boscomantico wrote:
In fact, you can see slide tracks from the landing gear in the snow, but they only max 10 feet long.
Right yes. so that is a pretty drastic deceleration.
boscomantico wrote:
The lower prop blade is bent. But does it matter?
Depends for what. Looking at the prop as it stands, lower blade bent and upper one straight, we can be pretty sure the prop was not turning when they hit. For anything else…
The right hand wing is pretty badly bent. Also the left wing seems to be loose kind of, there is a space between the cabin and the leading edge. So while the plane is in remarkably intact condition, I think the damage is much worse than the first glance shows.
I suppose they will have to air-lift it out of there.
There is more than one way of visualising that image.
It can also be a prop going straight down with a slice of snow taken out in front of the leading edge. That’s how I saw it first. But I agree, a bent prop is prob the correct way of seeing it.
But how would it be bent FORWARD if not under power? That’s not a statement, but a genuine question.
The top blade isn’t bent, which normally would suggest it wasn’t under power, but that leaves my original question – would you expect bent tips when hitting snow, like you would on tarmac?
Yes; the way the blade is bent looks like it was under power at the time. You see the same with ditched planes which were making power upon water contact.
It could be that he was unable to outclimb the terrain, so was at max power and then pitched up hard, either as an instinct (most of us would do this in the last few seconds) or to make the softest contact.
Snow is pretty dense.
Great job by the pilot, whatever he did! from a short shot in the video it looks like they nearly made a pass / gap in the mountains, but that might be misleading by the camera angle. I guess they’ll dismantle the plane in situ and airlift the pieces out.
Good job, spectacular at the least!
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Right yes. so that is a pretty drastic deceleration.
Not necessarily. The ground is rather steep, perhaps 20-30 degrees, and much steeper farther down. The engine was running, he managed to “land” uphill. I don’t know. Either he had a rather odd preference regarding emergency landing sites, or he simply was outclimbed by the terrain. Lucky nonetheless.
Just a little info on the weather/snow conditions right now here in the area: We do have relatively little snow, with a substantial part of it being powedery.
For what it’s worth, snow can be pretty hard when wind is blowing and the temperatures dance around the freezing point in these days (freezes at night)…
He was a she, by the way. 22 years old.
Pig wrote:
I don’t know much about a pa28 but if I was being unkind I might wonder the flaps don’t appear to be down (?)
The PA28 has flaps actuated with a manual bar on the floor. It would be likely that they get retracted in order to get out of the airplane, as the stick would be in the way to the door.
To me, the condition of that propeller is clear evidence that this prop was not turning on impact. The way the lower blade is bent could have to do with the terrain. Also all the reports independently call this an emergency landing due to loss of power.
All of them should buy tickets, it was their lucky day. I would also give the pilot credit for not loosing control. In that situation, that is a pretty good outcome of a very ugly situation.
