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BE-350 crashes immediately after takeoff from Addison, TX. No survivors.
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Crash happened immediately after take-off
12 seconds before impact the CVR captured confusion.
8 seconds before impact the CVR captured comments about problems with the left engine.
There were 3 aural bank angle warnings before impact.
The there were 10 persons on board, the plane had capacity for 11, and was topped off with fuel.
There were no survivors.
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I posted this speculative analysis in another forum:
This is painting a picture that a left engine failure is likely a key link in the chain of events. The question then would be why they couldn't maintain control. If the engine failure happened immediately after rotation, they may have been below Vmc, which would then have required reducing thrust in the good engine to remain in control. Overweight may be a factor too, although overweight doesn't affect Vmc (it does affect Vs though, as well as the ability of the plane to climb on a single engine, which, if they were below Vmc is not so important since they were not going to climb anyway no matter what).
--- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
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Originally posted by BoeingBobby View PostAlrighty then. Mr. Engineer, better check that again.
If the engine failed immediately after rotation and if they were below below Vmc, the only survivable action would have been reducing power on the good engine.
With 9% of the seats filled and 100% of the full capacity filled, they were very close to if not above MTOW. And they were with the gear down.
How do you suppose that the plane could possible climb in these conditions after losing one engine and reducing power in the other one? Because if they didn't reduce the power in the good engine, they were not going to climb either under the hypothesis that they were below Vmc, because losing control and going inverted is not conductive to climbing.
So yes, checked and maintained:
Overweight may be a factor too, although overweight doesn't affect Vmc (it does affect the ability of the plane to climb on a single engine, which, if they were below Vmc, it is not so important since they were not going to climb anyway no matter what).
With what part of that you disagree and why?
--- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
--- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---
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Originally posted by Gabriel View PostOverweight may be a factor too, although overweight doesn't affect Vmc (it does affect the ability of the plane to climb on a single engine, which, if they were below Vmc, it is not so important since they were not going to climb anyway no matter what).
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I don't have the King Air 350 performance numbers. Do you have a link to them?
Anyway, yes, weight will affect take of speed and take off distance. Information I found in not necessarily reliable sources mention rotation speeds of 100 to 110 knots, which is consistent to what you said.
So, what happened? Did they rotate too slow? Were they above Vmc and still unable to control the plane due to incorrect technique? Was there any other malfunction? I don't know.
--- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
--- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---
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Originally posted by Gabriel View PostI don't have the King Air 350 performance numbers. Do you have a link to them?
Anyway, yes, weight will affect take of speed and take off distance. Information I found in not necessarily reliable sources mention rotation speeds of 100 to 110 knots, which is consistent to what you said.
So, what happened? Did they rotate too slow? Were they above Vmc and still unable to control the plane due to incorrect technique? Was there any other malfunction? I don't know.
Flying magazine article mentioned a rotation speed of 104kts with only two aboard and full fuel.
However, the pdf above lists MTOW of 16,500 lbs. Empty operating weight (with one 200lb pilot aboard) is 10,197lbs and fuel capacity is 5192lbs, so even with two 150lb pilots the ramp weight is 15,489lbs, If my math is correct, that means the other 8 passengers need to weigh an average of 139lbs and have no luggage to be within MTOW for a fully-fueled BE-350 (assuming 100lbs of taxi fuel) . Something tells me that, if the plane was indeed fully fueled, they were overweight. So could this simply be an assymetrical stall?
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Originally posted by Evan View PostFrom the horse's mouth, vmca flaps up is 94kts and approach config is 93kts - Beechcraft pdf file:
Flying magazine article mentioned a rotation speed of 104kts with only two aboard and full fuel.
However, the pdf above lists MTOW of 16,500 lbs. Empty operating weight (with one 200lb pilot aboard) is 10,197lbs and fuel capacity is 5192lbs, so even with two 150lb pilots the ramp weight is 15,489lbs, If my math is correct, that means the other 8 passengers need to weigh an average of 139lbs and have no luggage to be within MTOW for a fully-fueled BE-350 (assuming 100lbs of taxi fuel) . Something tells me that, if the plane was indeed fully fueled, they were overweight. So could this simply be an assymetrical stall?
Now, I don't thin so.
Instrad of the special missions ER version you linked (which has a capacity of up to 15), this other document for the "normal" version (from the horse's mouth too) lists the MTOW as 15000 lb and a full-fuel useful load of 1534 kg, which would give you an average of 153 lb per pax (including their clothes, purses, backpacks and luggage). So I agree that it may have been overweight, but by how much?
Even if you take an extra 100 lb per pax, that would give you 1000 lb overweight so the take-off weight would be 16000 lb instead of the 15000 lb MTOW. How much does the 1G stall speed change?
SQRT(16000/15000)= 1.033, so 3.3% faster.
This document lists the stall speed in landing config as 82 kts. I don't know how much would it be in take-off config (in fact, I don't even k now what take-off config thye used, since it seems that both approach flaps and no flaps are possible) but if it was say 90 kts at MTOW, the new overweight stall speed would be like 93 kts.
If, as you speculate, they rotated at more than 100 kts, then stall should not have been a factor initially. And if the engine failed, since Vmc is higher then Vs, stall should not be a factor either since they would lose control before reaching Vs (unless they reduced power in the good engine)
(and yes, stall is 100% a matter of AoA and not directly of speed, so if they pulled up hard more than 1G they could have stalled at any speed).
--- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
--- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---
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Originally posted by ATLcrew View PostPerhaps we should wait for the final report.
It was most heroic for the pilot to steer the plane away from the many populated areas in North Dallas.Les règles de l'aviation de base découragent de longues périodes de dur tirer vers le haut.
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Originally posted by Gabriel View PostInstrad of the special missions ER version you linked (which has a capacity of up to 15), this other document for the "normal" version (from the horse's mouth too) lists the MTOW as 15000 lb and a full-fuel useful load of 1534 kg, which would give you an average of 153 lb per pax (including their clothes,
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Originally posted by Evan View PostAh yeah, for some reason I had it in my head that this was an -ER.
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Originally posted by Gabriel View PostI didn't check which version it was. Your document listed that special mission ER as having 15 seats, though, which makes me suspect it was not an ER since the accident plane reportedly had 11 seats.
Interesting revelation about the -ER though. It seats 15 but it can't take a full fuel load with more than about 6 passengers at today's average pax weight, so it's really only HALF-ER.
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