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Cessna 414A suffers in flight breakup over California residential area

By all appearances a classic VFR into IMC accident with a breakup when the pilot gets visual and tries to recover. So sad and so unnecessary.

Last Edited by Airborne_Again at 22 Feb 15:38
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

My guess is medical issues.

From the various videos the sound goes up and down, like if the plane climbs and descends, and then the sound increases to F1-rpm level (dive with full/high throttle?), which is when the engines probably broke up together with the wings.

This is all speculation, it might have also been control surface issues or disorientation in IMC.

Last Edited by Dimme at 07 Feb 10:08
ESME, ESMS

Weather has been awful here last 2 weeks. Low ceilings, torrential rain, high winds.

EuroFlyer wrote:

on beechtalk they say he was VFR and in IMC so no FPL

VFR ??? METARs around the accident time. And having been on the ground in L.A. that day, I can assure you, this was not the day to fly VFR, certainly not across the mountains that ring the L.A. basin.

That said, the absence of a track on Flightaware still doesn’t make sense. KFUL sits inside the 30Nm Mode C ‘veil’, so he must at least have had a transponder on.

__METAR/SPECI from KFUL, Fullerton, Fullerton Municipal Airport (United States). SA 03/02/2019 22:53→ __

METAR KFUL 032253Z 27005KT 10SM BKN017 BKN022 OVC041 15/11
A2988 RMK AO2 RAB18E28 SLP117 P0000 T01500106=

__SP 03/02/2019 22:27→ __

SPECI KFUL 032227Z 26005KT 10SM -RA SCT016 BKN036 OVC049
15/11 A2988 RMK AO2 RAB18 P0000 T01500111=

__SP 03/02/2019 22:08→ __

SPECI KFUL 032208Z 29004KT 10SM FEW014 BKN020 OVC047 15/11
A2988 RMK AO2 T01500111=

__SA 03/02/2019 21:53→ __

METAR KFUL 032153Z 23006KT 10SM SCT022 BKN041 OVC050 15/11
A2988 RMK AO2 RAE2057 SLP118 P0000 T01500106=

__SA 03/02/2019 20:53→ __

METAR KFUL 032053Z 21004KT 9SM -RA FEW017 BKN065 OVC075 14/11
A2990 RMK AO2 RAB32 SLP124 P0005 60018 T01390111
56015=

__SP 03/02/2019 20:41→ __

SPECI KFUL 032041Z 22003KT 2SM -RA FEW013 BKN032 OVC060 14/11
A2990 RMK AO2 RAB32 P0005 T01390111=

__SP 03/02/2019 20:33→ __

SPECI KFUL 032033Z 22009KT 2SM -RA BKN013 BKN020 OVC060 14/11
A2991 RMK AO2 RAB32 P0003 T01440111=

__SP 03/02/2019 20:17→ __

SPECI KFUL 032017Z VRB04KT 10SM SCT014 BKN020 OVC050 15/12
A2991 RMK AO2 T01500117

I don’t think that ignition source should be a great mystery. There is so much red hot metal in the exhaust and so many potential sources of spark that I would be surprised if a ruptured fuel line or tank didn’t catch fire.

EGKB Biggin Hill

Silvaire wrote:

28V electrical wiring being torn in half

I seem to recall the battery on this airplane is in the lh wing root area, outside the fuselage but inboard of the engine. There are no fuel tanks inboard of the engine. However relevant this may be.

Antonio
LESB, Spain

on beechtalk they say he was VFR and in IMC so no FPL

Safe landings !
EDLN, Germany

Peter wrote:

One can imagine an avgas leak if the wing spar snaps and the tanks open up, but what is the ignition mechanism? An electrical short?

Yes, probably, assuming you mean a fire caused directly by in-flight breakup: that results in 28V electrical wiring being torn in half, leading to arcing. There could also be initiation due to friction and energy to fracture, which is for example a significant concern in the (very gentle) manufacturing process of a solid rocket motor.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 06 Feb 18:21

Peter wrote:

One can imagine an avgas leak if the wing spar snaps and the tanks open up, but what is the ignition mechanism? An electrical short?

Could that have been a catastrophic engine failure? I haven’t been able to find the track on Flightaware, which is strange, as he must have been on a FPL.

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