Jacko wrote:
but surely not here?
Apparently yes. Not the first time either.
Monthy Python could not have done any better. Or wait, they actually have 
Peter wrote:
Something doesn’t add up here. At no time, ever, ATC will tell you to land.
Bad choice of words maybe, from my side. He was cleared to land at Brønnøysund, without any prior request from him, but he denied. A similar thing happened a few years ago with some other Germans. They also denied the “offer” from ATC, landing at Ørland this time in bad weather, but they weren’t so lucky, smashing into a hill killing all three on board.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
The radar track out of Tromsoe points in the general direction of Lekenes but there is a huge time gap between the take off at Tromsoe and the time the accident happened almost 4 hours later. So was it a garbled go around or what was it?
With the terrain here, and specially up there, I doubt FR24 can be trusted very much unless the airplane is over the sea, or at 30k+ feet. There is also far between people, even further between FR24 “receivers”. However. the article say they tried to land at Umeå (Sweden), but or some reason couldn’t do it. Northern Sweden is an extremely desolate place, more so than Northern Norway So they probably came back I guess? trying to land at Bodø. This was denied, I was told. The article say further that the pilot would not follow the clearances given by ATC at Bodø.
The same kind of general scenario happens all the time here with tourists. It can be with boats, it can be hiking in the mountains, private aircraft, or any other outdoor activity. Things doesn’t go exactly as planned, caught by bad weather typically, but also other minor stuff, and they start doing the weirdest things, continuously worsening their situation, instead of saving their lives. It usually ends very bad, this guy, and his passenger were lucky. Stuff like this is the very reason LT publishes VFR Guide for Norway each year. A large and disproportional number of accidents by foreign pilots compared with native/Scandinavian pilots. I’m not saying this actually happened here, the details are too sketchy, but when it looks like a duck etc A lucky duck though. It’s better to be lucky than dead after all, and it is the most beautiful weather here ATM
In a year or two, we will probably get a very short report, explaining what happened. Until then, we are free to speculate
LeSving wrote:
There is also far between people, even further between FR24 “receivers”. However. the article say they tried to land at Umeå (Sweden), but or some reason couldn’t do it.
His initial departure out of Tromsoe was to the South West. Doesn’t look like Umea to me, I think the paper got that wrong. Also I don’t think the airplane has the range to fly from his initial departure to the time he landed at Trondheim. I am going to try to find out more about his flight path, maybe your Avinor friend can shed some light.
LeSving wrote:
He was cleared to land at Brønnøysund, without any prior request from him, but he denied
So he was offered a landing as an option and decided to continue to Trondheim. VERY different story from refusing an explicit ATC order.
LeSving wrote:
It’s better to be lucky than dead after all, and it is the most beautiful weather here ATM
Yes and it was a beautiful day when this happened too. So weather was unlikely a factor.
We’ll see what eventually emerges. Please keep an eye out for the report, actually there should be a short report within a month stating the facts if Norway complies to Annex 13. I am not regularly monitoring the Norwegian ATSB but I’ve filed a note with my colleague at Avherald who does, while AVH does not do GA airplanes.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
His initial departure out of Tromsoe was to the South West. Doesn’t look like Umea to me,
He must have done something in the mean time, if you are to trust the timing data from FR24. Flying along the coast a bit in the beautiful weather isn’t all that odd. But then again, newspapers and media, the accuracy is probably about the same as FR24
FR24 is quite accurate enough
When the signal is not getting picked up, it is really obvious.
What is largely useless on FR24 is the speed data.
Peter wrote:
When the signal is not getting picked up, it is really obvious.
OK, if the signal is there, it is fairly accurate? This means he took off from Tromsø 10:50, and was last seen (on FR24) above Senja at 11:00. He would arrive at Leknes maybe 11:30 ish. Then FR24 picked him up again just south of Leknes at 15:13 and landed at Værnes at 17:01. What was he doing at Leknes for approximately 4 hours with broken propellers?
He would have time to fly to Umeå and back, but would he have fuel? Probably? I have no idea about the endurance of this plane, but there is also the bladder problem But if he did fly to Umeå and couldn’t land there, why on earth fly back again, almost straight north?
I agree, the Umeå bit seems to be a misunderstanding by the media. It was the day before.
If the track looks ok (continuous, no jumps) then it is good.
What FR24 usually misses is low level sections e.g. departure, arrival, and low level or terrain shielded stuff in between. It has no idea of the airports of course so it takes a guess.
The “bladder problem” is not an issue for any serious pilot because one must make a provision for it (a bottle etc) since you never know when you will be absolutely desperate and then have to fly an ILS or whatever…
The “bladder problem”
A “relief tube” is a common option on Senecas. Endurance of the standard Seneca V is 4 hours (+45 minutes reserve).
The FR data in this case are not very accurate in terms of speed e.t.c. because that plane had no ADSB out but it was triangulated with a process they call MLAT, which works for planes with normal mode S only. I would not doubt the position data and times, but speed would be calculated as well. That is why you get 400 kt speeds e.t.c.
From the data we have, there is not much variants but that they landed somewhere in between which is outside the coverage there.
Unfortunately I could not hear him on any of the Bodoe archives I checked. One of them is truncated by 15 minutes just about when he passes their airspace. Either it was just then or he did talk to someone else then Bodoe Approach.
Jacko wrote:
Peter is right. Those of us who have witnessed the bending of a Seneca prop know that it’s hard to tell until you stop and look.
I cant imagine why it would be any more or less obvious in a twin than a single. If anything I always find in a twin the aircraft feels much smoother than a single (I guess becasue the power plant isnt a few feet immediately in front of your chest) and if there is “something” going on with an engine becasue the harmonics change it is more noticeable.
