Airventure Piper Cub Crashed

TripleZ

TripleZ

Pre-takeoff checklist
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They were heading south. Not north for approach.

http://www.fdlreporter.com/article/20110725/FON0101/110725158/UPDATE3-Two-dead-after-plane-crashes-Lake-Winnebago?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

A man and woman are dead after their small plane crashed in Lake Winnebago about 10 miles north of Fond du Lac.Dive team members pulled two people from the yellow plane within about 45 minutes after the crash, but both were pronounced dead at the scene, said Fond du Lac County Sheriff Mick Fink.
The 1940 Piper Cub is registered to an Illinois owner.
The plane crashed about noon today about a quarter mile off the west shore near Wendt’s On the Lake, N9699 Lakeshore Drive.
According to reports on the police scanner, there were two people in the plane. Early on, a woman passenger who was unresponsive was being held above water near the plane.
At 12:38 p.m. a woman was pulled from the water by the dive team, according to scanner reports. A second person was pulled from the water about 12:47 p.m.
Robert Abraham, 90, of town of Friendship, saw the plane crash into the lake.
He said the plane was headed south when it hit the water and spun 180 degrees and ended up facing north.
The plane, Abraham said, started to sink right away. About five minutes later a fishing boat was able to make its way to the plane.
Abraham said he watched the plane through a scope, but could not see any movement after the crash.
Dive team members from the Fond du Lac and Winnebago county sheriff’s departments were called to the crash.
A decontamination area was set up about 1 p.m. for Winnebago County dive team members who encountered fuel during the rescue attempt.
A Navy helicopter was called off about 1 p.m.
First responders from Van Dyne and North Fond du Lac also are at the scene.
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Hmmm Wendt's is almost half way to Fond du Lac (Right next to Warbird Island). Sad to hear I wonder if he was on floats.
 
In the picture it looks like wheels to me. To bad seems like they have to have one crash a year at Oshkosh.
 
Robert Abraham, 90, of town of Friendship, saw the plane crash into the lake.
He said the plane was headed south when it hit the water and spun 180 degrees and ended up facing north.
The plane, Abraham said, started to sink right away. About five minutes later a fishing boat was able to make its way to the plane.
Abraham said he watched the plane through a scope, but could not see any movement after the crash.
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He probably shot them down... there's people up there that don't like AirVenture...
 
Henning said:
He probably shot them down... there's people up there that don't like AirVenture...
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That would explain how they died putting a Cub into the water. I can't think of any other way for this to have ended so tragically. A cub into that lake should have been nothing more than a good AirVenture story for the pilot and px. Bizarre.
 
PittsDriver said:
That would explain how they died putting a Cub into the water. I can't think of any other way for this to have ended so tragically. A cub into that lake should have been nothing more than a good AirVenture story for the pilot and px. Bizarre.
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Haven't flown a cub, but do many have shoulder harnesses?

Most aircraft of that vintage do not have them, unless they were retrofitted. Without harnesses, I can definitley see how a water landing in one could be fatal.
 
Could the front wheels hitting the water first cause it to flip? It could have flipped, and they hit their heads either knocking them out/disorienting them, then they drowned. Possible?
 
JB1842 said:
Could the front wheels hitting the water first cause it to flip? It could have flipped, and they hit their heads either knocking them out/disorienting them, then they drowned. Possible?
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That's the usual scenario. When wheels hit the water the airplane stops real quick. One's head keeps going until it hits something solid.

Dan
 
Dan Thomas said:
That's the usual scenario. When wheels hit the water the airplane stops real quick. One's head keeps going until it hits something solid.

Dan
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Getting flipped endo definitely leaves harness marks on your chest...
 
Dan Thomas said:
That's the usual scenario. When wheels hit the water the airplane stops real quick. One's head keeps going until it hits something solid.

Dan
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Very true - if you read though the NTSB reports involving ditching fixed gear aircraft, they almost always end up inverted. However, most are actually survivable as long as the occupants were properly restrained (ie shoulder harnesses).
 
Local (Milwaukee) TV and radio coverage was surprisingly negative, and not surprisingly uninformed.

Last night's news lead off with "It's an all too-familiar scene with the EAA AirVenture ..." Seriously?

Then on the radio I heard someone say "Every year 4 or 5 or 6 people die at or going to this event." Seriously? Is there a bunch of death and destruction that I've missed all these years?

I'm not inclined to fly up to AirVenture as I'm concerned about the potential for a midair (as remote as that is, and I can't think of a time that that has even happened), but what deaths may occur are usually related to problems away from KOSH, aren't they?

I'm familiar with the P-51's crashing a few years ago, and a couple other isolated incidents, but that's it to my knowledge.
 
Dan Thomas said:
That's the usual scenario. When wheels hit the water the airplane stops real quick. One's head keeps going until it hits something solid.

