A medevac PC-12 broke up midair, climbing from 19Kft to 25Kft, last Friday, February 24th. RIP to all.
The horizontal stabiliser, the elevator, and part of the right wing separated from the airplane prior to impact…
Some good comments on the bottom of AVweb reporting page.
Must take quite some turbulence, or mishandling, to break-up a PC-12…
Dan wrote:
Some good comments on the bottom of AVweb reporting page.
And some not so good: “Incapacitated pilot is so rare how could it possibly happen twice in a week?” Sometimes you doubt humanity…
This is one thing I don’t like about autopilots – they sometimes just turn off if conditions are too difficult. “Night, IMC, heavy turbulence – no thanks, Mr. Pilot, I’ll let you fly!”
My AP has settings that I can adjust, which is excellent, but not sure all APs have the ability to set the boundaries of when the AP disconnects.
Are PC-12 SICs so expensive? No idea if it would have made a difference in this accident, but it’s been proven time and time again that two pilots with good CRM are safer than one.
These flights are very expensive, and if we assume that a typical SIC in the US makes $100k/year, and does four flights a week, that adds $500 per flight. Seems like pretty good value, but I have no visibility into the financials of these operations.
No idea if it would have made a difference in this accident, but it’s been proven time and time again that two pilots with good CRM are safer than one.
That was the first thing that caught my attention – single pilot in commercial operation with medevac being more sensitive.
BTW distance of the parts from the main wreckage site (around 1000m) probably shows that midair breakup happened not long before impact which is consistent with ADS-B data showing spiraling descent. Of course it’s hard to say anything before investigation details but it seems consistent with other PC12 accidents discussed previously on this forum.
eurogaguest1980 wrote:
autopilots – they sometimes just turn off if conditions are too difficult
Absolutely. The 320 series Airbus AP was very resilient, but I’ve had APs quit in turbulence on the other airliners I flew on.
Pitch/power will usually help when good ol’ George (or whatever fancy name) packs-up. But severe, or even extreme turbulence may well make the very reading of the PFD and setting of the power difficult… something to consider when IMC flying with no WX radar in convective weather.
I don’t know nothing about the circumstances, but I tend to doubt the breakup. Probably it was loss of control, and after LOC the breakup – but not the other way round. Structural failure is extremely rare, and those PC12 look really well made. If it was LOC then a Copilot might have made a difference, yes. Maybe the data recorders will reveal.
Two pilots are better than one. Wow. Thanks for that.
Probably it was loss of control
As in other PC12 accidents.
Effectively, most of the PC-12s lost in flight had a single pilot, and an autopilot failure of some kind.
I’ve never been in one, let alone flown one, but looking at the pictures, I envision a cocoon of comfort, and a hi level of automation. This in turn can easily lead to… complacency. As in not being current in manual flying, single pilot, no AP, ops. Over reliance at best.
My perception of the PC-12 is still a good one, and is well supported by facts and stats. A quick vid on the subject, Why Pilatus PC 12s Crash
