WARNING: The YouTube link below is an in-cockpit video taken during an accident where two persons resulted critically injured, one of them dying later at the hospital.
While there is nothing gruesome about the video, it is very disturbing (it was to me at least).
Discretion is advised and click at your own risk.
(If you are going to watch it for safety analysis, I advise selecting HD to be able to better see the instruments).
The part that I am interested in is the sequence that led to the accident. I would have cut the impact itself if I was able to.
What I see:
The left pilot (student?) is flying the approach. You can see hes left hand on the throttle and his right hand on the stick, while the right pilot (instructor?) is monitoring and has his hands on his knees.
The airspeed in the beginning of the sequence well inside the white arc (that goes from flaps stall speed to flaps max speed), more towards the fast end than the slow end.
(In this other poor quality video of the same accident, you can see that some seconds before they were flying at about the fast end of the white arc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9qxD1n9Mu4)
As the airplane flares, you can see the airspeed indication drop in less than one second from clearly in the fast half of the white arc to clearly in the slow half. The airplane cannot slow down so fast, so that was either a tail wind gust (or sudden reduction in the headwind) or a problem with the airspeed indicator, which I would have not normally thought of.
As the plane is about to touch down, you can see the right pilot move his left hand to the throttle and his right hand from his knee (I will assume that he grabbed the stick, although I cannot see that in the video). (Note, the left pilot keeps his both hands on the controls too during all times, which is normal for an instruction flight, where the student keeps his hands on the controls even when the instructor is flying to "follow" his movements and gain the motor skills and coordination). Then he adds full power as the plane is touching down. The airspeed by then is inside the white arc close to the stall speed, which is normal in small GA planes when the plane is touching down.
As they start the go-around, there is another abrupt drop in the airspeed indication and the plane banks left (did they stall and lose lateral control?). Could there have been a wingtip strike at this stage, perhaps causing some damage?
However, the plane keeps flying and very quickly gains airspeed which goes back well within the white arc. They level the wings and start what seems to be a nice climb, with a healthy airspeed and climb rate.
Because they had veered left during the previous sequence, they are no heading towards trees at the side of the runway, but it doesn't seem that they would have problems to climb above them or turn back right towards the runway, which they actually start to do when they bank a bit right.
But then they (it looks to me that it was the left pilot) pulls back on the throttle during some 3 or 4 seconds, I have no idea why he would do that in these circumstances. They don't lose much airspeed in the process but they do lower the nose a bit causing a reduction in climb rate which momentarily approaches to zero.
When they add full power again they still have a speed clearly above (but close to) stall speed, but they are flying very close to tree tops.
They bank a bit left (don't know why) and fly extremely close by a tree top. While there is no obvious evidence in the video, perhaps they contacted that tree top with the left wing.
But they finally seem to clear it and to start to climb back to safety.
Except that now they pull up too much and start to loose airspeed again.
They start to bank left again (again I don't know why, I would want to keep my wings level in that circumstances) and, when the airspeed reaches the stall speed, not surprisingly the left roll increases out of control.
In what was perhaps the last fatal move, they seem to move the stick right and back (when there was no more performance to extract by pulling back).
They roll inverted and the rest is history.
While there is nothing gruesome about the video, it is very disturbing (it was to me at least).
Discretion is advised and click at your own risk.
(If you are going to watch it for safety analysis, I advise selecting HD to be able to better see the instruments).
The part that I am interested in is the sequence that led to the accident. I would have cut the impact itself if I was able to.
What I see:
The left pilot (student?) is flying the approach. You can see hes left hand on the throttle and his right hand on the stick, while the right pilot (instructor?) is monitoring and has his hands on his knees.
The airspeed in the beginning of the sequence well inside the white arc (that goes from flaps stall speed to flaps max speed), more towards the fast end than the slow end.
(In this other poor quality video of the same accident, you can see that some seconds before they were flying at about the fast end of the white arc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9qxD1n9Mu4)
As the airplane flares, you can see the airspeed indication drop in less than one second from clearly in the fast half of the white arc to clearly in the slow half. The airplane cannot slow down so fast, so that was either a tail wind gust (or sudden reduction in the headwind) or a problem with the airspeed indicator, which I would have not normally thought of.
As the plane is about to touch down, you can see the right pilot move his left hand to the throttle and his right hand from his knee (I will assume that he grabbed the stick, although I cannot see that in the video). (Note, the left pilot keeps his both hands on the controls too during all times, which is normal for an instruction flight, where the student keeps his hands on the controls even when the instructor is flying to "follow" his movements and gain the motor skills and coordination). Then he adds full power as the plane is touching down. The airspeed by then is inside the white arc close to the stall speed, which is normal in small GA planes when the plane is touching down.
As they start the go-around, there is another abrupt drop in the airspeed indication and the plane banks left (did they stall and lose lateral control?). Could there have been a wingtip strike at this stage, perhaps causing some damage?
However, the plane keeps flying and very quickly gains airspeed which goes back well within the white arc. They level the wings and start what seems to be a nice climb, with a healthy airspeed and climb rate.
Because they had veered left during the previous sequence, they are no heading towards trees at the side of the runway, but it doesn't seem that they would have problems to climb above them or turn back right towards the runway, which they actually start to do when they bank a bit right.
But then they (it looks to me that it was the left pilot) pulls back on the throttle during some 3 or 4 seconds, I have no idea why he would do that in these circumstances. They don't lose much airspeed in the process but they do lower the nose a bit causing a reduction in climb rate which momentarily approaches to zero.
When they add full power again they still have a speed clearly above (but close to) stall speed, but they are flying very close to tree tops.
They bank a bit left (don't know why) and fly extremely close by a tree top. While there is no obvious evidence in the video, perhaps they contacted that tree top with the left wing.
But they finally seem to clear it and to start to climb back to safety.
Except that now they pull up too much and start to loose airspeed again.
They start to bank left again (again I don't know why, I would want to keep my wings level in that circumstances) and, when the airspeed reaches the stall speed, not surprisingly the left roll increases out of control.
In what was perhaps the last fatal move, they seem to move the stick right and back (when there was no more performance to extract by pulling back).
They roll inverted and the rest is history.
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