[IMG]http://conrad.st/images/16116563.jpg[/IMG]
Nobody has anything to say about this yet?
One witness said the plane never made it off the ground after "sliding and skidding" down the runway.
"Usually we see them lift off, but this one just went straight and started scratching the ground. There were sparks shooting out all over the place," said Joseph Massaro, a psychologist who lives nearby.
Associated Press, from http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1107352522746_13/?hu...
Maybe a gear failure on the take-off roll?
Of course, maybe it was just good old-fashioned ice contamination, and the skidding and sparks the witness refers to occured after the pilots tried to stop or after they departed the runway.
I know it takes time for a good investigation, but at the same time I hate that it takes months or longer until we know what actually happened with these things.
All Comments
Ice may not have been a major factor, ice forms because of precip/moisture obviously, and ice just doesn't hang onto aircraft day after day unless we are talking about the artic. Just because there is snow/ice on the ground doesn't mean there was any on the aircraft. We err on the side of caution as far as ice, but aircraft like that challenger have an excess of performance, and getting an aircraft off the ground with ice can usually be acheived. Getting it into the second segment climb on the other hand may be impossible, as with an accident here a few years ago. In other words getting it off and into "ground effect" height can usually be possible, but getting it more than 20 feet above may not be.
It sounds like the aircraft reached V1, as the report I heard said that it was at nearly 150mph, but we really won't know untill we see an accident report. We can E-speculate of course.
wonder if it could have been a control problem with the elevator? I've seen more than one accident report where pilots encountering a problem on takeoff simply thought "more power/go faster" would solve it, when it may have had nothing to do with the problem.
There's just so many things that could have gone wrong though, gear collapse, tire blowout, fuel contamination, controls, etc...
Well... ice/frost or powerplant problems (possibly even both), will have to be determined by NTSB and FAA folks. About all the speculation I can offer is that it looks like the thrust reversers were deployed from the look of the engines in the picture, so they obviously had been trying to slow down... but was it already beyond the safe abort point on rollout, or was there black ice on the runway?
In any case, as painful as the wait for an answer is going to be, the one conclusion we can draw from this is that everyone is VERY lucky to have made it out of this alive! And THAT, more than anything else, atests to the skill of the pilots. There may have been a mechanical issue, or bad judgement in taking the plane up if there was ice on it, but in the end, the actions taken to try to slow that plane down saved lives (along with other surface contact features like the snow burm and roadway).
They must have had their lucky rabbit's foot keychain for the aircraft keys on this one!
OK - no speculation, except to counter one thing that Stryker brought up. For those of us that fly in winter in the north, particularly near large bodies of water (down to and including large rivers), frost is a real threat. That means that it's a possibility in this case, no more, no less. The NTSB usually does a good job with these things (although I do disagree with the TWA 800 conclusions. Not that I think there was a missle, but I do think there are some other strong possibilities), so we'll find out in due course.
Important thing is that no one perished. Although there was a huge financial loss, probably with more to come during the inevitable litigation that will come, but that's no biggie if you really think about it...
A news clip I saw yesterday claimed the pilot said he pulled the yoke to rotate and it was stuck - while he was at 175 mph. Another Challenger crashed a couple months back in a similar accident, where ice and frost were also suggested, but who knows. The NTSB usually gets the accident details right, but not always, but they don't do a very good job of perusing their own data base for patterns that others often do find and report.
Sure, but like I hinted at above, did something bind/fail before the run-up, or after?
I don't know which way I hope this turns out. If it's mechanical failure, then it's bad and it causes people to worry about aircraft safetly, inadequate maintenance, inadequate regulatory oversight, etc.
But if it's pilot error (e.g. didn't check flight controls during run-up), then that's bad too, and has people worried about pilot training, inadequate safeguards against human fallibility, inadequate regulation, etc.
Bad either way. But still, some great high-speed taxiing at the end.
Chad
The NTSB just ruled on this accident. Seems it was overloaded and out of CG. That will definitely do it.
The Bombardier Challenger was fully loaded with fuel, 2 pilots, 1 cabin crew, 6 passengers and all their luggage and that the center of gravity was too far forward. Apaprently they ran computer sims on the data and were unable to rotate the plane in the sim. The report also ruled out icing on the wings as a causal factor.
Date: 3/26/2005 9:50:39 AM
Author: Stryker
The NTSB just ruled on this accident. Seems it was overloaded and out of CG. That will definitely do it. ...
Yup, that would do it. But were did you see this conclusion? When I search their database, I don't get any probably cause yet, just the preliminary synopsis.
Ah, yes, I found it too:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61683-2005Mar23.html
The Washington Post is probably reliable; the NTSB's web site must just be behind.
Huh, CG too far forward.* I didn't even think of something that simple.
Maybe the heavy weight helps explain why it was so hard to stop, too
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