They might have aimed for the road first until realizing it was full of cars and people, highly likely at that time of day. Otherwise good question: you wouldn’t voluntarily put yourself in that position. Hope I never have that view from the cockpit (shudders)!
maxbc wrote:
they likely thought they had no chance of surviving and wanted to avoid further damage and injuries on the ground. Which makes the outcome all the more fortunate.
To be fair, I don’t see any decent place to land there without threatening people on the ground. Clearly whoever was flying during the crash phase is either an amazing pilot or very lucky or both. Perhaps flying into the trees absorbed some energy as well.
As an aside, I wonder about the wisdom of flying over populated areas like this at these altitudes.
I wonder about the wisdom of flying over populated areas like this at these altitudes.
Not much choice if you want to fly IFR into Toussus.
I was going to post something like „let‘s be happy it was a twin, because if it had been a single, they would likely ban single engine IFR at Toussus now“. But it was a twin. And either way, they are probably not going to ban anything, since there are so many IFR flight schools at Toussus.
If this was at night as some reports say, then that area would have looked like a black hole surrounded by lights. Where else would you aim but the black hole.
Please let’s not talk about banning flights over certain areas. There are a lot of people in the area who would love to see Toussus close. In fact it is a continuous fight to keep it open. So to add the voice of ga pilots to those suggesting a ban is a bit of an own goal.
There are quite a few people employed at Toussus plus the Aéroclub de France is based there. And for local councils to try to shut down a club that goes back to the days of Santos Dumont, Blériot, Mermoz and St Ex would certainly hit national headlines and the national government.
I like this eyewitness report:-
“I was smoking my cigarette at my kitchen window, and there, I saw in the sky a plane which was descending very slowly, but really very, very low, which was leveling my garden,” pointed out a witness from the scene on BFM Paris Île-de-France. “And 10 seconds later, we hear a little boom. […] Apparently, he was cut in two a bit when he crashed,” he also added.
According to local media there wan instructor and 2 students 30 year olds on board. Sadly one was quite seriously injured.
There is currently a search for bits of the plane, the tail havinhg broken off and landed on some garages.
Note of caution this is local press and not aviation press. The picture below the headline showed a passenger jet flying over tower blocks.🙂
It was “around” 5pm according to articles. I remember seeing that the crash time was 17:12 LT (which is also the last ADS-B point on FR24). Sunset was at 16:55, so the crash technically happened during the aeronautical day in France (SS+30). 17 minutes after sunset, the night is not pitch dark yet (depending on the weather), but definitely not full daytime like the picture (no option to take dusk pictures in Google maps 3D view ^^)
The instructor says that they lost the right engine, and shortly after, also the left engine. So, as sort of expected, it is now 99% sure it was a fuel supply problem.
I disagree with the 99% it was a fuel problem. There have been other reports over the last week or so of engines losing power and/or engine failure.
These other reports have not led to such dramatic landings but have been a cause of concern. In this week’s FFAREX a PA18 hydravion lost power in the Arcachon region. The visibility was 10 km with a 3kt wind and temperature 4°C. The aircraft was at 2000ft. Engine failure put down to icing picked up when passing through a band of fine rain which did not change the visibility.
Difficult to assess whether this was carburretor icing or engine intake icing.
Very similar event to the Twinkie failure.
The last story about a twinco double engine shutdown (I remember it because it was in Cannes) was “most probably” because fuel didn’t make its way to the fuel tank priori to flight… But here we have 3 pilots.
