First, here is what the press has reported about the crash so far

http://www.ktvb.com/home/Plane-crashes- ... 22983.html

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2011/09/0 ... dwell.html

And now I hope I don't stir up a hornet's Nest with this comment.
This plane took off directly ahead of me Sunday morning at 8:00 am, he announced he was taking off from runway 12, for a downwing departure to the west. Then a few seconds later he said he was "doing a short landing on runway 12". I watched as he got about 50 feet into the air, then landed on the remaining runway and turned off at the east end. When I took off a minute later he was in the runup area with his engine running. About 20 minutes later I heard him anounce that he was taking off from runway 30, straight out departure. I didn't hear anything more from him, and didn't get back to Caldwell untill monday afternoon, so I was suprised to see the lead story on ch.7 was this plane crashed at the west end of the runway.
The 2 questions that I don't expect the FAA to find an answer to are:
1 what problem did he have that made him abort 50 feet in the air on his first takeoff?
2 what, if anything, did he do during those 15 minutes at the end of the runway, and why did he takeoff afgain?

Having cold seized numerous rotax engines, I always wonder about those things. Some perform flawlessly though so it could be anything.

I lost a good friend recently to a cold seizure as well. There was evidence of one before he had an overhaul. Unfortunately, the second one proved fatal. A proper break-in and warm up are very very important on those Rotax engines.

Cold seizure on a 912? Two stroke, yes, but a four stroke? Guess it could happen, but I doubt it.

I agree with hafast. I've never heard of a 912 cold seizure.

I've had two different 912 engines run very rough on takeoff (one multiple times), even after what I thought was more than sufficient warm up time (oil temp off the peg, etc.) Neither one ever fully seized, but both made me want to be back on the ground. One such case was late summer (early morning). Both resolved as motor heated further. Based on these experiences, I've come to regard the 912 as a fairly cold-blooded powerplant, even in summertime.

No idea whether this has anything to do with this wreck. Condolences to friends and family.

Here's some news source.
http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=138373

RanchPilot wrote:I've had two different 912 engines run very rough on takeoff (one multiple times), even after what I thought was more than sufficient warm up time (oil temp off the peg, etc.) Neither one ever fully seized, but both made me want to be back on the ground. One such case was late summer (early morning). Both resolved as motor heated further. Based on these experiences, I've come to regard the 912 as a fairly cold-blooded powerplant, even in summertime.

No idea whether this has anything to do with this wreck. Condolences to friends and family.

The aircraft database shows the aircraft engine to be a 912ULS, so the engine in question is definitely a four stroke.

The Rotax installation instructions call for the engine oil pump to suck through the oil cooler. This means that if the oil is cold, the pump will cavitate. This can be seen on a cold start when the run up is done, and the oil pressure actually drops with increasing rpm. The manual recommends to allow the oil to reach 50C before take off. I haven't seen any cavitation at that temperature.

The original poster said that he saw the plane attempt to take off. That would have been plenty of warming, so the failed flight would have been done with warm enough oil. But, if the first attempt was insufficiently warm, and the pilot saw the oil pressure go down, that might account for the aborted takeoff. Perhaps this damaged the engine and is the cause of the problem.

Since I fly that same engine, I will be very interested in hearing what the ultimate cause is. I lost a friend back in 1983 in a homebuilt that structurally failed. The information sharing on internet was not available then, and I can't help but wonder if he would have chosen a different plane, or changed his build methods if he had the resources we enjoy now.

tom

It is being reported on another site from witnesses that this was a departure stall / spin. Possible engine failure and an attemt to turn back for the runway ??

So when does an engine failure, if there was one, cause one to stall, spin, and crash in an uncontrolled manner? In other words, so what if the engine quit, they apparently were still within the airport area and the result should not have been such as it was. I think this discussion should be more about stall/spins on departure then possible engine failure, and I don't care if it was the crank or losing the prop, fly the airplane! Maybe I'm blase about power off flight, but I have several hours again this year flying dead stick/ridge soaring and like to think losing power would not lead to losing the airplane when clear landings sites are available. No matter what the final cause of an engine failure, if any, they lost control of the aircraft. Sad deal.

BTW, about 5 minutes ago during my latest oil change I remembered to check my magnetic oil plug on my 912S, I don't think I've checked it in 4 or 500 hours, and the thing was clean as a whistle, zip, zero, nada metallic debris. 892 hrs TT and short of letting it idle too long at colder oil temps, which leads to some minor carb icing, and that was easily remedied by a oil thermostat AND a oil cooler shutter, cockpit controlled. That icing caused roughness but no more then that, and quickly dispersed with throttle runup, just a stumble really. The last engine failure I had was in a Lycoming 0-320 at 400', while the cause was too much air in the fuel tanks, the landing was uneventfull. Any pilot who has not flown his aircraft deadstick just to see what it feels like, is really missing out on important safety training. Shock cooling issues would be the only reason not to I suppose.

