I gather it was just after departure so he was prob hand flying.
Do you think ice could build up that quickly after T.O., Peter (Jason?)
It could build up quickly but the PA46 can hold a lot of ice. I doubt too much ice could cause a loss of control that fast
That last TBM crash was almost certainly an AP disconnect which surprised the pilot and he mishandled the (badly out of trim) plane and pulled a wing off.
I think it was more likely an aircraft on autopilot building up too much ice and then stalling. And with a slippery turbine, you stall/spin and you build up a lot of speed very fast.
The quickest I have had was 30mm in 5 minutes, in a wet stratus layer. That would be hard to beat for speed – except freezing rain.
30mm (of the order of) would IMHO bring down a PA46 if you didn’t notice and left it to carry on.
But initially it would still “only” stall and if you pitch the nose down you build up speed and can recover it, hopefully into warmer air which in this case would be tough given the SFC OAT being about +1C. But the PA46 has boots…
The general wx picture for the area and the time (I haven’t seen the meteox.com archive images – can somebody get them?) suggests SCT TCU/CB so it’s possible.
Deicing and anti icing is also only helpful if it is used.
If you listen to the tapes it’s apparent that whatever problem he had it was probably something else than icing as departure reads him his heading and altitude and advises him pressingly to “stabilise the heading”.
Tower also mentions him as an emergency trying to come back to land on 05.
Where are the tapes?
Liveatc, LSGG departure. 1030z – 11z and 11z-1130z. November Papa Romeo.
Takeoff on 23, then vectors for climb, left to 170 and 110 (in French) around 1057z.
Last contact 1105z SAR helo (callsign REGA 15) launches around 1110z.
30mm in 5 minutes
A Jetprop will probably climb 10.000ft in 5 minutes. Most icing layers are not that thick.
because it will sink like a brick if you get only a little slow
In fact it is not that bad. The PA46 is rather good sailplane, much better than the Beech Bonanza I flew before. But our plane is the piston version. I’m told the big props from the turbines are different.
The plane is not the problem. It is the pilot and the PA46 is difficult because it is usually the first all weather plane a GA pilots gets to fly. Then you have to find new personal limits. After many years of airplane limitations you are at the point you can fly into all kind of weather. Then it takes some experience to find new personal limits.
Thanks Shorrick. Tapes are interesting.
You can feel the stress in the controller’s voice – not his usual self. Probably related to what N.PR was saying.
Weather has been pretty benign really in spite of the ominous forecast.
It is always sad and sobering at the same time to hear about the loss of a fellow cousin airframe.
With just under 1,700 hrs behind my Jetprop, I would rate it as an excellent weather avoidance aircraft as opposed to a good weather rider.
In the grand scheme of things the weather protection systems are very light.
On the face of it though this does not seem to be weather related per say, and in the absence of a known technical problem there is a possibility that the pilot may well have been overwhelmed due to low hours and inexperience. According to someone based at the same airport the pilot was initially refused a signoff by one instructor and “found” another who did…
The Jetprop variant of the PA46 is extremely “lively” in performance, especially with respect to managing power and does not provide any form of automated protection. You have to be one step ahead of the aircraft at all phases of flight or it will bite you. A classic example is the significant amount of p-factor from the big donkey upfront on initial rotation requiring a boot full of right rudder; even with a thorough briefing I have seen this one alone catch out the unwary.
If you add high workload in busy airspace after take-off, and any other kind of distraction, it may well saturate the inexperienced Jetprop pilot.
The upside is an amazingly rewarding and flexible aircraft with the most dynamic operating envelope in its class providing you treat it with the maximum amount of respect and train accordingly.E
