This one has me thrown for a loop. Just don't hear many in flight breakup accidents in strut braced Cessna's...

http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2017/06/f ... 1.html?m=1

wow
pretty much my worst nightmare....

AOPA forums has a thread on it that has local flavor from area pilots. Short version of the general sense on the ground is that people think another plane really was involved.

This is alarming both as a Cessna driver and a IA that does annuals on similar aircraft. I'm sure his mechanic is shitting bricks right about now. Hopefully the NTSB/FAA come to the bottom of this.

In flight break-ups usually seem to involve either over speeding or over g-ing the airplane.

Several years ago I narrowly avoided being aboard a 185 that broke up in flight in the Alaska Range. The wreckage suggested that both wings folded downward before separating. Grapefruit-sized hail reported on the ground. Inflight breakup stories always make me think about the final moments.
R.I.P.
-DP

denalipilot wrote:Several years ago I narrowly avoided being aboard a 185 that broke up in flight in the Alaska Range. The wreckage suggested that both wings folded downward before separating. Grapefruit-sized hail reported on the ground. Inflight breakup stories always make me think about the final moments.
R.I.P.
-DP

Wow. Trying to get my brain around a failure like that. The forces required to fail essentially a propped/gusseted cantilever in that direction are staggering.

Tragic, RIP.

fiftynineSC wrote:

denalipilot wrote:Several years ago I narrowly avoided being aboard a 185 that broke up in flight in the Alaska Range. The wreckage suggested that both wings folded downward before separating. Grapefruit-sized hail reported on the ground. Inflight breakup stories always make me think about the final moments.
R.I.P.
-DP

Wow. Trying to get my brain around a failure like that. The forces required to fail essentially a propped/gusseted cantilever in that direction are staggering.

Tragic, RIP.

Excerpt from the accident report:

At a lodge 31 miles south of the accident site, people reported "a large wall of cumulus clouds" approaching from the south preceded by strong winds about the time of the crash.

The storm brought "the heaviest rain the (lodge) owner had ever observed," according to the report. When investigators later examined the plane wreckage, they found "that both wings separated from the fuselage in a downward direction."

With apologies for thread drift. This is just a topic that is personally close to home.
-DP

Very old airplane from a coastal environment. Maybe unseen corrosion?

I knew someone that was flying a 206 in the Billings MT area probably 15 or so years ago that shed the wings and went in. He got too close to a thunderstorm. Some people on horseback observed it.

I believe there is an Air Safety Institute video on youtube about a piper something that flew into a thunderstorm. It broke up and went down.

Scary stuff.

Storms carry alot of power. Many times its not seen. I have flown fairly far from them but still felt their effects.

I am interested to see what the cause will be, regarding the incident in the OP.

This may be the report on the Piper breakup Shadow Aviator mentioned. https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/Repor ... l&IType=FA

I was living in LaPine OR 30 miles south of Bend and was outside that day and time of the piper breakup watching that thunderstorm. It was a very nasty storm. When I saw the story in the paper the next day I couldn't believe someone had flown into it or even near it.

Wing tip vortices have caused similar dismembering of small aircraft that flew into them. I recall a similar accident report a few years ago for an RV in Florida that didn't survive flying just below a 737's flight path

Our airplanes are built incredibly well, extremely strong, but the winds and turbulence in even a smallish building thunderstorm are really vicious.

A bunch of years ago, Wife 2 and I were flying to LaCrosse, WI for a wedding, in a rental 1976 182. There was a line of thunderstorms in western Wisconsin. According to ATC, there was a 10 mile gap between cells, and it appeared lighter to me also. In addition, using the ADF method to detect lightning, there appeared to be no lightning activity straight ahead, but some to either side, so we penetrated at that point. We tightened our seat belts, but we were tossed around so hard that both of us banged into the sides and ceiling, and both doors popped open in spite of the deadbolt latches. It lasted only a few seconds, but like the John Denver song about spending Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio, "I spent a week there one day", it seemed like an eternity.

I've penetrated T-storm lines since, but with a much larger gap between cells, without encountering anything like that day. In fact, the last such event was both smooth and dry, although there were large storms to either side of the 25 mile gap. But no way in the world would I ever want to get into anything like that Wisconsin event ever again.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, there has been quite a discussion in the AOPA forum that suggests a military or quasi-military operation that went wrong and caused the breakup, and which is being kept under wraps. If that's true, that's a horrible situation.

Cary

Cary wrote:Meanwhile, back at the ranch, there has been quite a discussion in the AOPA forum that suggests a military or quasi-military operation that went wrong and caused the breakup, and which is being kept under wraps. If that's true, that's a horrible situation.

Cary

In today's "open kimono" military culture, this is highly unlikely, though not impossible.

Lotsa speculation on the AOPA's "Red Board" about whether (or if) a contractor flown aircraft based at Pt. Magu was involved. Also discussion of whether primary radar would go to the surface... which would provide a record of a possible collision or NMAC. At the moment the only thing out there is the airplane came apart. No T-Storms or other 'natural' turbulence is mentioned in anything on that board, the NTSB prelim report, or in news. I agree that in the "open kimono" culture of today it's unlikely we'll see a "cover up". More than careers are at stake... jail time is a plausible outcome for those who would falsify records.