I agree to a certain extent. During my initial training engine out drills were a constant. Emergency procedures yada yada. When I had my fist engine out guess what I did... emergency procedures (carb heat, switch tanks hit starter switch and BAMMMM hit the ground straight in) I did what I was trained to do from the get go. TRy for a restart... never mind the fact that I had no chance of a restart at 75' hanging on the prop to clear the tree line, the first thought was restart. I got busy for 3 seconds inside the cockpit and I augered in. I was fortunate enough to walk away from that one with a very good lesson that had been taught to me, but not ingrained like the emergency procedures... Fly the flippin plane first, worry about a restart second. On engine failures #2 and #3 I did just that. Established glide, had a game plan for where I was going to crash, then went for a restart. I was fortunate enough to have the opprotunity to learn from #1, but way too many do not.

It is a whole different ball game practicing. You pull the power and say Gee whiz, where am I gonna land, knowing full well you have the ability to add power and keep going. When you are climbing hard, hear a big ass bang the the propr stops turning, chances are that being you are human you have a second or two of the ole OH SHIT factor that kicks in. Sometimes that second ort two does not really matter as you have time to sort things out. On take off at VERY low altitude that second or two is a life time, and very well could be the difference between life and death. Every individual handles stress and emergencies differently. I was one cocky SOB and thought nothing could rattle me and after having 500 trouble free hours in the air I was the best damn pilot out there. Well, sometimes the ego writes checks your body can't cash..
We can armchair quarter back this to death, but the bottom line is, until each and every one of us is put in that situation you really dont know how you will react. I would love top say that we are all top notch pilots and will do everything right and rise to the occation. The simple truth is that is just not the case.

one other thought... its been a few years ago but I lost a good buddy up here to a stall / spin. He was overflying the strip checking it out when the cowling popped open on a borrowed 170. This had happened to this guy before and he just landed as normal. This time it resulted in a spin. The only thing we could come up with was that the passenger probably saw something fly up and cover the windshield and in a natural flinch stomped a rudder pedal. Nothing that the pilot can do about passenger movements at that low of and altitude.

I took my mom up flying one day to get pictures of bears. As I did a low pass in the 172, she tried to turn in her seat real quick to take more pics... guess what she did in-advertantly.. yep, she stomped the rudder. I was fortunate enough to recover (altitude was about 50'). To this day I cant tell you how I got that plane back as it all happened so damn fast, but I did. Sometimes shit just happens that is beyond our control. The FAA just loves to say "the cause was pilots failure to maintain control of the aircraft" Sometimes, the control of the aircraft is beyond our control. It should not be that way, but sometimes it just is.

Even seasoned pilots have made the mistake of not putting the nose down after an engine out during climbout. Even a few seconds of hesitation can be fatal. At 1000fpm sink you eat up 100ft in 6 seconds. The desire to extend the glide can lead to a stall very quickly. Coupled with the desire to head back to the relative safety of the runway and you suddenly have a no recovery situation. It is counter-intuitive to shove the nose at the ground when your mind is wanting to keep the plane in the air as long as possible.
I fly a pusher and an engine out on take-off gets exciting instantly as the nose leaps skyward. But even tractor planes will lose an insane amount of altitude and speed if you are doing an extreme climbout. We all do it. The wheels are barely off the ground and the stick is in our lap. Climbing out at just above stall speed. If the engine quits, you're a lawn dart.
All my instructors have driven home the saying, "FLY THE PLANE".
The is an article in the latest EAA Sport Aviation magazine about this problem.

Nosedragger wrote:Having cold seized numerous rotax engines, I always wonder about those things. Some perform flawlessly though so it could be anything.

I'm curious what you did to cause the seizure, and why/how you did it multiple times. Sounds expensive. Your lack of detail and "wondering" suggests that you have a more broad knowledge of engines rather than a detailed one. No offense intended, I'm just trying to qualify your comments.

The Rotax 912 4-stroke has liquid cooled heads, which allows it to run tighter tolerances as the cylinder cooling is more efficient and effective than traditional air-cooled-only boxers, which compensate for uneven cooling with more ring gap. The result is higher piston speeds and better compression in a smaller displacement. Power to weight ratio is excellent.

For every Rotax that quits there are probably 3 Lycomings and Continentals that have quit from catastrophic failure of some engine internal that has suffered from uneven cooling over time. I know there is something of a distrust of Rotax from direct-drive air-cooled traditionalists, but the numbers are actually in favor of Rotax if I recall. Since they are used more often on a varied fleet of who-knows-what amateur homebuilts of all shapes and sizes, culprits like poorly designed/implemented fuel delivery and improper setup are more a concern than on certified aircraft.

Sad day in Caldwell any way you slice it, hate to see that.

My condolences to the friends and family of this couple. Sad thing to see.

