Originally posted by Evan
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Another viable option would be misfueling, putting jet fuel into a recip. And jet fuel, with its higher flashpoint, might not have received an adequate source of ignition to start a fire in this case. I'm going to go with that as option "B," but my problem with this theory is that, being a freight run, the airplane probably did the same flights on a regular basis. That would mean it was an airplane well-known to the fuelers and they would be less likely to put the wrong fuel in it. Of course, this is being written by a former line boy who, after more than a year of fueling the same airplanes with the same pumps, put 80 octane in a 100 octane airplane one night. Luckily we caught it before any damage was done, but I know how easily something like that can happen.
And maybe they were just all--well, almost all--very lucky and there were no sparks or other ignition sources sufficient to start a fire when the airplane hit the house. It could be a simple case of a mishandled engine failure where he let the airplane get below Vmc and it got away from him.
Regardless of the cause, it was a tragedy for all involved.
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