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JU52 HB-HOT down near Flims

Peter_Mundy wrote:

The Dutch Catalina is US bound at the end of the month ☹️

At least they got it out of Dodge while it is in flying condition. Same with the Swiss DC3. The Connie is in pieces and will never fly again by the looks of it.

BeechBaby wrote:

The only saviour is the UK’s bizarre obsession with all things War, so the Spits/Hurri/Lancaster will continue come what may to remind us of how great we apparently were

Actually the UK was one of the first to ground airplanes like the DC3 and 4 used by an outfit called “Air Atlantique” with silly demands a long time ago. It was totally unbelievable that the Vulcan to the Sky thing ever worked and since the Hunter crash not a lot is still flying. Currently in Europe there is a massive move against those planes and the JU Air Accident unfortunately has awoken a lot of sleeping dogs in the form of government lawyers and other interest groups who would have them grounded tomorrow if they could. Primarily I expect it is a big CYA act, where simply nobody wants to take the responsibility for these planes anymore if something happens.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Actually the UK was one of the first to ground airplanes like the DC3 and 4 used by an outfit called “Air Atlantique”

I did not appreciate that they were caught up in this. Do you know what happened to the airframes at the hanger in Coventry? There was a DC-6 in that hanger that I sat in the cockpit at 4 in the morning once…..

Last Edited by BeechBaby at 06 May 17:39
Fly safe. I want this thing to land l...
EGPF Glasgow

Sad but logical. Visit Hangar 7. It takes a billionaire who likes planes…

always learning
LO__, Austria

Mooney_Driver wrote:

On the sidelines, the Super Constellation Assoiciation has folded up

What I do not understand is why they have been so keen on getting a HB registration? With a challenging to maintain plane N-reg seems to be a much better choice.

www.ing-golze.de
EDAZ

Some developments.

The Swiss FOCA appears to work on legislation limiting the number of passengers on historical airplanes to six and the total number on board to 6 plus essential crew.

This means airplanes like a DC3 (29) or Junkers 52 (17) or Super Constellation will only be able to carry a very limited number of paying passengers, which makes their operation financially impossible. In as far this will also impact smaller airplanes such as the several AN2’s operating here is open to interpretation.

This is one of the consequences of the JU Air crash.

While the final report is still not public, it has been distributed to involved parties for comments. Some of the contents have subsequently been leaked to various media outlets. It appears that the preliminary report is very hotly debated in that phase, however, it also appears that the immediate cause of the accident has been identified.

According to a highly respected aviation engineer (who was involved in the Solar Impulse project as a key engineer) who has had access to the preliminary report, there was a problem with the weight and balance documentation of the airplane. The baggage area in the rear of the airplane had been documented wrongly and it’s effect on the center of gravity understated. On the accident flight, the airplane was therefore operated outside the center of gravity envelope, the CG was too far in the back, while the crew trusted the weight and balance sheet they had been using for years as correct. They therefore believed the airplane to be within limits.

As the airplane approached a local visual attraction, several passengers appear to have moved in the cabin to catch a view of it through the window of the entrance door at the rear. As a consequence the CofG moved further backwards. The engineer concludes that the airplane then departed controlled flight due to turbulence present that day and stalled over the left wing.

The report itself appears to put blame onto the crew as well as the organisation itself for “reckless behaviour” and also claims the airplane had not been airworthy on the day of the flight. These findings are disputed by several experts as well as lawyers for the families of the crew and passengers. Comments which have been published in various articles as well as aviation sources are criticizing the report as biased and having the clear purpose of assigning overall blame rather than concentrating on the actual cause of the accident. This follows the release of an interim report which, while stating that technical deficiencies found in the wreck had NO influence on the accident, concentrated fully on perceived deficiencies found in the operation of the Junkers fleet by it’s operator.