Dan
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Landing on the water in a Pitts at 80 mph was a very benign event. If you just land/flare like a normal, under control landing, the water slows you down with way less G than if you hit something else and it actually didn't leave a mark on either of us. We flipped over and had to extract while inverted and underwater and, obviously if we'd been knocked unconscious we'd have drowned. But if you put it in straight and under control the decel forces shouldn't have been that great. Catching a wingtip and cartwheeling or a stall/plop would suck but geez, a Cub should have mushed on at less than 40 mph ground, er, water speed. Doesn't make sense to me that there were two fatalities in this unless they just weren't wearing a belt at all.
 
nddons said:
Local (Milwaukee) TV and radio coverage was surprisingly negative, and not surprisingly uninformed.

Last night's news lead off with "It's an all too-familiar scene with the EAA AirVenture ..." Seriously?

Then on the radio I heard someone say "Every year 4 or 5 or 6 people die at or going to this event." Seriously? Is there a bunch of death and destruction that I've missed all these years?

I'm not inclined to fly up to AirVenture as I'm concerned about the potential for a midair (as remote as that is, and I can't think of a time that that has even happened), but what deaths may occur are usually related to problems away from KOSH, aren't they?

I'm familiar with the P-51's crashing a few years ago, and a couple other isolated incidents, but that's it to my knowledge.
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My old flight instructor absolutely refuses to go to such events because of the risks he considers inherent. It does seem like there are 4-6 incidents every year...

Ryan
 
RyanShort1 said:
My old flight instructor absolutely refuses to go to such events because of the risks he considers inherent. It does seem like there are 4-6 incidents every year...

Ryan
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I'm not training this week because:

1) I'm going to the shows and physically wearing myself out, especially with my knee being shot.

2) I don't want to be a nuisance because ATW ATC is busy too.

That being said local coverage (NBC26) was about the sadness of it, the lack of what caused it, and that it's a low occurrence. That might be because 26's viewership and businesses go to / make a lot of cash during EAA more than actual good journalism.
 
JesseD said:
I'm not training this week because:

1) I'm going to the shows and physically wearing myself out, especially with my knee being shot.

2) I don't want to be a nuisance because ATW ATC is busy too.
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Oh, I wish I was going, and those ideas won't keep me away. I was just saying that yes, there are people who won't go for various reasons.

Ryan
 
just search the NTSB for accidents in the last week of july and first week of august in Oshkosh. Last year there was only the Rousch belly flop. Seems like back to about 2005 there were 3-4 per year with some fatals. Fatals included a couple stall/spins in the pattern (one was a lancair), the P-51's on the runway, and the Avenger taxiing over the RV.

That doesn't include any people who have problems going to/from the show.

From everything i've ever read the accident rate at oshkosh is about the same as the overall rate.
 
The show itself seems to be relatively free of accidents. As stated above it seems that most accidents seem to happen on the way to or from the show. Most of these usually seem WX related.
 
PittsDriver said:
Landing on the water in a Pitts at 80 mph was a very benign event. If you just land/flare like a normal, under control landing, the water slows you down with way less G than if you hit something else and it actually didn't leave a mark on either of us. We flipped over and had to extract while inverted and underwater and, obviously if we'd been knocked unconscious we'd have drowned. But if you put it in straight and under control the decel forces shouldn't have been that great. Catching a wingtip and cartwheeling or a stall/plop would suck but geez, a Cub should have mushed on at less than 40 mph ground, er, water speed. Doesn't make sense to me that there were two fatalities in this unless they just weren't wearing a belt at all.
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i'd like to hear the pitts story


Interesting photo I found while looking through that wikipedia page:

Crash.arp.600pix.jpg
 
No. New report today. Story was updated saying no signs of wreckage has been found yet. Could be false alarm.
 
If you take a look at the numbers of aircraft at Oshkosh and the surrounding airports, there's about 10% of the total aircraft in the US heading to Wisconsin in late July. It's not surprising there'll be some accidents....

Ron Wanttaja
 
Fearless Tower said:
Very true - if you read though the NTSB reports involving ditching fixed gear aircraft, they almost always end up inverted. However, most are actually survivable as long as the occupants were properly restrained (ie shoulder harnesses).
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Aviation Safety did a study of actual ditchings a few years ago that found that idea was a myth.
Planes ditched with gear up or down ended up in the same orientation (nose low), the fixed gear planes just decelerated faster.

IIRC, there were no fixed gear airplanes that ended up inverted.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
 
PilotAlan said:
Aviation Safety did a study of actual ditchings a few years ago that found that idea was a myth.
Planes ditched with gear up or down ended up in the same orientation (nose low), the fixed gear planes just decelerated faster.

IIRC, there were no fixed gear airplanes that ended up inverted.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
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Do you have a link?

It is interesting that they came up with something different. Back when I was a student pilot flying near water alot in New England, I looked up as many fixed gear ditching reports that I could find for 172s and PA28s and almost universally, every one ended up inverted, but the occupants survived...well except for one in Lake Michigan who survived the ditching but perished in the water before anyone could rescue him.

