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JU52 HB-HOT down near Flims

We shouldn’t confuse “as high as the aircraft will go” with Service Ceiling.

At the service ceiling, as I say, the aircraft is still able to climb at 100fpm and therefore, by definition, is not as high as it will go.

EGKB Biggin Hill

I guess we could say that the conditions (temperature, density altitude, load) might have been such that the flight was only possible with three engines fully operative, and once there was a problem with one of them, the respective altitude could not be kept and even resulted in a wing drop. At least that sounds resaonable enough to me as an explanation. But of course we will never really know.

Safe landings !
EDLN, Germany

One other factor could be the wind. LSZH reported northerly winds up to 10 kts. A headwind causing downdraft in the valley may eat up what is left of the climb rate.

ESG..., Sweden

There is no flight data recorder on those aircrafts, so the investigation will take a lot longer….the weather was perfect for the flight but the accident seems partial/full performance related, at first glance of the news I tough it was the SwissAir DC3 !!

Very tragic, rip to all/paix à leurs ames

(as Jujupilot mentioned it is probably loss of performance from DA, same I also flew a C172 the same day/time I was stuck at FL65, 3 months ago it did make a FL130)

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

Timothy wrote:

At the service ceiling, as I say, the aircraft is still able to climb at 100fpm and therefore, by definition, is not as high as it will go.

While this is true, it’s true for still air. Even in the relatively benign terrain (and minimal thermals) we get here, on a sunny day it’s not uncommon to run into 400fpm sink. Even when there’s not a lot of wind in the mountains, on a sunny day it’ll often be quite thermic with areas of strong sink as well as lift.

Andreas IOM

alioth wrote:

Even in the relatively benign terrain (and minimal thermals) we get here, on a sunny day it’s not uncommon to run into 400fpm sink. Even when there’s not a lot of wind in the mountains, on a sunny day it’ll often be quite thermic with areas of strong sink as well as lift.

I have no doubt, and I have been in weather conditions when sink was greater than I could climb an Aztec with full power on both engines at Blue Line. (Yes, about 1200fpm in mountain wave curlover in the Rhone valley – it was horrible.)

Maybe I am being a little pedantic, but, if it’s sink to blame, let’s blame sink, and not talk about service ceiling and aeroplanes falling out of the sky in one breath. It’ll only serve to confuse.

EGKB Biggin Hill

Timothy wrote:

Maybe I am being a little pedantic, but, if it’s sink to blame, let’s blame sink, and not talk about service ceiling and aeroplanes falling out of the sky in one breath. It’ll only serve to confuse.

Not necessarily. Let me offer this scenario: They realized they weren’t going to outclimb the ridge due to a combination if sink and reduced engine performance at the prevalent DA, tried to turn around, stalled and spun in.

As all of us here, I know nothing about the stall behavior of a JU-2 (let alone close to the service ceiling), but to my mind this scenario best fits what we know about the accident.

172driver wrote:

tried to turn around, stalled and spun in.

+1. Appears to be the scenario and with rising ground not an easy decision to stuff the nose down to break incipient stall. That would have to be the decision.

Fly safe. I want this thing to land l...
EGPF Glasgow

We should wait for the report, but I agree that that fits the facts we know.

But so would vaporised fuel, intermittent engine failure, structural failure, control failure, pilot incapacitation and several other possibilities.

Probably best to wait.

EGKB Biggin Hill

Timothy wrote:

Probably best to wait.

Disagree, Timothy. The report is for the accident investigators and as you of course know, the it will come out in a year at the earliest. Discussion like we are having here are not intended to solve the mystery of an accident, but to get us thinking about a situation the pilot(s) of an accident aircraft found him / themselves in and how to mitigate it. If discussion about this and the TB10 loss (which seems to have striking similarities) get people to give DA and airflow over mountain ridges more thought, then surely this can only be a good thing.

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