337 at Pembroke Pines

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Mikey52

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www.cbsnews.com

Neighbors rush to help after plane crashes in Pembroke Pines community

A Cessna Skymaster, with four people onboard, came down about a mile west of North Perry Airport on Sunday evening.
www.cbsnews.com www.cbsnews.com

9f134326a41b93506a1586a281552c5a.jpg
 

what I find most interesting is people couldn't break thru the glass with a fire extinguisher. that's somewhat scary if you're wondering how easy/hard it would be to break the 'glass' from the inside in case of emergency.
 
Most general aviation planes use plexiglass windows. Plexiglass doesn’t shatter and is hard to break. Don’t think a pin punch would touch it.

Twin engines don’t do you much good without fuel.
 
The door to the Pressurized Skymaster is a clamshell air stair door. As stated above the windows are THICK. The only door is on the “passenger” side (right) of the aircraft and I imagine could be hard to open in many situations. The “pilot” side window acts as an emergency exit. I wondered about fuel quantity, but the neighbor that extracted them from the wreckage said they used a fire extinguisher to put out an engine fire. The video of the aircraft makes it look like they were too low and flew into a tree.
 
bonefishpete said:
Twin engines don’t do you much good without fuel.
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Is at least one not running at the time of impact? Sounds like it in the video but it's a very short clip. I'm also aware the Skymaster has **** poor single engine performance though, so maybe still unable to make the runway if they had only one running.
 
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Since all are survivors, a little humor, in the vein of "Any landing you can walk away from is a good one"

Carrier landing, caught the wire, firm set down.
 
Auburn2002 said:
Is at least one not running at the time of impact? Sounds like it in the video but it's a very short clip. I'm also aware the Skymaster has **** poor single engine performance though, so maybe still unable to make the runway if they had only one running.
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The POH lists 18,500 as the single engine ceiling. Even if it is overly optimistic and you only get mid teens it is quite good on a single engine. The pressurized model is quite different than a normal Skymaster. It is a very nice aircraft if you can find someone to maintain it.
 
At least in the early models, that ceiling was on the rear engine only. It had no auxiliaries except an alternator. The front engine had all the auxiliaries, so such things as gear retraction/extension required the front engine. The front engine ceiling was much lower.

The sales department flew across the Rockies, single engine to demonstrate the advantage of in line thrust
 
I believe the 337 has 2.5 gallons of unusable fuel in each tank, enough to start a fire.
 
The weather did not seem like it would be a factor:

KHWO 132353Z 32003KT 10SM CLR 28/23 A3008 RMK AO2 SLP186 60006 T02780233 10289 20272 55000 $

The nearest storms were over 50nm away, near Lake Okeechobee.

The aircraft was at 1,200 when it began descending on a 3.5nm final. At that altitude and distance, it would be very close to a 3° glidepath to the numbers.

The average glidepath it actually followed was close to 3.5°

The PAPI for Runway 28L is set at 3.5° and placed about 450' down the runway from the displaced threshold, but the aircraft crashed about 3,200' short of the threshold.

However, the PAPI have been NOTAMed U/S: HWO 06/040 HWO RWY 28L PAPI U/S 2506292347-2509302100
 
bonefishpete said:
Most general aviation planes use plexiglass windows. Plexiglass doesn’t shatter and is hard to break. Don’t think a pin punch would touch it.

Twin engines don’t do you much good without fuel.
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Our own @SixPapaCharlie did a video about breaking a plexiglass window. They are tough, you'd need something along the lines of a power saw.

If you were in an airplane and the doors were jammed, you'd need the fire department to get you out.
 
3393RP said:
I believe the 337 has 2.5 gallons of unusable fuel in each tank, enough to start a fire.
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Remember unusable may be available in level flight, just not all normal attitudes.
 
geezer said:
Since all are survivors, a little humor, in the vein of "Any landing you can walk away from is a good one"

Carrier landing, caught the wire, firm set down.
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And I get mad when I hit a tree with my golf ball.
 
I suspect in that it was a pressurized airframe it was a bit stronger.
 
FormerHangie said:
Our own @SixPapaCharlie did a video about breaking a plexiglass window. They are tough, you'd need something along the lines of a power saw.

If you were in an airplane and the doors were jammed, you'd need the fire department to get you out.
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Depends how they are mounted and which way you are going. Most are convex towards the outside, and mounted in a slot on all 4 sides. Push from the outside and it pushes the edges against the slots. Very strong. But push from the inside, concave surface and it pulls the edges away from the slots. Plexiglass flexes, so apply enough force and it will pop right out. Every plane is different, but generally kicking OUT a window will be more successful than kicking IN a window.
 
Only 3 months to get a final report? And 44 days of that time the gov't was shut down? Wow.
 
Jim_R said:
Only 3 months to get a final report? And 44 days of that time the gov't was shut down? Wow.
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When they interview the pilot and he says, “I ****ed up,” it’s pretty easy. ;)

I find it interesting that both passengers’ ages are listed as “female.”
 
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Failure to operate lean of peak.

When you lower the nose to descend, the fuel flows forward. and fuel not available increases.

He had been looking at fuel gauges that read empty for a while.

The pilot was upfront and truthful with the investigators, and I will give him much credit for that, as we now know for certain exactly what caused the crash.
 
So he was 500 pounds overweight at time of crash? How heavy at time of take off?
 
bonefishpete said:
So he was 500 pounds overweight at time of crash? How heavy at time of take off?
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It’s not clear how to interpret that line. Was that 500lbs overweight at takeoff or at the time of the accident? The reference to overweight being a contributing factor seems to indicate the latter, but if that was the case, he was even moreso over that at takeoff.
 
I lean to 500 over at takeoff. That would have burned off en route'

:biggrin:Legal weight at landing evidenced by failure to stall and spin in.:biggrin:

He may have done some very bad things, but most of his actual flying was very good at the stressful times. The outcome could easily have been very much worse.
 
Flying Keys said:
It’s not clear how to interpret that line. Was that 500lbs overweight at takeoff or at the time of the accident? The reference to overweight being a contributing factor seems to indicate the latter, but if that was the case, he was even moreso over that at takeoff.
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I’d take as he took off 500# overweight, which is why his fuel burns were higher than planned.

How much gold do you have to be carrying to get one of those things 500# overweight without any fuel? And how much fuel weight would he have to add to fly as far as he did and still be 500# over gross?
 
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