There is also at least one video of a seaplane landing with its gear down that flips inverted upon touchdown, so I can definitely say for a fact that there are indeed fixed gear planes that have ended up inverted.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Do
There is also at least one video of a seaplane landing with its gear down that flips inverted upon touchdown, so I can definitely say for a fact that there are indeed fixed gear planes that have ended up inverted.
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I'm at oshkosh at the moment, so I don't have access to the article. I'll post it when I get home.

The float plane is a different case. The wheel gear are several feet father away from the center of gravity and makes it much easier to flip over. Plus, once out tips, the floats, ummm, FLOAT, making them lighter than the rest of the plane (buoyant) do the float plane ends up inverted.


Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
 
I'm going to say that all aircraft that land vs. crash on the water go inverted. Many will right themselves partially to the attitude mentioned of nose down with the tail sticking out of the water until the air inside is displaced by water.

The Pitts (fixed gear) we put into the Chesapeake Bay went straight over on it's back hard enough to crack the canopy when it hit the water. After we got out, the plane then righted itself to about a 45 degree nose down, upright attitude and sank that way a few minutes later.

There's some eye witness account surfacing over on the red board that says that this guys was involved in some low level antics and caught a wing tip cartwheeling it into the water. That makes more sense than ditching a Cub turning fatal.
 
PittsDriver said:
I'm going to say that all aircraft that land vs. crash on the water go inverted. Many will right themselves partially to the attitude mentioned of nose down with the tail sticking out of the water until the air inside is displaced by water.

The Pitts (fixed gear) we put into the Chesapeake Bay went straight over on it's back hard enough to crack the canopy when it hit the water. After we got out, the plane then righted itself to about a 45 degree nose down, upright attitude and sank that way a few minutes later.
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The center of gravity thing that PilotAlan alluded to may be the big factor. In tailhweels, the CoG is well behind the main wheels and naturally, if they dig into the water first, the tail is going to want to swap ends with the nose as you saw in the Pitts. There was also an NTSB report of a Republic Seabee that made a water landing with the gear down and it flipped.

The cases of 172s flipping vs not flipping may be a factor of how much the pilot was able to flare before impact. If the flare was sufficient, I can see how the airplane would slow down and stay right side up, but if the pilot was not able to flare much before the nosewheel digs in, then (due to CoG) you have a similar situation to the taildragger - the nose and tail are going to want to trade places.

My research was hardly scientific, but it was enough to know that a statement like 'there were no fixed gear airplanes that ended up inverted.' is simply not true.
 
The antics make more sense. Wings had a lot of damage for ditching a cub in the water.
 
Fearless Tower said:
My research was hardly scientific, but it was enough to know that a statement like 'there were no fixed gear airplanes that ended up inverted.' is simply not true.
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for clarity, I never said no planes invert, I was responding to the statement that all fixed gear planes invert.
As part of that, I mentioned that a magazine did a study, and that in their sample, none of the planes inverted.

That is not the same as saying that no planes invert, but it was intended as a rebuttal to the statement that all invert.

I don't have a dog on this fight, just trying to point out that statements of all or none are usually wrong, and that the plural of "anecdote" is not "data".


Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
 
PittsDriver said:
There's some eye witness account surfacing over on the red board that says that this guys was involved in some low level antics and caught a wing tip cartwheeling it into the water. That makes more sense than ditching a Cub turning fatal.
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Doesn't sound like low-level antics. This news video and eyewitness reports sound more like engine trouble:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmqt6nSsyHY&feature=player_embedded

FWIW, the first call to 911 was made by KOSH tower personnel, not the eyewitnesses who saw it go in. That sounds to me like he was in contact with the tower when the problem developed.

Judging by the damage to the plane, it sure looks like he hit hard.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Doesn't sound like low-level antics. This news video and eyewitness reports sound more like engine trouble:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmqt6nSsyHY&feature=player_embedded

FWIW, the first call to 911 was made by KOSH tower personnel, not the eyewitnesses who saw it go in. That sounds to me like he was in contact with the tower when the problem developed.

Judging by the damage to the plane, it sure looks like he hit hard.
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Looks pretty bent up to me too, especially the left gear. It looks like it took a side load.
 
Henning said:
Looks pretty bent up to me too, especially the left gear. It looks like it took a side load.
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If you look at the video near the end where the crane is pulling it up by the tail, it looks like the right wing tip hit and the nose is pretty much crushed back.

Stall/spin?
 
Fearless Tower said:
If you look at the video near the end where the crane is pulling it up by the tail, it looks like the right wing tip hit and the nose is pretty much crushed back.

Stall/spin?
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Could be, they said it went in nose low and it sure looks it too.
 
Henning said:
Could be, they said it went in nose low and it sure looks it too.
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If the water was calm, it's very likely the pilot either flew into the water with a lot of vertical speed or flared high and stalled with the same eventual effect.
 
gismo said:
If the water was calm, it's very likely the pilot either flew into the water with a lot of vertical speed or flared high and stalled with the same eventual effect.
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Yep, hard to say anything really except that he did not fly the airplane all the way into the crash. It should not have turned out like that if he had kept control.
 
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