I understand it was an IFR training flight based on the flight profile. If you follow ADS-B websites, you will see those LFPN ATOs fly repetitively the same patterns to LFOP, LFOZ, LFOB etc…
Here is the “same flight” flown on Nov 23 by another ATO aircraft from LFPN :
That’s how they join the 25R final approach coming from the west. I can’t find it in the LFPN STARs but I am no expert.
Conclusion : F-BPIR track was perfectly normal until they dropped into Villejuif.
Mooney, in Villejuif you will also find collège Karl Marx or Avenue de Stalingrad. The city has been proudly communist since 1925 
Jujupilote wrote:
The city has been proudly communist since 1925
LOL, really? Ah well.. à chaqun son gôut…. Funny anyhow considering the name of that town…
BFM published the footage of pilots leaving the plane by themself
https://www.bfmtv.com/paris/val-de-marne/crash-a-villejuif-les-images-du-pilote-s-extirpant-de-l-avion-avant-de-porter-secours-aux-passagers_AV-202312060076.html
greg_mp wrote:
footage of pilots leaving the plane by themself
The craziest thing I’ve ever seen. Those guys were more than lucky to be alive, let alone able to simply walk away from their totally destroyed plane. Looks like Piper did some things right with the construction of that cabin… absolutely amazing.
Well, every landing you walk away from…… unbelievable !! Great news, anyway. Towards the end of the clip, the TV commentator mentions that they declared an ‘engine emergency’ before crashing, ahem, landing.
Looking at the information we have available at the moment it looks like a forced landing in too small a space which led to a crash. The PIC must have known the area really well to pick out a space in the middle of a very congested area and put the aircraft down on it and I believe in the dusk or night. The Twinkie is a very good aircraft which with a few mods as in (the Geronimo) it could have been superb. Very sturdy and good for short field landings. It is also one of the cheapest 4/6 seater aircraft to operate.
IMO he did a really good job.
What led to the need for a forced landing on a twin engined aircraft, hopefully we will discover soon as all on board survived.
Of course we all have our thoughts.
I really hate to say, but according to statistics most probably there will have been fuel starvation due to wrong fuel tank selection. It would not be the first and it won’t be the last who made a forced landing with the wrong tanks selected and still fuel in the non-selected tanks. The TwinCo has 6 tanks, each engine operates on its own tank, where four of the tanks provide fuel for each a bit more than 1 hour in the twin, maybe up to 1.5 hours. The main tanks carry maybe 2 hours plus reserve, depending on how good you are at leaning it. So the maximum flight time with full main tanks is maybe 3 three hours. They most probably switched tanks in the cruise phase and forgot to switch back.
If you react quickly (fuel pumps, other tank) the engines come back to life without any issue in maybe 5 seconds. The fuel system is really simple.
Both engines out should in principle only happen if you messed up with fuel selection or weather hits you, e.g. with ice. As each engine has its own fuel filter also a contaminated or wrong fuel should not lead to both engines quit the same moment.
Empty tank selection could well have been a cause, but by the same token he should have well had enough fuel as per regulation and AFAIK no communication of minimum or mayday fuel.
By the same thinking depending on who was pilot flying (there seems to be a difference in reports here, one indicating a tourist flight and another a training flight.) following an engine failure the wrong engine may well have been shut down.
As I wrote hopefully we will have first hand knowledge, soon.
About the landing, the different articles (via eye witnesses) say that:
The crash location is indeed a garden in-between buildings, and seems to be the only one in the area. Assuming the garden they ended up in is the one they aimed for (if the testimony is accurate), and they approached it from the North (there are buildings blocking the approach via the South), this image would roughly show the cockpit view they had on approach:
The garden itself is not wide and only about 30m long, so (if it was the case) they likely thought they had no chance of surviving and wanted to avoid further damage and injuries on the ground. Which makes the outcome all the more fortunate.
maxbc wrote:
they likely thought they had no chance of surviving
Never in my life did I have that thought. Keep that damn thing flying until the end and you do have chances to climb out the wreck. Never give up.
@maxbc The google earth picture is good. But how on earth did they get there and from what starting point? The position is absolutely horrible, but you don’t start there. They must have had some hundred meters above the buildings when things turned south. Maybe they thought they could flare above the garden and get the fuselage through the high buildings?
