Fatal Electric Aircraft Crash

Very sad, RIP.

"Witnesses reported seeing the aircraft maneuvering at low altitude before catching fire and crashing in a near vertical dive." The fire part is surprising, no avgas required in this bird.
 
li-ion does have issues with combustibility, and then burn hot as hades. But, I think that is a hurdle that can be eventually overcome, it's not the reason electric planes are a silly idea.

RIP to the test pilots.
 
"The aircraft was reportedly flown after a party to celebrate the new company headquarters."

Uhh..... think I'll hang on to those 200,000 euros



Salty said:
li-ion does have issues with combustibility, and then burn hot as hades. But, I think that is a hurdle that can be eventually overcome, it's not the reason electric planes are a silly idea.

RIP to the test pilots.
Click to expand...

Until it is overcome it's the reason I won't be strapping into a plane with huge li ion batteries in it.


From the comments section

"What hydrogen was to the Hindenburg, traditional lithium-ion batteries may be to electric airplanes..."
 
James331 said:
"The aircraft was reportedly flown after a party to celebrate the new company headquarters."

Uhh..... think I'll hang on to those 200,000 euros





Until it is overcome it's the reason I won't be strapping into a plane with huge li ion batteries in it.


From the comments section

"What hydrogen was to the Hindenburg, traditional lithium-ion batteries may be to electric airplanes..."
Click to expand...

Yes, indeed. We should be using something more fire resistant, like gasoline.
 
Even aircraft powered by unicorn farts are subject to the same basic rules of aerodynamics.

The german language articles don't mention in-flight fire, they describe a crash from pattern altitude followed by a post impact fire. This was an aircraft with a hybrid powerplant including a small diesel powered generator. So in addition to a pile of batteries there was a small amount of fossil fuel on board.
 
Dav8or said:
Yes, indeed. We should be using something more fire resistant, like gasoline.
Click to expand...

I've seen fuel tanks rupture, puncture, etc and unlike the movies not have a crazy nuclear explosion.

Go try to snap a li ion battery in half

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-lithium-ion-batteries-grounded-the-dreamliner/

weilke said:
Even aircraft powered by unicorn farts are subject to the same basic rules of aerodynamics.

The german language articles don't mention in-flight fire, they describe a crash from pattern altitude followed by a post impact fire. This was an aircraft with a hybrid powerplant including a small diesel powered generator. So in addition to a pile of batteries there was a small amount of fossil fuel on board.
Click to expand...


"Witnesses reported seeing the aircraft maneuvering at low altitude before catching fire and crashing in a near vertical dive"





Large scale vehicle li ions failure excuses are much like communism failure excuses, "it's not that it is a bad idea, it just real li ion hasn't been tried yet" lol

In my iPhone or laptop sure, in my wings or powering the plane, nope.


 
Last edited:
Batteries are chemical storage devices. With the desire to re-charge them ever more quickly, and also achieve the high discharge rates needed to power automobiles and light airplanes, manufacturers are pushing the limits of the chemistry. The total number of Tesla cars on the road is still relatively small - as of end of first quarter 2018 that number was 29,980 cars in total. The number of thermal runaways that have "spontaneously combusted" on the road or at Supercharger stations, or have ignited after an accident is growing too.

And the misplaced hopes of some breakthrough in battery technology continues. Battery technology improvement is painfully incremental. There's no Moore's Law about to materialize.

Tesla S.jpg model-s-burned-down-norway-e1451675755409.jpg tesla_model_x-crash.jpg
 
The huge amount of energy stored in our aircraft and cars for that matter will always pose a danger if its energy is released in an uncontrolled manner.
 