I remember talking to a sorta friend that flew for the Air Guard years ago and he said he was flying a fighter in AZ and blew by a 172. Things happened so fast that the 172 was just lucky.

180Marty wrote:I remember talking to a sorta friend that flew for the Air Guard years ago and he said he was flying a fighter in AZ and blew by a 172. Things happened so fast that the 172 was just lucky.

Yeah. That's pretty much the story of the F-16 that smacked a bug smasher in Florida, and a similar accident just south of Chicago a few years before. In the Florida accident the jet jock knew the approximate location of the Cessna, and was instructed twice to turn, but delayed. I don't recall the specifics of the Chicago accident at the moment, but recall the jet jock cut the corner going onto an MTR with fatal consequences for the very experienced Cessna pilot. When any military or jet traffic is in the mix moving along at 300+ kts the FAA's "see and avoid" requirement is an impossible fiction for pilots of SEL piston engine aircraft .

It does happen, planes fail. You usually need something to innate it, like excessive g's. You can do this yourself by pulling really hard in a turn creating asymmetric forces on the aircraft. Weather can induce it by having columns of air moving in different directions, rapidly, causing a shear force. Or something can hit it. Another aircraft, drone, pterodactyl sized pelican.

Personally, I was an AEDO and worked from Pt. Magu a bit. There are lots of drone and missile test there. Lots of other agencies test and base there as well, like the FBI. I am actually a certified accident investigator and went to grad school on this while an AEDO in the Navy. All of the reports are missing a bunch of information. Things that do not line up well for me is the widely separated wreckage from a low flying aircraft. Lack of the usual suspects in the weather that can cause this. Midair collisions have fairly distinctive signatures on the recovered structure. Explosions also have distinctive signatures. Eyewitness reports are generally useless and have under a 20% validity rating in accidents.

So you have an aircraft reportedly flying lowish, somebody heard a bang. fuselage spun down alone. Parts found on the beach and inland an indeterminate distance away. Well that does not at all line up. Low flying breakup, small debris field in a few hundred yards. High breakup, debris field over several miles. If it hit something they tend to break up in sequence, something gets torn off, radical movement begins and stuff breaks off later, debris trail.

Now interesting incidents we had at Pt Magu. Missiles would decide things like boats or airliners to be more attractive targets than the test drone. They get destructed as soon as they vary from the predicted flight path. They are usually well offshore >3 miles typically 10-50 miles in the warning area. Weird aircraft hitting it, Well that takes a fairly large cover up. Too many people and agencies observing what goes on. Pt Magu is not Area 51. Lots of close calls with VFR coastline cruisers and student pilots. That area just south is a primary student pilot operating area from the local airports as far south as Santa Monica (When I trained there we flew up to that area as well). So a training aircraft didn't sneak back with damage, somebody might have noticed. Pt. Magu has really, really, really good air search radar and controllers. The radar can track targets with a 6" cross section. So they should have noticed something.

Weather. At my repair station we had a client who was born to die. First incident, he pulled so hard in his Bonanza at night IFR, that he totaled the aircraft. It was amazing it didn't fail in flight. Engine firewall bent so bad there was a 2" gap along the lower windshield. Wings visibly bent and oil canned all over, tail warped. He bought another Bonanza with the insurance money. Where a year later he bent it doing roughly the same thing. It was fixable, $75,000 fixable. I had a talk with him, as did my partner and our pilot. If the weather is bad, charter, this isn't your thing. Well two years later. He flew directly into a thunderstorm and broke up. His aircraft was thrown up as high as 50,000' and broke up with debris over 5 counties. I sold a 337 to a doctor, who two years later flew into a thunderstorm in Florida, it broke up with a 5 mile wide debris field. Killed him and his son as well. New King Air F-90 lost a wing when the bathtub fitting failed (King Air's only certified wing held on with bolts in tension anymore) It was a fairly tight debris field, one wing and everything else in another.

So a lot of missing information here. If the aircraft had major damage and repaired may have made it slightly compromised in strength. Nearly every 180/185 has been dinged at one time or another. If it isn't in the logbooks, they just didn't log it. Remarkably easy aircraft to repair. Lots of natural splices in the wing and fuselage. Actual weather reports not available, but it really does not look like there where thunderstorms and the lower portion is not the dangerous part for shear. It just pushes you down into an unplanned landing. If it was in the upper portion, then eyewitnesses would not have seen it. Wire strike, tight debris field. So it kind of leaves the he pulled kinda hard in a rolling turn at least 5,000' AGL to get everything to move apart like that. If so, then nobody on the ground would have heard a thing and usually wouldn't have seen much of the aircraft, being a dot and all far off (1 mile). He was a photographer and could have been maneuvering to take a pic. I do some tight turns when I do photo out of my 185, but it can take it, never more than a 1-1.5 g's or so. Fine if your level.

So not enough information, some conflicts. Pics of the fuselage do not look like collision, but you really need to lay hands on it to be sure. Both wings came off cleanly, but it is upside-down in the pics. If they fold up, the overhead compresses. It has not a lot of strength, ergo why you can put windows up there. The structure is in the struts down though the belly. That's where the beefy structure is. Just a couple of hat sections on the overhead. So intriguing accident. Have to follow this and see what comes out of the investigation, three years from now.