Sounds like icing was the culprit. Any of you AK guys know who the pilot was? Buddy of mine flys for them and I can't get ahold of him.

http://www.adn.com/2011/05/16/1865537/3 ... devac.html



Gump

Wasn't him.

New guy, but not new to the B200. 6.8 out of Atqasuk lined up for Rwy 6, put the final notch down, and fell out of the sky. Ice, ice, and more ice.

Gump

GumpAir wrote:Wasn't him.
New guy, but not new to the B200. 6.8 out of Atqasuk lined up for Rwy 6, put the final notch down, and fell out of the sky. Ice, ice, and more ice.
Gump

Flaps "when" is the question, T tails maybe even worse.
An old FAA examiner friend Walt Henning told me early flaps load the tail with ice much faster.He landed an Aztec , chop and drop 5k thru ice with no flaps until the last minute,and still landed hot / 200fpm drop with full power alone with 1/2 fuel.He said he was very lucky to be lined up with the runway.
There was 3" of ice on the front of the nose landing light.

There's not much in this world I'm a' scared of.... But ice make me most uncomfortable. Pucker even.

I still get chills thinking of some landings with everything, and I mean everything, shoved full forward, airspeed falling faster than the VSI, and hoping I could stay airborne for 10 more seconds to make it to the runway. And still not seeing the runway. With the ice sculptures growing off the leading edges like something in a Tim Burton movie.

That's the shit nightmares are made of.

Gump

Reminds us that the old King Air is a tough bird.
Gump.... do you know the Eskimo guy that flies helos SAR at Barrow?
Never had a pilot cert. in his life. All "public use" flying for his career.

Yeah, Price Brower. Very good stick.

King Airs ARE tough birds, but even they won't fly without a tail. I talked to them last night, and that crew is very, very lucky.

Sad too. Brand new PT-6's, like 25 hours new, and a $ 500K glass panel in the thing.

Gump

We trained them on new synthetic vision glass recently. Lots of good equipment up there to work with. Too bad the new engines are wrecked. Have flown the 90.... but never with a load of ice.
Just too chicken for that. Pretty tough weather that far North. Noted the time of the flight- 2:30 AM when all the rest of us are snug in our beds. Gotta give 'em credit for working in really tough conditions, to get someone to the hospital.
Have a great weekend.

Does the King Air not have some amount of ice protection such as LE boots or heated flying surfaces? Forgive this question if it is (inadvertently) ridiculous, but isn't the King Air certified for known icing? I have not flown in any harsh weather conditions like that, so I'm definitely not questioning anyone's judgment, just asking for help understanding how/why this is or is not preventable.

Yes, lots of ice protection on a King Air 200. But, there are times when all the ice protection in the world isnt' going to do the job.

I remember one of Wien's 737 crews coming into Kodiak on an instrument approach, and when cleared, they informed ATC that there would be no missed approach....too much ice accumulated in the descent. That thing looked like a huge ice cube.

MTV

EZFlap wrote:Does the King Air not have some amount of ice protection such as LE boots or heated flying surfaces? Forgive this question if it is (inadvertently) ridiculous, but isn't the King Air certified for known icing? I have not flown in any harsh weather conditions like that, so I'm definitely not questioning anyone's judgment, just asking for help understanding how/why this is or is not preventable.

B-200's can and will be overpowered by ice. In this case they were lucky enough to power it to the ground without turning into a lawn dart. You can't see the tail from the cockpit, and can't tell what's happening back there with the boots, or the degree of ice buildup.

The other issue in Northwest/Arctic AK is the lack of weather reporting. Even now, most days out you're just guessing what you're gonna find except for at the airports themselves. That's a big place up there, and stuff changes fast, especially closer to the ground.

Gump

If Ice makes airplanes crash then spoons made Rosie O Donnell fat, cars make people drive drunk, and pencils miss spell words.

Sorry. I spent over 30 years picking up what was left of bad decisions. Not fun.

Bad decisions don't apply to ice a lot of times. Especially in the Arctic. You have this HUGE area, no people, no weather reporting, and dozens of micro weather systems operating. It's like launching into a one-way strip. Once you nose into unforecast icing and realize how bad it really is, you may many times be way beyond a point of no return to go back or start climbing. You do not have the options you have Lower 48. And if you're gonna work for a living by flying an airplane up there, especially medivac, this is a harsh reality of life.

The guy who whacked Barrow SAR King Air was an extremely experienced pilot. Viet Nam helo guy, flew the majors for years, and had thousands of hours bush time, as well as thousands of King Air hours. And, he does not have the "I always make it" attitude or arrogance. A quiet, competent guy.

Gump

GumpAir wrote:Bad decisions don't apply to ice a lot of times. Especially in the Arctic. You have this HUGE area, no people, no weather reporting, and dozens of micro weather systems operating. It's like launching into a one-way strip. Once you nose into unforecast icing and realize how bad it really is, you may many times be way beyond a point of no return to go back or start climbing. You do not have the options you have Lower 48. And if you're gonna work for a living by flying an airplane up there, especially medivac, this is a harsh reality of life.

The guy who whacked Barrow SAR King Air was an extremely experienced pilot. Viet Nam helo guy, flew the majors for years, and had thousands of hours bush time, as well as thousands of King Air hours. And, he does not have the "I always make it" attitude or arrogance. A quiet, competent guy.

Gump

Your point is well taken Gump. When I read new guy I thought what experience level we talking? Now I know better. You know the old saying. Good decisions come from experience, experience comes from bad decisions.

Usually it is the less experienced who get whacked, but as we have seen all to often the last few years when your number is up game over.

So allow me to ask this. Have you heard of pilots who have balled up multiple planes from ice? Or, after 1 do they get ultra ice conservative?

Good day

It only took me once icing up a 172 to figure out that I dont need to fly on dark stormy nights..

I dont know if most of you guys have seen the old NASA icing tests using the twin otter but they are pretty damn eye opening. Most of the vidoes are on tail plane icing and the way the air separates and the airframe reacts is not really what one would expect.. the recovery proceedures were damn sure never taught to me in ground school or any subsequent training I had.

I am at work right now and cant post a link to the vids, but you should be able to do a search on youtube and find them. Damn sure worth watching!