Dav8or said:
We should be using something more fire resistant, like gasoline
Click to expand...
I get the hyperbole, but it's kind of a silly comparison, if we're being honest. How many times has that 5 gallon jug of gasoline in your tool shed thermally ran away and spontaneously combusted? For the amount of energy stored gasoline it is remarkably stable. Batteries store literally a fraction of the energy that gasoline does and yet they need to be babied with microprocessors, temperature sensitivities, etc., and still sometimes run amok. Take something like diesel, and that's even more docile. I would never try it but my dad once threw a match in a bucket of diesel and nothing happened, the match extinguished, to prove a point about it

Batteries, unfortunately do not (yet, and frankly I doubt they ever will be due to laws of chemistry and physics) have anywhere near the energy storage capacity nor versatility of traditional fossil fuels. Doesn't mean there will not be applicability for electric planes in some categories.. a 2 hr charge for a 100 knot 2 pax airplane would make a great trainer.. but I will confidently say that in my lifetime (at least another 50 years if I play my cards right) I will never see a 3,600 lb airplane that can fly 1,000 nm at 170 knots do that with only 500 lbs of batteries

Before we talk about Tesla.. our beloved Tesla battery is almost 3 times that weight at 1,200 lbs and has an 85 KwH energy capacity. That same 500 lbs of gasoline, or about 83 gallons, stores 2,800 KwH of energy. Before we talk about thermal efficiency, we got that covered too... even with a conservative 20% thermal efficiency of say a big bore Conti that still translates to almost 600 KwH of usable energy storage. Prop losses don't matter since both planes will have similar losses there. And this assumes that an electric motor is 100% thermally efficient... which it is not

Sorry, but it ain't happening folks. At least not for serious high performance long range cruisers.
 
Tantalum said:
I get the hyperbole, but it's kind of a silly comparison, if we're being honest. How many times has that 5 gallon jug of gasoline in your tool shed thermally ran away and spontaneously combusted? For the amount of energy stored gasoline it is remarkably stable. Batteries store literally a fraction of the energy that gasoline does and yet they need to be babied with microprocessors, temperature sensitivities, etc., and still sometimes run amok. Take something like diesel, and that's even more docile. I would never try it but my dad once threw a match in a bucket of diesel and nothing happened, the match extinguished, to prove a point about it

Batteries, unfortunately do not (yet, and frankly I doubt they ever will be due to laws of chemistry and physics) have anywhere near the energy storage capacity nor versatility of traditional fossil fuels. Doesn't mean there will not be applicability for electric planes in some categories.. a 2 hr charge for a 100 knot 2 pax airplane would make a great trainer.. but I will confidently say that in my lifetime (at least another 50 years if I play my cards right) I will never see a 3,600 lb airplane that can fly 1,000 nm at 170 knots do that with only 500 lbs of batteries

Before we talk about Tesla.. our beloved Tesla battery is almost 3 times that weight at 1,200 lbs and has an 85 KwH energy capacity. That same 500 lbs of gasoline, or about 83 gallons, stores 2,800 KwH of energy. Before we talk about thermal efficiency, we got that covered too... even with a conservative 20% thermal efficiency of say a big bore Conti that still translates to almost 600 KwH of usable energy storage. Prop losses don't matter since both planes will have similar losses there. And this assumes that an electric motor is 100% thermally efficient... which it is not

Sorry, but it ain't happening folks. At least not for serious high performance long range cruisers.
Click to expand...
Actually I agree with your thoughts on this but I hope you are wrong. We are in the midst of another OPEC induced oil price run-up. A viable battery technology would shut them down forever. I hope it happens in my lifetime.
 
@Tantalum
Here is the problem with your comparison. LiPo Batteries have thermal issues when charging and potentially on discharge. Not in storage; which is the same as gas.

However, there are a multitude of examples and fires when using gas, or evening when filling the tanks.
It took a 100+ years to get the to the point where gas fires have become rare. We are what a decade in with batteries?

Tim
 
Batteries have a long way to come,to inspire trust in their serviceability.
 
PaulS said:
Actually I agree with your thoughts on this but I hope you are wrong. We are in the midst of another OPEC induced oil price run-up. A viable battery technology would shut them down forever. I hope it happens in my lifetime.
Click to expand...

D66cHpl.png


I'll just be over here fueling my sports cars and plane while you worry about the end of the world, don't give yourself a MI over it, or do, its job security for me lol
 
PaulS said:
Actually I agree with your thoughts on this but I hope you are wrong. We are in the midst of another OPEC induced oil price run-up. A viable battery technology would shut them down forever. I hope it happens in my lifetime.
Click to expand...

