I always circle back to my runup spot to check for leaks but that's not true. Perhaps I should make it so.
 
I’m not convinced this should be labeled a failed impossible turn. He was a little over 1000 AGL when it failed. Had he kept going straight he would have ended up in the bay/lagoon, a turn left or right would have solved that. He decided to turn left, made the 180 successfully and had room to spare. It was after that when something went wrong. He may have done fine keeping a safe glide speed but then hit some trees and got spun around. I’d wait to see a picture of the actual site.

As far as “flat land” around there, even though there aren’t any hills to speak of, there are plenty of tall trees that would have made this much more than a simple off-airport landing. Maybe there’s a case to be made about just going straight ahead and putting it down in the water vs landing in the surrounding vegetation and trees.

Scouting suitable landing sites during climb out from an unfamiliar airport is not always an easy task.

Looking at the registration and recent flights I hope this is not one of those cases of an airplane that’s been sitting for an extended period of time only to get sold to someone that gets to experience how much it wasn’t maintained.

I'm not convinced he would have made it back. This is a somewhat arguable due to uncertainty in GPS altitude vs true altitude however. I see that ADS-B Exchange shows the same data as FlightAware, so at least in this case I don't think the FlightAware data is mangled by automated processing.

The last two pings are lined up exactly with the threshold of the runway, so it does seem that was the goal. First ping on departure indicates 300' altitude, which would be about 220 AGL, taking the GPS altitude w/o correction -- admittedly a big IF. The last ping is also at 300' (220 AGL), 9300 feet from the threshold of the runway. With a 9:1 glide ratio (what's the right number for a '79 Arrow IV?) the glide would be almost 2000 feet horizontal -- way short of the runway. From the point of the last ping, you would need an altitude of 9300/9 = 1033AGL to make it back to the runway. Even with GPS altitude uncertainty, I think that's a non-starter.

Above, I estimated the true airspeed over the last four pings was 60-65kts, and I suspect that is not best glide -- in the Turbo Arrow IV, best glide is 97KIAS (95KCAS). I don't know the number for this A/C however. Anyone? If you go back to the first ping after the a/c got turned around, 15,000 feet from runway, the required altitude for glide is 15,000/9 = 1667AGL and the ping there is only 850 (less the 80' field elev is 770 AGL). From those numbers I don't think there's any way the field could have been made, even with GPS altitude uncertainty.

I agree with you about the trees. Keep in mind the satellite image above is quite old -- it doesn't show many of the recent inprovements to the airport property, including a new Hilton hotel. In places where the trees are sparse, there appear to be many downed trees with a fair number left standing. Not a good candidate area for landing. Does it still look that way today? I don't know.

What about putting it down in the river? Below is a year-old image from a utoob video (May of 2021) on departure in a regional jet from RWY16 showing that area.

 
Forgot to include the image from that video. The area where I suspect the A/C landed is circled in blue in lower left corner of image.
KECP-34-Apch-1.jpg
 
Forgot to include the image from that video. The area where I suspect the A/C landed is circled in blue in lower left corner of image.
This is a view of that 'clearing' from the google streetview taken from that crossing road that they didn't quite reach.

upload_2022-6-8_15-25-40.png
 
My apologies. I didn’t think he would have made it to the threshold after that turn. My point when I referred to “room to spare” was the vertical distance to the ground, not distance to the runway. In other words, he didn’t stall/spin during the turn back is what I was focusing on.

The two outcomes were either water or the forest. He simply kept it out of the water. Now, if I get really picky looking at the satellite imagery, I can see some clearings if he made a right turn. But, it’s easier finding these things when you’re not actually flying the airplane.
 
This is a view of that 'clearing'...View attachment 107590
During an emergency landing, an instructor once taught me to look for "soft" trees i.e. pine. Does anyone do that? There looks to be no hardwoods in your picture so I would have seriously considered putting down there.
 
The A/C flew in from Orlando earlier in the day, and was at Panama City for over six hours. I wonder if an oil change was done by the FBO? Or maybe a quick-drain plug got stuck open? Filter or drain plug not safety wired? What else could cause that?

Any breached oil line could do it. Heavy vibration environment, old lines, plausible.
My question is, how do you not notice a pool of oil on the ramp during your preflight? Assuming the statement written above is legitimate, you’d have to be pretty far out to lunch to not notice something like that.
 
My apologies. I didn’t think he would have made it to the threshold after that turn. My point when I referred to “room to spare” was the vertical distance to the ground, not distance to the runway. In other words, he didn’t stall/spin during the turn back is what I was focusing on.

The two outcomes were either water or the forest. He simply kept it out of the water. Now, if I get really picky looking at the satellite imagery, I can see some clearings if he made a right turn. But, it’s easier finding these things when you’re not actually flying the airplane.

Okay, I think it's just a matter of semantics then. Often, the phrase "impossible turn" means not only the 180-plus degree turn, but making it back to the runway as well.

During an emergency landing, an instructor once taught me to look for "soft" trees i.e. pine. Does anyone do that? There looks to be no hardwoods in your picture so I would have seriously considered putting down there.

