Originally posted by brianw999
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- The fact that 12 people climbed in an airplane designed for 8 (design that includes 8 seats, probably 6 of which were removed) doesn't necessarily mean that the plane was overweight.
- An engine failure in this twin doesn't need to lead to an accident, since this plane has single-engine climb capability.
- If the plane was overweight, very likely it was just "slightly" overweight (say 15%). That by itself shouldn't cause an accident. I don't know of any case where a slight overweight caused an accident by itself.
Now:
- Engine failures in twins have caused many fatal accidents, even with no overweight, mostly when the pilot was unable to keep the plane under control.
- Slight overloads have caused accident, many times when the plane was operating at the limit of it's "non-overweight" performance to begin with (example: high and hot).
- An engine failure and an overweight, even is slight, is a recipe for disaster, since this kind of light twins have a positive but slim single-engine performance even if not overweight.
So yes, very likely an engine failure, an overweight, or both, were contributing factors in this accident. Still, the high fatality of this accident makes me thing that that alone is not enough. If an engine fails and you can't achieve a positive climb, then trade altitude for speed, keep the speed above Vmc (and preferably at the blue line) and land wherever you can. The result will be likely a survivable off-field landing. This case, instead, sounds like an out of control scenario, and you can't blame the engine failure alone, and even less the overweight, for that.
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