I am in my 41st year in the hydrocarbon energy industry. OPEC has only once been able to seriously, sustainably manage the price of oil upward...and that was the first time during the embargo in 1973. OPEC is capable of collapsing the price of oil, as they have repeatedly demonstrated over the decades. It has had zero success propping it up for any reasonable length of time.

Oil, like most commodities, is priced in US$. The main driver of nominal US crude oil prices is the international exchange rate of that Dollar. not OPEC.

Crude vs US Dollar.png
 
I can't read that graph, too small. But I noticed you used the word "sustainably" increase the price, the reports I've read have said that Russia and Opec have worked to reduce the oil surplus inventory and have been successful, driving up the price of the gas to $0.50 over last year at this time. I've also read that the US hit record production in the last month, which probably has dulled OPEC's efforts, which I am grateful for also. But OPEC's efforts are at least contributory to the increased prices, if not the main cause. Energy should be plentiful and cheap as it runs the engine of our economy. For things like personal transport it would be very nice not to have to buy petroleum products to get around, I think the world would be a nicer place.
 
James331 said:
D66cHpl.png


I'll just be over here fueling my sports cars and plane while you worry about the end of the world, don't give yourself a MI over it, or do, its job security for me lol
Click to expand...

That is a mammoth POA troll stretch equating what I wrote to worrying about the end of the world, lol, there should be rewards for level of missing a point, nice work!
 
GRG55 said:
The total number of Tesla cars on the road is still relatively small - as of end of first quarter 2018 that number was 29,980 cars in total.
Click to expand...

29980 produced just in Q1 2018.

Total numbers of Tesla’s on the road worldwide hit the 300k mark in Feb 2018.

In the US alone there are just under 200k sold (expected to hit 200k next month).
 
deonb said:
29980 produced just in Q1 2018.

Total numbers of Tesla’s on the road worldwide hit the 300k mark in Feb 2018.

In the US alone there are just under 200k sold (expected to hit 200k next month).
Click to expand...


Ooops. Read the chart incorrectly. Thank you for the correction.
 
TheFB said:
"Witnesses reported seeing the aircraft maneuvering at low altitude before catching fire and crashing in a near vertical dive." The fire part is surprising, no avgas required in this bird.
Click to expand...

"Witnesses reported" being the key part here. Witnesses are generally full of ****. Witnesses have also reported, with strenuous conviction, that the engine was making sputtering sounds as the "airplane" went down, when it was a glider.

Pics/video or it didn't happen.

GRG55 said:
The total number of Tesla cars on the road is still relatively small - as of end of first quarter 2018 that number was 29,980 cars in total. The number of thermal runaways that have "spontaneously combusted" on the road or at Supercharger stations, or have ignited after an accident is growing too.
Click to expand...

Wrong, and wrong.

As has been pointed out, that number is for Q1 2018 sales only, there are hundreds of thousands of them on the road.

The "growing" number of fires... Isn't. The rate at which Teslas burn is lower than the rate at which gas cars burn, and it's been a while since it's happened. There were two early on that resulted from the battery taking damage from road debris, and Tesla responded by adding a titanium plate under the battery and raising the minimum height of the air suspension at highway speeds via an over-the-air software update. There was also an early one that burned when someone stole it, drove it like they stole it, and crashed it.

Since then, I think there has been *one* that happened when plugged into a supercharger, a couple years ago somewhere in Europe.

And because it's Tesla, if one burns, you're going to hear about it!

Tantalum said:
I get the hyperbole, but it's kind of a silly comparison, if we're being honest. How many times has that 5 gallon jug of gasoline in your tool shed thermally ran away and spontaneously combusted?
Click to expand...

The batteries don't combust when they're sitting in your shed either.

I will confidently say that in my lifetime (at least another 50 years if I play my cards right) I will never see a 3,600 lb airplane that can fly 1,000 nm at 170 knots do that with only 500 lbs of batteries
Click to expand...

