Video of Twin's nose gear issue/LDG at BFI

Some good video. The chopper made a reference to him "orbiting", so there must have been some radio chatter beforehand. It looks like the Beech shut down the engines after landing. According to the FAA database, N2880A is a Beech 99 registered to Airpac Airlines there in Seattle, whose name is also stenciled on the fuselage.

Looking at the qualty of the video, you have to wonder whether having a news chopper take photos of the gear wouldn't be a good way of checking it out. Sure beats the manuever that was done with the chopper on Heinz' plane!

As usual(?) in these kinds of incidents, they did a pretty good job of keeping it on the centerline. I'll attribute their being a little left to attempting to avoid scratching the runway paint B)

Serial Number U-109 Type Registration Corporation Manufacturer Name
BEECH
Certificate Issue Date
08/20/1996 Model
99
Status
Valid Type Aircraft
Fixed Wing Multi-Engine
Type Engine
Turbo-Prop Pending Number Change
None
Dealer
No Date Change Authorized
None
Mode S Code
50567014 MFR Year
1969
Fractional Owner
NO


Registered Owner

Name AIRPAC AIRLINES INC Street
7277 PERIMETER RD S City
SEATTLE State WASHINGTON Zip Code 98108-3842 County
KING Country
UNITED STATES
 
What are the issues with a turbine when a prop strikes?

If you've pulled the condition lever and no fuel is flowing, will they just stop and damage the prop but not the rest of the engine?

I presume that since they are free wheeling when off there should be less damage to the engine than on a piston engine.
 
I can't answer that, not having much twin time (and no turbine time). However, it doesn't look as if it's an issue in this case. It appears as if he basically lost the nose wheel, but that the gear itself held up. I'm pretty sure that would give him enough prop clearance. The fact that the props seemed to slow down on their own rather than come to a sudden halt would seem to support that. Of course, if the gear totally collapsed after the end of the video, all bets are off. B)
 
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hope it was good . . . every time I dragged the thing to the playlist, it just jumped right back out of the playlist. Never could see it!
 
Larry Liebscher said:
What are the issues with a turbine when a prop strikes?

If you've pulled the condition lever and no fuel is flowing, will they just stop and damage the prop but not the rest of the engine?

I presume that since they are free wheeling when off there should be less damage to the engine than on a piston engine.
Click to expand...
I can't imagine that the gear reduction system that drives the prop would be very happy about a sudden stoppage so even if the turbines themselves weren't harmed, I think the engine would need expensive work. From the video it appeared that the props were feathered once the plane was on the ground which seems like a good idea considering that he wasn't in danger of not making the runway at that point, and he sure wasn't going to do much taxiing. With some turboprops I believe you can feather the props and get them to stop without waiting for the major portion of the rotating components to stop turning.
 
Larry Liebscher said:
What are the issues with a turbine when a prop strikes?

If you've pulled the condition lever and no fuel is flowing, will they just stop and damage the prop but not the rest of the engine?

I presume that since they are free wheeling when off there should be less damage to the engine than on a piston engine.
Click to expand...

As stated, I would expect gear box damage, as well as bearing and journal damage. Those are precision machined units with lots and lots of tight tolerances that are sure to be thrown out of spec by that prop strike, even if it wasn't turning. But in those pics, it did not even look like ground contact with the props, so who knows.

I would defer to Tom, or Dr. Bruce who probably has seen the results of something similar from a P-3 gear up incident or other prop strike. I can only relate to damage in large gas turbines, like when a generator reduction gear box fails....ugly, ugly, ugly.
 
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