Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

All this talk of weather

With all this talk of weather it left me wondering how many GA iarcraft have come to grief in weather in EUROPE. I dont mean controlled flight into terrain, or loss of control in IMC associated with lack of qualifications, or weather related landing events, just pure and simple in flight break up?

A small but significant number.

Very few Socatas have broken up in flight, anywhere, but one TB20/21 did it in IIRC Sweden in a TS. Presumably he was well above Va, or had a loss of control and ended up well above Va.

But if you are talking about a random case of say a wing falling off in clear air, I can’t think of any certified type. I do recall reading some homebuilt/ultralight reports where a steel cable end crimped connection (not sure of the name) came undone in a high wing type and a wing came off.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Thanks Peter.

I guess what prompted the question is there has been much talk about weather and the DA42 video recently. In the 42s case he had radar but there are pilots without radar (and storm scopes) in GA that are prepared to put themselves in “the weather” either intentionally or otherwise and there are pilots possibly with radar and storm scopes who are prepared to use both or either to avoid the worst of the weather.

It occurs to me that perhaps surprisingly we seem to hear of very few accidents due entirely to encounters with highly convective cloud and extreme turbulence.

Maybe it is a reflection that most people manage to avoid it most of the time or get out of it pretty quickly or that in reality most of the time the aircraft is able to cope with a lot more than we realise.

Fuji_Abound wrote:

It occurs to me that perhaps surprisingly we seem to hear of very few accidents due entirely to encounters with highly convective cloud and extreme turbulence.

This one here from the year 2000 comes to mind: 1737_pdf (German language only). A well known stupid idiot based at my homebase flew home from Albenga “VFR” in his C340 and lost control in known and forecast thunderstorms over the Alps. He killed not only himself but his partner and their three children. Most probable cause according to the report is loss of control due to extreme turbulence and icing.

EDDS - Stuttgart

Peter wrote:

Very few Socatas have broken up in flight, anywhere, but one TB20/21 did it in IIRC Sweden in a TS. Presumably he was well above Va, or had a loss of control and ended up well above Va.

Have you any idea about when? I’m trying to find it on the Swedish Accident Investigation Authority website.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Peter wrote:

Very few Socatas have broken up in flight, anywhere, but one TB20/21 did it in IIRC Sweden in a TS. Presumably he was well above Va, or had a loss of control and ended up well above Va.

I think this relates to PH-UBG, a TB21 which crashed on 10 April 2001 in Belgium (Neeroeteren). The event is so old that the accident report is no longer online.

Newspaper reports suggested it flew into into a thunderstorm with hail

FlyerDavidUK, PPL & IR Instructor
EGBJ, United Kingdom

That accident which killed a friend of mine was attributed to flying into towering cumulus if I recall correctly

EHLE / Lelystad, Netherlands, Netherlands

If you are looking for a particularly gory example of a crash apparently in CAVOK conditions, see Beechcraft 95-B55 Baron, HB-GDS

It was much discussed around the place, pre-EuroGA, because it seems a complete mystery how one could come down with almost no forward speed and at a high vertical speed. The accident report on it was at this URL

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

a crash apparently in CAVOK conditions

According to the accident report, local copy this was a loss of control after apparent inadvertent VFR flight into IMC:

Le pilote s’est vraisemblablement retrouvé soudainement en conditions de vol aux instruments et ces manœuvres ont provoqué un décrochage avec de la puissance, conduisant à une perte de contrôle.

Page 15 has the webcam image of the accident site 7 minutes before the crash and an image of the plane’s trajectory, which illustrate the point.

Last Edited by Rwy20 at 07 Jun 08:19

Fuji_Abound wrote:

It occurs to me that perhaps surprisingly we seem to hear of very few accidents due entirely to encounters with highly convective cloud and extreme turbulence.

V tail Beech Bonanzas averaged about one fatality per month due to inflight structural failures over a period of about 30 years, late 40s to roughly 1980 when FAA applied some ADs that apparently worked well. Three or four hundred fatalities in all, IIRC. I’m sure most of those were weather related, in conjunction with rudimentary IMC instrumentation and the characteristics of the plane and pilots.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 07 Jun 09:06
23 Posts
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top