You might be right. Does a 500 lb supercapacitor count?

Before we talk about Tesla.. our beloved Tesla battery is almost 3 times that weight at 1,200 lbs and has an 85 KwH energy capacity. That same 500 lbs of gasoline, or about 83 gallons, stores 2,800 KwH of energy. Before we talk about thermal efficiency, we got that covered too... even with a conservative 20% thermal efficiency of say a big bore Conti that still translates to almost 600 KwH of usable energy storage. Prop losses don't matter since both planes will have similar losses there. And this assumes that an electric motor is 100% thermally efficient... which it is not
Click to expand...

But they're not far off either - The motors being used in electric cars today are in the neighborhood of 90% efficient. Nothing is 100%.
 
PaulS said:
I can't read that graph, too small. But I noticed you used the word "sustainably" increase the price, the reports I've read have said that Russia and Opec have worked to reduce the oil surplus inventory and have been successful, driving up the price of the gas to $0.50 over last year at this time. I've also read that the US hit record production in the last month, which probably has dulled OPEC's efforts, which I am grateful for also. But OPEC's efforts are at least contributory to the increased prices, if not the main cause. Energy should be plentiful and cheap as it runs the engine of our economy. For things like personal transport it would be very nice not to have to buy petroleum products to get around, I think the world would be a nicer place.
Click to expand...

The red line is crude oil prices, the blue line the US$ exchange index. If one charted it back 30 years the correlation is exactly the same.

We are dealing with crude oil here. Stuff that has been sitting in the ground for millions of years. One year is a very short period of time...in a geological sense and in an economic cycle or a commodity cycle. :D OPEC is most certainly NOT the main cause of the recent increase in crude prices, that is now heading down (because the US$ index has been strengthening), although you wouldn't know that listening to Bubblevision. Spend less time listening to uninformed business media pundits grasping to come up with an explanation for every daily, weekly and monthly price and inventory movement. The currency exchange is cyclical and so are commodities. What's important is the secular trend, not the short term. It is tied to the US$. In the grand scheme of things OPEC is utterly irrelevant. And I am telling you that as someone who spent more a decade living and working in North Africa, the Persian Gulf and the former Soviet Union.

Energy IS cheap and plentiful. A barrel of the US reference crude oil, West Texas Intermediate, is trading at $64.86 per barrel. A barrel of crude oil is equivalent volume to 336, 16-oz bottles of water - a "bottle of crude" today sells for 19.3 cents. The average price of gasoline today is about $3.00 across the nation. That's a "bottled water equivalent" of 37.5 cents. What are you paying for bottled water at your local Starbucks?

And how much effort and risk goes into finding, developing, producing, bottling, branding and distributing that water, compared to what needs to be done to maintain a supply of oil? I cannot count the number of times in my career I have heard "we are going to run out of oil", "peak oil", "this time it's different - the price of oil is going up and never coming down again, ever". Mythology writ large. All of it.

As for a "nicer world" you are dreaming if you think mankind is going to survive without oil and gas for decades to come. The food supply system that tries to keep most of the 7 Billion people on this planet from starving is built almost entirely on petroleum - "Agriculture is the use of land to convert petroleum into food". Just one example.

Enjoy the day! :cool:
 
Last edited:
@GRG55
Define reasonable length of time. (reference OPEC pushing prices up)

Tim
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Wrong, and wrong.

As has been pointed out, that number is for Q1 2018 sales only, there are hundreds of thousands of them on the road.

The "growing" number of fires... Isn't. The rate at which Teslas burn is lower than the rate at which gas cars burn, and it's been a while since it's happened. There were two early on that resulted from the battery taking damage from road debris, and Tesla responded by adding a titanium plate under the battery and raising the minimum height of the air suspension at highway speeds via an over-the-air software update. There was also an early one that burned when someone stole it, drove it like they stole it, and crashed it.

Since then, I think there has been *one* that happened when plugged into a supercharger, a couple years ago somewhere in Europe.