Soft...but not too tall. It's not all that helpful if you are gently brought to a stop by pine trees 75 feet AGL, then drop straight down the rest of the way.
 
My question is, how do you not notice a pool of oil on the ramp during your preflight? Assuming the statement written above is legitimate, you’d have to be pretty far out to lunch to not notice something like that.
...which would seem to imply that the leak only started after engine start...?
 
During an emergency landing, an instructor once taught me to look for "soft" trees i.e. pine. Does anyone do that? There looks to be no hardwoods in your picture so I would have seriously considered putting down there.
I think that area is where they ended up, but if they stalled they didn't get to pick their spot.
 
My question is, how do you not notice a pool of oil on the ramp during your preflight? Assuming the statement written above is legitimate, you’d have to be pretty far out to lunch to not notice something like that.

Can't speak to the others you quoted, but as far as my WAG (oil line), you wouldn't notice that one because the line isn't pressurized during walkaround. The loss would be induced by the pump pressure, which implies engine running. But who knows. It'll be interesting to hear the witness testimony of the people who say they saw the airplane dumping oil on taxi.
 
Friend of mine is building a house at the end of Burnt Mill Creek Rd. He called the owner to ask if everything was okay (at this point the only info available was "south of 388"). Owner said he watched the plane go by trailing smoke. He did not say he saw any flames.
 
Can't speak to the others you quoted, but as far as my WAG (oil line), you wouldn't notice that one because the line isn't pressurized during walkaround. The loss would be induced by the pump pressure, which implies engine running. But who knows. It'll be interesting to hear the witness testimony of the people who say they saw the airplane dumping oil on taxi.

I was wondering if there are any external oil lines on that installation. Just so happens I have a set of manuals which includes that model. Didn't take very long looking at the powerplant drawing to find item #25 -- HOSE - Oil Cooler P/N 63901-43. Circled in red below. So, yup, it coulda been an oil line blew out...

Arrow-IV-Oil-Cooler.png
 
If @zayerpaul is still on the forum he might be able to provide some insight. Last I knew, he’s based at that airport and knows the surrounding area.
 
Interesting something I have not done since my MTP years…a call out that pad is clear no fluids…on the way out to a test flight. May just circle next time to clear like I was taught…something so simple…
 
I don't work for the NTSB, but Occam's my next door neighbor so there ya go :D
 
I'm not convinced he would have made it back. This is a somewhat arguable due to uncertainty in GPS altitude vs true altitude however. I see that ADS-B Exchange shows the same data as FlightAware, so at least in this case I don't think the FlightAware data is mangled by automated processing.

The last two pings are lined up exactly with the threshold of the runway, so it does seem that was the goal. First ping on departure indicates 300' altitude, which would be about 220 AGL, taking the GPS altitude w/o correction -- admittedly a big IF. The last ping is also at 300' (220 AGL), 9300 feet from the threshold of the runway. With a 9:1 glide ratio (what's the right number for a '79 Arrow IV?) the glide would be almost 2000 feet horizontal -- way short of the runway. From the point of the last p

Possibly made the turn, but too low to make runway, so tried to stretch the glide, got slow, stall, spin, crash, burn.

I would think the mind would REALLY want to get to the runway if you made the turn and were pretty much lined up.
 
Especially considering that everything between you and the runway is rather unforgiving (tall trees, swamp or water).
 
Sad,, after run up I always look for "parts or puddles" this engrained into me from my first CFI.
 

From that image it looks like it was an intersection departure on 16, which would common here due to the 10,000' runway and the GA ramp being on the far south end. I doubt departing from the numbers would have turned out any better but it's a thought. Also as far as the oil puddle goes... that's a very big parking area and it can get pretty busy. It doesn't surprise me that it took a while for someone to notice. The line guys do have radios to talk to the desk but I wonder if they have any quick means of getting ahold of the tower beyond a line guy radioing in and someone at the desk making a phone call. I guess at a lot of uncontrolled airports there wouldn't even be a human around to see it.
 
From that image it looks like it was an intersection departure on 16, which would common here due to the 10,000' runway and the GA ramp being on the far south end. I doubt departing from the numbers would have turned out any better but it's a thought.

The exact crash location isn't public yet (is it?), but news reports have it south of Hwy 388. It is probably about 2,000 feet short of cleared terrain on the airport property. Departing from the numbers, there would have been some chance of making it back, at least to an area free of trees and heavy brush. Furthermore, the extra time spent taxiing to the numbers may have depleted enough oil for a loss of pressure.

With the oil gone, the engine probably seized. The prop being stopped would have helped the glide ratio...yes?

Also as far as the oil puddle goes... that's a very big parking area and it can get pretty busy. It doesn't surprise me that it took a while for someone to notice. The line guys do have radios to talk to the desk but I wonder if they have any quick means of getting ahold of the tower beyond a line guy radioing in and someone at the desk making a phone call. I guess at a lot of uncontrolled airports there wouldn't even be a human around to see it.

Maybe if the lineman was a pilot, knew how to change frequency on the radio, and knew the tower frequency.
 
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