We all know that we don’t talk about crash stories because we love to die, but just because life is not enough to get benefit from other’s experience – even if they don’t succeed to make it, but sometimes, when it touches you, you can get tired of these.
This is what happened yesterday at the end of afternoon, when the DR400 crashed after takeoff, with 4 POB and none of them survived. The plane belonged to my previous club from Cannes (LFMD) and the pilot – which was a friend of mine – went to Propriano for a day at the beach with friend, as he did many times since he started to fly 4 years ago. Like me, he was working for big enterprises located in the Nice Area, and was tired to not do what he likes to. So he turned to aviation and expected to make a living of it. He was just awarded FI, along with frozen atpl/irme.
What we know from a testimonial on a TV news, is that the plane made strange manouevers over the see, engine stopped and then stalled to near the beach just by the airfield. The quoted “manouvers” was qualified strange by someone who doesn’t not a bit of aviation, so we can be sure if it.
We’ll let the investigation go, and I really hope we’ll know what happened.
I flew that plane many times until I left the club end of 2021, it’s an old but good DR400 with a climb prop, not that fast (120kias anytime anywhere – not that bad either), made many “coqueluche flights” during 2020 and 2021.
https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/346516
That is so sad, I am going to the club at noon to support people I know. He was really present in the club activities, helpfull and always nice.
I just noticed this quote into https://www.corsenetinfos.corsica/ news:
Quote
Une enquête a été ouverte pour homicide involontaire par aéronef avec faute du pilote ou problème de maintenance et a été confiée à la section de recherche de la gendarmerie des transports aériens (GTA).
While I understand this, it looks like the futur is getting cloudy for this aeroclub…
My sincere feelings @greg_mp. An accident is bad in itself, knowing the people and it becomes really really sad.
I arrived yesterday at around noon at LFKO Propriano, and parked next to the aircraft. The wildest speculations followed the crash, before truth prevailed…
I’m still in Propriano as I write these lines, and sure feel consternation around. Just went to refuel my steed, and seeing that empty spot…
Condolences to all affected.
Very sorry to hear about this. Horrible. I’ve often seen the plane parked the the club’s hangar.
Tragic…
Unable to qualify the “strange manoeuvres” reported.
An engine failure after take-off is one of the trickiest situations to deal with in GA (SEP, but also MEP, SET and MET), beaten to death herein and everywhere else.
In this case, (it is unclear how soon after take-off) however, with no obstacles and a very good sea state, there is no reason for it to have been a deadly situation. This bothers me.
Unable to qualify the “strange manoeuvres” reported.
Can’t comment on this because ground observers without flying experience are notoriously bad witnesses but it could be stall followed by spin or could be just tight turn towards the shore.
Given the insistence of a large number of pilots that a turn-back after engine failure (in this case to reach land) is a perfectly possible manoeuvre – despite all experience telling us that it is dangerous in a typival SEP – it would not surprise me if this turns out to have been an attempt where the aircraft stalled in the turn. But at this point we don’t even know if the engine failed, so all is speculation.
Unfortunately almost no one walks away from such an accident and thus not much is known about what leads to all these stall spin accidents. I really would like to know if it is just getting too slow (slower than best glide speed), maybe by subconsciously pulling away from the ground, or if the stall got caused by too steep a turn. With best glide speed anything up to 30 degrees in the turn seems reasonably safe such that it can be flown a little bit sloppy and without remembering stall speeds. Anything more I wouldn’t dare without prior briefing and without being able to recall the necessary speeds in the heat of the moment. Of course that’s just me sitting on my cosy sofa but I’m much more afraid of stalling into the ground than landing into the hedge or fence.
Unfortunately almost no one walks away from such an accident
The vast majority of ditchings are survived (especially, reportedly, in a Robin which, reportedly, floats) so this wasn’t a ditching. It was some sort of spin or other loss of control which resulted in a “pancake”, or a high speed dive into the water.
Also, flying 4-up, it is unlikely they carried a raft.