And because it's Tesla, if one burns, you're going to hear about it!

The batteries don't combust when they're sitting in your shed either...
Click to expand...


Wrong, and wrong.;)
And yes, you are correct. We certainly do hear about it. Note the dates below:


http://abc7news.com/tesla-driver-killed-in-fiery-crash-in-mountain-view-identified/3269574/
Tesla driver killed in fiery crash on Highway 101 in Mountain View identified
Monday, March 26, 2018
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --
A driver that died after his Tesla went up in flames Friday morning on southbound U.S. Highway 101 in Mountain View has been identified by the Santa Clara County medical examiner's office.


https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...fatal-tesla-accident-in-florida-idUSKBN1IA205
U.S. safety board probes fatal Tesla accident in Florida
MAY 9, 2018 / 7:11 AM
(Reuters) - The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said on Wednesday it will investigate a Tesla accident in Fort Lauderdale, Florida this week that killed two teenagers and injured another - the agency’s fourth active probe into crashes of the company’s electric vehicles.

The NTSB said it was sending a team of four to investigate Tuesday’s crash of a 2014 Tesla Model S that was reportedly traveling at high speed when it struck a wall and caught fire...

...The NTSB is also investigating an August 2017 Tesla battery fire in Lake Forest, California, after an owner lost control and ran the vehicle into his garage...
 
tspear said:
@GRG55
Define reasonable length of time. (reference OPEC pushing prices up)

Tim
Click to expand...

Read the above. Its the secular trend that is important. If anyone here wishes to believe that OPEC has any sort of ability to elevate and keep the price of oil up that's fine with me. Believe what you want.
 
GRG55 said:
Read the above. Its the secular trend that is important. If anyone here wishes to believe that OPEC has any sort of ability to elevate and keep the price of oil up that's fine with me. Believe what you want.
Click to expand...

I did. To hard to read the graph. I think OPEC can cause "short term" price hikes. My current thinking is they can reduce output to slowly chip away at over supply; as they did over the past year. Any significant supply cuts which drive up prices will only work for one, maybe two years before enough new capacity comes online to solve the supply problem. My curiosity is how long do you think OPEC can do it?

Tim
 
flyingcheesehead said:
The batteries don't combust when they're sitting in your shed either.
Click to expand...
Fair enough, but it doesn't seem to combust either when I'm filling it up or running the mower.. or when I run my car or fill it up. Unless I've done something gravely stupid light smoke a cigarette during fueling and ash onto the vapor or whatever. Most fossil fuel accidents are the result of human stupidity.. vs most lithium battery fires are owner agnostic. Plus, haven't we had cell phones and batteries melt down while they were "just sitting there" because something internally shorted? I could be wrong, but I seem to recall some instances of that happening

flyingcheesehead said:
But they're not far off either
Click to expand...
They're not... but 600 KhW vs 85 is still a huge difference. Toyota just unveiled an engine that has 40% thermal efficiency.. so while we're chasing battery tech and hoping for the "magic bullet" to it looks like the ICE advancements are not yet over. Plus, the gas turbine is in the 50% to 60% thermal efficiency category.. granted.. a turbine doesn't make sense on a plane like a 172.. but if our regulations for aviation weren't as onerous and costs were lower it would be cool to see some new ICE tech in our machines

I am all for lowering our dependence on foreign oil, helping the environment, and finding new power sources. It would be great to have some sci-fi dilithium crystal type tech in our planes.. but when you break it down batteries are unfortunately no where near capable enough to power airplanes for anything beyond novelty, raising money, or doing light training work. I hope I am wrong.. how cool would it be have that tech in your plane.. but I am just not sure it is possible. There are certain barriers to technology.. this isn't like claiming the earth is flat or the sun orbits the earth, or that we can't break the sound barrier.. rather, I think this is along the lines of developing anti-gravity tech or some other theoretical borderline fantasy technology. Chemically there is only so much you can ask molecules to do and there are hard limits within electron structures and the atomic environment
 
GRG55 said:
The red line is crude oil prices, the blue line the US$ exchange index. If one charted it back 30 years the correlation is exactly the same.