The interim report lead to a total reversal of the way oldtimer airliners are treated by the FOCA and to the demise of both Ju Air and the Super Constellation Association as well as a hasty sale of the Breitling DC3 operating here. It appears that the latest legal steps taken by the FOCA will make the operation of historical airplanes in Switzerland who rely on passengers contributing to the cost of flight very unlikely and economically impossible.

Last Edited by Mooney_Driver at 10 Nov 06:56
LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

A sad state of affairs. I wish governments stopped babysitting us and let each person make informed decisions as to reasonable risk-acceptance , as long as risk to uninvolved third-parties is limited.
I do not see the latter being influenced significantly by number of POB…or perhaps it is indirectly, since the operation of larger aircraft will be eliminated through economical inviability due to restricted POB!

Antonio
LESB, Spain

Well, the first importance is that now we finally have a very probable and understandable cause of this crash. It also explains how two very experienced pilots would suddenly and unexpectedly loose control of an airplane they knew intimately. Both were former airline pilots who worked with load and balance sheets all their lifes and would never have expected the official load and balance sheet they had been using for 30 odd years to be faulty. I think it takes quite a bit of vile intent to claim otherwise.

It will be interesting to see how a “simple” CG error which caused this crash has lead to a 600 page report.

The legal wrestle about the whole thing will take years I suppose.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Mooney_Driver wrote:

It will be interesting to see how a “simple” CG error which caused this crash has lead to a 600 page report.

Obviously I don’t know the report. But there is no such thing as a “simple CG error” in commercial operations.

The whole point of the complexity of commercial operations is the idea that by setting up professional structures you avoid such mistakes. A wrong load sheet is actually quite a significant flaw in such operations (esp. as if your report is correct it has not been wrongly filled on that specific flight but the template has been wrong in the first place). And this fact actually fits to the overall approach of this operator that did not seem to take regulations seriously also in other parts of the operations – therefore what has been discussed earlier on maintenance, etc. might not have been the immediate cause of this accident but indeed sound like another symptom of the same disease.
That’s on the operations.

I don’t know the pilots either but I’m very curious about what the report says on them. Your statements at least sound quite inconsistent! In your last post your write that these pilots “knew the airplane intimately”. But, very obviously, if your reported cause of the accident is true, this is as far from truth as it could be! They might have believed they knew it intimately but they obviously were not at all aware of it’s critical aft CG. Therefore they might have been at the most dangerous state of mind there is in aviation: Believing that you know something extremely well while what you “know” is completely wrong.
What is obviously inconsistent is another fact: How could they loose control “suddenly and unexpectedly” if significant number of passengers moved back in the cabin prior to the accident? We don’t know what the ops manual says about people moving in the cabin during flight, but everyone knows that moving cargo can crash even a 747. Therefore it will be interesting to read on some of the 600 pages on how moving passengers on such flights should have been handled (and what the load sheet the pilots used would have said for a passenger distribution packed around the rear door).

Germany

I would suggest that everybody have a look at the size of the rear door window and the implied likelihood of passengers moving to look at something through it…

The influence of moving passengers on a Ju52 is well documented and should not put it outside of CG envelope.

T28
Switzerland

T28 wrote:

he influence of moving passengers on a Ju52 is well documented and should not put it outside of CG envelope.

That is not the issue here according to the article.

The balance sheet, on which the calculations have been done, had a wrong lever arm for the baggage compartment, placing it much more forward than it actually was. The way I read what Peter Frei has taken from the report, this has been like this for a long time, so it was the balance sheet used for years.

Therefore, the airplane was out of CG even with all pax sitting down. However, the pilots had no way of knowing this, as they filled in their officially used form in good faith.

When passengers moved around the cabin, the condition then became worse, it did NOT cause the CG to go out of limit, it already was, but it aggravated the situation. And in this kind of condition, even one or two pax moving aft (e.g. 150 -200 kg) can make one heck of a difference.

The day the accident happened, it was very hot, therefore thermals were present in the Alps. If you get an upset caused by one of those in a condition where your CG is way behind the limit, this can well explain why the stall was not recoverable.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland
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