Well, I bet none of us saw that one coming. I certainly didn’t, and can’t recall anyone suggesting it as a cause.
I have a couple of portable CO alarms in the house (we bought this house last November – there’s an always-on AGA in the kitchen which is where the dog sleeps, so I thought an alarm would be prudent and bought a couple), so perhaps I will add the spare to my flying bag.
The Vagabond has no cabin heater and is invariably flown with the window open so that’s not too much of a worry, but the colour-spot CO detector in the TB10….. I’d never notice if it changed.
Interesting development
I would bet a lot that this (CO2) was NOT the cause of the crash.
Hmmmm. That’s an interesting one. They were flying low level, so no need to pressurize. Do we know at what level they flew the outbound leg to Nantes ? If that was also flown at low level, perhaps the pressurization didn’t work and/or the pilot didn’t know how to operate it. Could be yet another hole in the cheese.
Not suggesting for a moment that maintenance is relevant here, but pressurised planes need a whole lot more maintenance care. If the door seals etc are shagged, it won’t pressurise, so there is no point in trying.
I recall a funny (not funny at the time) story about a CJ on a ferry flight at FL300…
And it is clear this plane was not used for high altitude flight. You can’t do it in Europe in any meaningful way unless you have an IR and file Eurocontrol IFR and for that you need Mode S which this one didn’t have.
boscomantico wrote:
I would bet a lot that this (CO2) was NOT the cause of the crash.
Why? I can’t see how the passenger could be so affected and the pilot not?
Also, CO rather than CO2.
Well, a lot of people who were highly critical of that pilot may end up with mud on their face now.
And I am also highly critical of myself for not having a CO detector built in. I think I will have to talk to my good pal Ingo at BAC Aviation about that. He made one and certified it after the Dallach crash.
I have it from another owner (of several years’, and a diligent guy) that CO inflow is much less likely if operated pressurised.
I couldn’t work out how that might be the case from the diagram, but I’m probably missing something.
It would not be that technically difficult to build a CO detector into the cabin air stream and have it close a valve to isolate the heat exchanger if it detected CO, would it?