We are dealing with crude oil here. Stuff that has been sitting in the ground for millions of years. One year is a very short period of time...in a geological sense and in an economic cycle or a commodity cycle. :D OPEC is most certainly NOT the main cause of the recent increase in crude prices, that is now heading down (because the US$ index has been strengthening), although you wouldn't know that listening to Bubblevision. Spend less time listening to uninformed business media pundits grasping to come up with an explanation for every daily, weekly and monthly price and inventory movement. The currency exchange is cyclical and so are commodities. What's important is the secular trend, not the short term. It is tied to the US$. In the grand scheme of things OPEC is utterly irrelevant. And I am telling you that as someone who spent more a decade living and working in North Africa, the Persian Gulf and the former Soviet Union.

Energy IS cheap and plentiful. A barrel of the US reference crude oil, West Texas Intermediate, is trading at $64.86 per barrel. A barrel of crude oil is equivalent volume to 336, 16-oz bottles of water - a "bottle of crude" today sells for 19.3 cents. The average price of gasoline today is about $3.00 across the nation. That's a "bottled water equivalent" of 37.5 cents. What are you paying for bottled water at your local Starbucks?

And how much effort and risk goes into finding, developing, producing, bottling, branding and distributing that water, compared to what needs to be done to maintain a supply of oil? I cannot count the number of times in my career I have heard "we are going to run out of oil", "peak oil", "this time it's different - the price of oil is going up and never coming down again, ever". Mythology writ large. All of it.

As for a "nicer world" you are dreaming if you think mankind is going to survive without oil and gas for decades to come. The food supply system that tries to keep most of the 7 Billion people on this planet from starving is built almost entirely on petroleum - "Agriculture is the use of land to convert petroleum into food". Just one example.

Enjoy the day! :cool:
Click to expand...


I haven't once said that I think the world can survive without oil and gas, I can't figure out why you and Jim are saying that I said that. What I did say is that I would welcome battery technology that would make the IC engine obsolete in personal transportation ( pay attention to the last two words please, you and Jim both seem to have missed that part). I think we are a breakthrough away from readily available technology in batteries or some other area to make battery power comparable to oil in convenience and reliability. It will be sweet to not have to buy gasoline to power my car when that happens.

I am a firm believer in opening up all areas to exploration and drilling for oil, drill baby drill.
 
Tantalum said:
Fair enough, but it doesn't seem to combust either when I'm filling it up or running the mower.. or when I run my car or fill it up.
Click to expand...

My Lithium battery in my car doesn't catch fire when I'm driving or charging it either.

Point: Sample size of yourself is too small to draw a conclusion.

Unless I've done something gravely stupid light smoke a cigarette during fueling and ash onto the vapor or whatever. Most fossil fuel accidents are the result of human stupidity.. vs most lithium battery fires are owner agnostic. Plus, haven't we had cell phones and batteries melt down while they were "just sitting there" because something internally shorted? I could be wrong, but I seem to recall some instances of that happening
Click to expand...

There's no doubt that there is a risk of some Lithium batteries burning - I'm not sure why the Samsung Note 7 was so susceptible while the iPhone isn't, but I would hope that those who are doing battery tech for cars are more up on those things than I am. :)

They're not... but 600 KhW vs 85 is still a huge difference. Toyota just unveiled an engine that has 40% thermal efficiency.. so while we're chasing battery tech and hoping for the "magic bullet" to it looks like the ICE advancements are not yet over. Plus, the gas turbine is in the 50% to 60% thermal efficiency category.. granted.. a turbine doesn't make sense on a plane like a 172.. but if our regulations for aviation weren't as onerous and costs were lower it would be cool to see some new ICE tech in our machines

I am all for lowering our dependence on foreign oil, helping the environment, and finding new power sources. It would be great to have some sci-fi dilithium crystal type tech in our planes.. but when you break it down batteries are unfortunately no where near capable enough to power airplanes for anything beyond novelty, raising money, or doing light training work. I hope I am wrong.. how cool would it be have that tech in your plane.. but I am just not sure it is possible. There are certain barriers to technology.. this isn't like claiming the earth is flat or the sun orbits the earth, or that we can't break the sound barrier.. rather, I think this is along the lines of developing anti-gravity tech or some other theoretical borderline fantasy technology. Chemically there is only so much you can ask molecules to do and there are hard limits within electron structures and the atomic environment
Click to expand...

