Horrible. I wish the families strength. And a pity about the grounding, hope it gets clarified and lifted soon.
aart wrote:
And a pity about the grounding, hope it gets clarified and lifted soon.
It’s pretty unusual to ground a whole fleet so soon after an accident with unknown cause. If it actually is unknown…
@Airborne_Again wrote:
It’s pretty unusual to ground a whole fleet so soon after an accident with unknown cause. If it actually is unknown…
You are right – it seems that they must know something or they would not have taken such dramatic action. I admire the courage of Elixir to take this kind of action so quickly after losing two of their team. I hope they can find and solve the problem quickly.
General Mathieu Deflandre, commander of Air Base 721, described the event as involving a “severe technical failure.”
This indeed looks very serious.
Elixir don’t have the best track record when it comes to safety.
I still don’t understand how someone can look at this accident history and be like “yeah, I would love to be their test pilot”.
Most of those accidents are runway excursions… anecdotally I heard that they have tricky landing characteristics and a weak nosewheel design. Apparently Leading Edge got rid of theirs because students couldn’t land them.
I also heard that the accident in the OP was engine failure and a turn back attempt :(
I also heard that the accident in the OP was engine failure and a turn back attempt :(
This shows two normal circuits and a very tight one, which could be the turn back attempt. One of the French texts in the ASN reference mentions someone saw they deployed the chute, but too low for it to open fully.
What is the Elixir fleet size? That is what matters to the crash stats.