Where I fly, the lake starts a few hundred feet past the end of the runway. Everyone says not to turn around for fear of a stall and you have a few miles till your over dirt again. I do a short field takeoff every time and get as much altitude as I can before going over the water. I figure if my engine quits I'll just turn while keeping my eye on the airspeed. If I can't get turned around at least I'll crash closer to shore. Just hope I never have to deal with that!

Crashing at an approach speed and angle into trees, water, rocks, ect is better than going straight into the ground with zero control. I keep my conscious happy when flying the backcountry that if I had an engine out and kept control of it all the way down I could hit the ground at 45mph. If you've ever seen a G force vs speed chart it looks very similar to a speed vs drag chart. As speed increases G forces increase exponentially. The higher the G's the less survivability. Even slowing down 5 mph could be survivable vs well not.

If she quits right after take off get the nose down immediately!! I've been through one engine out right after rotate and tore the gear off an airplane but walked away. As already mentioned things happen extremely fast in that phase of flight.

It was a sobering sight as I crossed mid field at Caldwell Sunday morning to see the wreckage of the Kitfox and emergency people at the sight. Even worse when I was told there were 2 fatalities.
Please everyone practice some dead stick flying. And keep a constant eye out for emergency landing spots. I had a partial power situation on climb out from a low pass over the runway and yes I did stall. It is difficult to remain clam and collected when things go south. I was lucky to have enough altitude to get back to the runway after stall recovery.
Dave

Zane wrote:

Nosedragger wrote:Having cold seized numerous rotax engines, I always wonder about those things. Some perform flawlessly though so it could be anything.

I'm curious what you did to cause the seizure, and why/how you did it multiple times. Sounds expensive. Your lack of detail and "wondering" suggests that you have a more broad knowledge of engines rather than a detailed one. No offense intended, I'm just trying to qualify your comments.

The Rotax 912 4-stroke has liquid cooled heads, which allows it to run tighter tolerances as the cylinder cooling is more efficient and effective than traditional air-cooled-only boxers, which compensate for uneven cooling with more ring gap. The result is higher piston speeds and better compression in a smaller displacement. Power to weight ratio is excellent.

For every Rotax that quits there are probably 3 Lycomings and Continentals that have quit from catastrophic failure of some engine internal that has suffered from uneven cooling over time. I know there is something of a distrust of Rotax from direct-drive air-cooled traditionalists, but the numbers are actually in favor of Rotax if I recall. Since they are used more often on a varied fleet of who-knows-what amateur homebuilts of all shapes and sizes, culprits like poorly designed/implemented fuel delivery and improper setup are more a concern than on certified aircraft.

Sad day in Caldwell any way you slice it, hate to see that.

I've been victim of numerous snowmobile engine failures so a rotax in an airplane gives me hives. My current mod has a rotax watercraft engine in it that requires carb heat on cold crisp days to keep it from burning down.

akavidflyer wrote:one other thought... its been a few years ago but I lost a good buddy up here to a stall / spin. He was overflying the strip checking it out when the cowling popped open on a borrowed 170. This had happened to this guy before and he just landed as normal. This time it resulted in a spin. The only thing we could come up with was that the passenger probably saw something fly up and cover the windshield and in a natural flinch stomped a rudder pedal. Nothing that the pilot can do about passenger movements at that low of and altitude.

I took my mom up flying one day to get pictures of bears. As I did a low pass in the 172, she tried to turn in her seat real quick to take more pics... guess what she did in-advertantly.. yep, she stomped the rudder. I was fortunate enough to recover (altitude was about 50'). To this day I cant tell you how I got that plane back as it all happened so damn fast, but I did. Sometimes shit just happens that is beyond our control. The FAA just loves to say "the cause was pilots failure to maintain control of the aircraft" Sometimes, the control of the aircraft is beyond our control. It should not be that way, but sometimes it just is.

Kinda' the same thing happened to me..had a young woman in my 170 taking low shots of a friend of mine in a Super Decathalon..maybe 200 ft off the ground. As we were in a left turn, him slightly behind me, she turned around to her right to take a series of pictures and put preasure on the right rudder..I instinctively pulled her left knee back to relieve the pressure. She gave me kind of a funny look and I explained that this was exactly what I talked about in the preflight..please keep her feet off the rudder pedals. Also reminds me of the guy taking videos in the Stearman..stood up on the rudder pedals to take a better picture and locked up the breaks on landing and flipped the plane.

courierguy wrote:So when does an engine failure, if there was one, cause one to stall, spin, and crash in an uncontrolled manner? .....

I saw an airplane which was having some sort of engine issue just after takeoff (I was told later it was only a low oil pressure reading) turn & fly down all 4 or 5 thousand feet of the closed runway at Arlington WA airport, low & slow, and then stall & crash when he turned to land on the crosswind runway. Could have landed anywhere on the closed runway by just closing the throttle & flaring, but apparently he was focussed on landing on "the runway". So there's no telling just how someone's gonna react under pressure.
And this was in an Ercoupe, so don't let anyone tell you they can't stall.