A DeHaviland Beaver crashed on departure from Stehekin on Lake Chelan in Washington State Saturday. Five SOB, two passengers died, pilot and two others survived. A charter plane owned by Chelan Airways. I just read this in the Sunday paper...don't know anymore than this.

Have a look here:

http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories ... 89b05.html

From eyewitnesses it sounds as if it might have been wheels down on amphib floats.

Probably too soon to know for sure.

TD

On some retracs like 210's, they have a horn that sounds if the wheels are up when MP is low. Do they have the opposite for anfibs?

The pilot is about my age and short term memory loss is becoming an issue. A check list is more important for me now then 10 years ago. If I offer any of you a ride and I do not break out the check list, just stay on the ground.

Tim

My Bonanza has that too. Pull the power back to about 13 inches with the wheels up and the horn goes off. Problem with the seaplane is the airplane doesn't know if the wheels are supposed to be up or down for landing.

A lot of amphip seaplanes have Lake & Air's gear advisory system. It is set to activate at a certain airspeed, set for each plane. When airspeed slows to that number, an audible voice comes over the headset saying "Gear is up for water landing". or "gear is down for hard surface landing", in addition a light flashes on the panel, you must then press the button to stop the warning. I think all planes with Wip's or Aerocet's have it, and the sytem is optional for most other planes. Last summer a Husky landed gear down on the water near here, and there have been several others I'm aware of in the past few years. It was my understanding that the Husky had the advisory system and they either ignored it or it wasn't working right.

See:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/642 ... crash.html

On THE PURPLE BOARD FOR PILOTS forum someone posted a video of the actual crash of the float plane. If you want to look at it. Go to the above board in the thread category Doh, look for a thread with the subject: 2 Killed in float plane crash in the cascades.

Bob, that was a different crash, that vid has been around for awhile. I think the new crash was a beaver.

Bob,
The posted video is from a similar incident, but not the Chelan crash.
Matt

Oh, thats right it was a Beaver on amphib floats. My mistake.

The story I heard was this. I talked to a pilot friend who just happened to be at the Chelan airport when this Beaver was fueling up with his passengers for that very trip and even had a friendly chat with the Beaver pilot before he departed. This charter/airline service previously only used non-amphib Beavers for the daily trips to north end of Lake Chelan and recently come under new ownership who purchased a amphib Beaver keeping the original pilot who for years flew only straight non-wheeled floats. The Beaver landed on the lake with the wheels down. You can make your own assumption as to why the wheels were not retracted. Very sad event. Two deaths, and ruined the life of the surviving pilot who sounds like he was a great guy. John