From: karl@ddsw1.mcs.com (Karl Denninger)
Subject: Re: Hinckley Crash
Summary: Crash at Hinckley
Organization: Macro Computer Solutions, Inc., Chicago, IL
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 02:54:50 GMT

In article <1992Sep8.222131.12575@eecs.nwu.edu> phil@eecs.nwu.edu (William LeFebvre) writes:

>(attribution lost)
>|> I disagree with this statement.  Planes sometime crash and there is
>|> nothing that the pilot, nor the passengers can do about it.
>
>I disagree with THIS statement.  There is ALWAYS something that a
>pilot can try to do to save the passengers.  The second the pilot gives
>up, everybody's (likely) dead.  He (she) should be trying things all
>the way to the bitter end.  I REFUSE to believe that there is "nothing"
>I can do to prevent a crash.

A few things of note (I'm not a "real" pilot, but I do understand aerodynamics
and the like and have been at the controls of a C152 in the right seat with
a CFII in the left):

1)	It appears they had an engine-out condition at or shortly after
	take-off.  I know this isn't a good time for such an event, but
	aren't most twins capable of climbing under these conditions even
	with a full gross payload?  I thought that was the case....  The
	appearance of an engine-out was parroted in the papers with a comment
	from an NTSB person who said "it appears that..."  Of course they
	don't have proof yet, but I would imagine it would be reasonably
	easy to know if an engine is developing power at the time of an
	impact from the damage it sustains when it hits the ground.  A
	ground observer of the crash also commented that one prop was
	stopped prior to impact.

2)	The gear looked DOWN.  I distinctly saw TWO landing gear wheels in 
	the wreckage on local TV, and one was visible in the newspaper photos.
	Isn't it standard procedure, in the case of an engine out, to do
	>everything< possible to lessen drag?  I would think that one of the
	first orders of business is to hit the "gear up" switch -- right
	after increasing power on the remaining (good) engine!

3)	They got about 3 miles from the field before snowballing it.  This 
	means that they had at least a minute and a half, and probably more,
	from take-off before buying the farm.  This a quite a good bit of
	time to assess the situation and attempt corrective action or at
	least keep everyone in one piece if you can't save the airframe.
	Further, if the pilot had selected gear up this is plenty of time
	for it to retract.

4)	They really couldn't have picked a better landing site for an
	emergency landing.  A soybean field with no obstructions is about
	as good as you can ask for; however, this >really< drills home 
	the question about the landing gear -- coming into a tilled farm 
	field wouldn't it be suicidal to attempt to land on the wheels?  All
	I could think of was catching the "ruts" in the field and immediately
	flipping over -- yikes!  They never did get this far however to find
	out.

5)	Finally, it would appear that they never really "landed".  Witnesses
	on the ground said that the plane was "staggering" and didn't look
	much in control; then, at less than 30' altitude, one wing dropped
	and caught the ground, cartwheeling the plane which then exploded.
	
	Sounds like a stall (with wing drop) to me.

Things just don't seem to add up here, unless the pilot did one or more
things wrong in the face of an emergency situation (like pulling power on
the >good< engine instead of the bad one?)

--
Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl)
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