http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief ... 4853&key=1

Click on the "Full Narrative"

Anyone know more about this? What would they be spraying for up there during the winter?

Phil

The operation is hauling fuel up to the mine at Stibnite. Activity at the mine is in an upswing. A very sad thing for the Ag business as it instantly wipes out the profit and then some...

I used to haul fuel in the Arctic with a Pawnee, and it SUCKS!!!!

Take off is fine and fun, cruise is fine and fun, but those airplanes don't like landing full and heavy. Maybe it was just me, but they are a twitchy handfull with that hopper full of gas. I can't imagine at higher altitudes.

Gump

Assuming he was landing at JC or was he at the mine itself?

AvidFlyer wrote:Assuming he was landing at JC or was he at the mine itself?

The day after, it showed up on the NTSB reports I get.. I looked at the archives of the web cam at Johnson creek and didn't see anything strange in the snow on the runway... Altho he could have done the dirty deed on the north 1/2 the cam does not show...

I've been to stibnite numerous times... The strip is wide and long but the approach is tricky.. Takeoff is a sharp left turn down the canyon .

I couldn't find any further information at the time or now, but when this first showed up in the Preliminary Accident and Incident Notices, there were TWO identical Rockwell International S-2R's that crashed the same day at Yellow Pine. Both owned by Valley Air Service out of Caldwell.

Yes, everybody is fine. The party's involved are friends of mine and it was a helluva run of bad luck trying out a new way of possibly helping to make the payments through winter.

Yes, they both were at the Stibnite mine. There was nothing at all to do with JC. The run was Cascade to Stibnite full, empty return to Cascade. Diesel.

In my opinion they were both just bad luck due to the operating environment. I will say that around 50 loads were made with no incidents whatsoever in between the "issues".

#1 was just a sinker while heavy coming over the trees on short final that resulted in a heavy bounce. He got it under control and landed but rolling out the gear leg collapsed.

#2 I'm not as clear on but it sounds as though the mine was keeping the strip graded smooth with snow as it's natural dirt profile is fairly rough to be landing loaded ag planes on. We had a fairly warm winter here so in the middle of the day they were making a scrape pass to clear the slushy layer off and I believe this load was late in the day just after the scrape and also shortly after the sun had gotten behind the hill. The shade and the scraping combo basically made it sheer ice in short order and as he was rolling out it started to get a little sideways, no effective braking of course and even a shot of power didn't help straighten it out so it was fairly low speed and under control but a slow slide into the bank on one side and as the wing grabbed it spun the prop into the snow bank.

Same result both times, very expensive engines and props mostly, with the odd gear leg and a bit of sheet metal work thrown on top.

This couldn't have happened to a nicer group of people, unfortunately, but with their amazing resources and resiliency they have both airplanes basically back together already. Even with having to overcome the "remote" nature of having to get into the woods with resources to fix them.
Albeit a little light in the checkbook to be starting the regular season, they will be fine. Many of us offered to help out, I offered one of my Thrushes to do any early row crop down in the valley as they had other aircraft in annual and also offered to put my 180 on the skis to help move parts into Stibnite. They have their own extensive group of resources and basically took care of all angles on their own but were appreciative of the offers.

Not sure what the long term plans are to continue the project in the future for either side. In general it is doable but probably not off of an ice runway consistently.
If you have ever gone through a long winter with expensive pieces of equipment to pay for you have to at least respect their open minded forethought to try something new to keep the shoes on the kids. Most importantly everyone is fine.

DC3. If it will fit in there. Or so my thinking goes. I wonder if anyone has hauled fuel in a Ford Tri-motor. They get in and out pretty short. Never mind.

Thanks for clearing that up lowflyin'G3. When I first saw it in the Accident Reports I thought it must have been a mistake. Never saw anything else after that.

I just bought a place outside of Auburn, WY. I'm going to have to look you up sometime this summer.