Agreed. Lithium batteries are not enough to power a traveling airplane, and I doubt they will get there. But, there's a lot of research going on into new technologies, which are not always chemical batteries, because of the desire to have a better (lighter, faster-to-charge, smaller per kWh, etc) battery for electric cars.
 
James331 said:
I've seen fuel tanks rupture, puncture, etc and unlike the movies not have a crazy nuclear explosion.

Go try to snap a li ion battery in half

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-lithium-ion-batteries-grounded-the-dreamliner/




"Witnesses reported seeing the aircraft maneuvering at low altitude before catching fire and crashing in a near vertical dive"





Large scale vehicle li ions failure excuses are much like communism failure excuses, "it's not that it is a bad idea, it just real li ion hasn't been tried yet" lol

In my iPhone or laptop sure, in my wings or powering the plane, nope.


Click to expand...
I have, unfortunately, seen what happens when a fuel tank ruptures. It does make an impressive fire. It didn't burn for very long.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
I have, unfortunately, seen what happens when a fuel tank ruptures. It does make an impressive fire. It didn't burn for very long.
Click to expand...

Or it just goes drip drip drip
 
James331 said:
Or it just goes drip drip drip
Click to expand...
Yeah, if you say so.

41485956135_70af0c7621_z.jpg

28515143708_8f00c27f0a_z.jpg


This was a few minutes after I saw the flames. I helped the police find someone who could open the gate at the end of the runway. The crash happened just before I arrived at the airport.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
Yeah, if you say so.

41485956135_70af0c7621_z.jpg

28515143708_8f00c27f0a_z.jpg


This was a few minutes after I saw the flames. I helped the police find someone who could open the gate at the end of the runway. The crash happened just before I arrived at the airport.
Click to expand...

So that fire occurred in flight and caused the crash?
 
James331 said:
So that fire occurred in flight and caused the crash?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure why it matters, but no. The tanks ruptured during the crash. Dying by fire is a terrible, painful, way to go.

My comments were in response to the comment below- while it wasn't a "crazy nuclear explosion", it was still a very impressive fire.
James331 said:
I've seen fuel tanks rupture, puncture, etc and unlike the movies not have a crazy nuclear explosion.
<SNIP>
Click to expand...
As for the original post, let the investigation finish. The fire may have started from an electrical short, for instance. I agree, from past history, the battery is likely the cause. Or it may have made a bad situation worse. But it is early for us to say it is a cause based on the information we have.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
I'm not sure why it matters, but no. The tanks ruptured during the crash. Dying by fire is a terrible, painful, way to go.

My comments were in response to the comment below- while it wasn't a "crazy nuclear explosion", it was still a very impressive fire.

As for the original post, let the investigation finish. The fire may have started from an electrical short, for instance. I agree, from past history, the battery is likely the cause. Or it may have made a bad situation worse. But it is early for us to say it is a cause based on the information we have.
Click to expand...

That's the difference, my tanks don't have a "run away" as I'm flying around.
 
James331 said:
That's the difference, my tanks don't have a "run away" as I'm flying around.
Click to expand...
I'm sorry. I really don't understand. Have you assigned a cause to the crash in the OP based on the information available to us?
 
I think the run away issue for batteries, if there is one, could be addressed in the design of the aircraft. Honestly, I'm not sure batteries in their present state are really appropriate for aircraft, although someone with the resources to build them obviously does.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
I'm sorry. I really don't understand. Have you assigned a cause to the crash in the OP based on the information available to us?
Click to expand...

Well based on the info at hand, it caught on fire before the crash, just a wild guess but I'd think it wasn't the rudder or the pilot who randomly burst into flames
 
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