B-17 crash in CT (NTSB Report released)

[tater]

A guy I know from online flight sims used to actually fly this aircraft. Last time I saw him, Nine-O-Nine and The Dragon and His Tail (a B-24) were in town, and I went for a ride with him (he was flying) on the B-24. Or, rather, I tried to go for a ride, the prop governor went out, and I spent a few hours in the B-24 with the engines running, but no flight. Since they had to wait in town for a part, I actually had all the Collings Foundation crew that stayed in ABQ over to the house for dinner. I eventually got a B-17 ride in a different aircraft a couple years later.

Edited December 19, 2020 by tater

[razark]

Saw this earlier.  Sad to lose one of these great aircraft, and the people involved.

 

1 hour ago, tater said:

I eventually got a B-17 ride in a different aircraft...

Which one did you get a flight on?  I'm hoping to get a chance one of these days.  There's a couple here in Houston, one of them just a couple of miles from where I live.

[tater]

22 minutes ago, razark said:

Saw this earlier.  Sad to lose one of these great aircraft, and the people involved.

 

Which one did you get a flight on?  I'm hoping to get a chance one of these days.  There's a couple here in Houston, one of them just a couple of miles from where I live.

Aluminum Overcast.

Was expensive, but cool.

[Lisias]

When I heard of it by the first time, it was two the count for casualties. Now are 5. Sad.

Not to mention the craft itself, what a huge loss. (disheartening, who knows what I like to do on KSP knows I love bombers)

I hope they manage to find what happened, so this can be prevented in the future.

[Cavscout74]

Sorry to hear about this.

I did some weekend volunteering with the Houston branch of Collings Foundation back when I was in A&P school, mostly on their T-33.  I couldn't get off of work & missed out on a free ride on their B-17 when it came to Houston back then.  This was 2001 or so.

[Nuke]

hack a day had a pretty good article on nine o nine a couple weeks ago.

https://hackaday.com/2019/09/24/a-virtual-tour-of-the-b-17/

[tater]

7 dead.

 

[klesh]

I've been in this very plane, and I've actually flown in the Collings Foundation's B-24.  I live in Massachusetts, and they come by my area at least once a year.  They were here not even a month ago, including that B-17.  I can always tell because, and many of you might not know, these old warbirds are LOUD.  I live in the pattern of a small airport that the Collings guys fly to for tours and such, and I don't even need to check their calendar to know they're in town as these badboys will fly over my condo and they're so much noisier than the other prop planes that fly out of that airport.  A real tragedy to have lost not only all those people's lives but the irreplaceable plane as well.

[tater]

Yeah, I spent several hours in the B-24 years ago (a flight sim friend online was actually one of their pilots, they had mechanical problems so I ended up in the boxcar with the engines running for hours but we never flew--plus side is that I got to sit up front, and see what they did in the front office ). I later flew a different B-17 ride.

[tater]

 

[linuxgurugamer]

Not good

[Kerbart]

Important to realize that it’s not the FAA that’s choking the Collings Foundation into bankruptcy. 

[XB-70A]

Quote

"FAA's Investigators"?

 

I'm a bit confused there. Why on earth FAA's investigators would investigate in an accident/incident? Their sphere of influence is limited to the FAA workforce and administration.

Since the death of the Civil Aeronautics Board, back in 1985, the NTSB owns the throne. It's the only investigative agency for civilian means of transportations, and is independent from the DoT (and therefore from the FAA).

Concerning the CRM, it wouldn't be a surprise if it failed at one point. Whatever the number of events, the amount of trainings, and capabilities of crew, you will always have a point of rupture in the CRM link. I'm going to be shot for that... but do you think it's safe to have septuagenarian pilots, even with great experience, at the control of a four-engine even older than them and requiring a high amount of psychological and physical ressources to be flown?

 

By the way, the NTSB's preliminary report is available for some times: https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/ReportGeneratorFile.ashx?EventID=20191002X11326&AKey=1&RType=HTML&IType=MA

 

Edit:

If anyone is interested, Windsor Locks-Bradley Intl's ATC recording is also available (N93012's landing clearance at 1:00).

Edited March 27, 2020 by XB-70A

[tater]

NTSB will figure out proximate cause, but not maintaining aircraft is under FAA, right? Or at least licensing for passengers.

A guy I knew used to fly for them... he quit explicitly because he thought their commitment to safety was... less than total. (he wanted one of the aircraft completely rebuilt)

[XB-70A]

16 minutes ago, tater said:

NTSB will figure out proximate cause, but not maintaining aircraft is under FAA, right? Or at least licensing for passengers.

Exactly, they are only able to emit recommendations, based on the primary and secondary causes found during the investigation. Their main task is to find why did it happened, but not who should be prosecuted.

Fact are, the FAA doesn't have the authority to investigate, and the NTSB doesn't have the power of the Department of Transportation. If the DoT (and the FAA) considers the Safety Board's recommendation as "unacceptable", the page will be turned and the case closed. Until other will pay the price with their lives. As an example, the DoT considered 255 recommendations from the NTSB in 2015 (including all means of transportation). In 2015, 150 of those were implemented, 87 still being considered, and 68 closed as unacceptable.

I did a bad graph some time ago, just to give an impression of how "perplex" the FAA's case is.

(I'm a PowerPoint disaster, sorry for it)

 

35 minutes ago, tater said:

A guy I knew used to fly for them... he quit explicitly because he thought their commitment to safety was... less than total. (he wanted one of the aircraft completely rebuilt)

Just as many others, sadly. The case of Ju-Air's HB-HOT is somewhat similar to N93012 on the technical sight. Fact is, those warbirds cost a tremendous amount to maintain airborne, and it isn't the seats sold for half an hour of flight (even at a few thousands) that can cover the whole cost of operation.

[tater]

 

 

https://data.ntsb.gov/Docket?ProjectID=100356

 

 

Edited December 19, 2020 by tater

[Nuke]

il have to watch those later. 

[tater]

TL;DR:

1. They should have called an emergency sooner, emergency services would have had ~4 extra minutes to get on scene.

2. They should have landed crosswind on the other runway they flew past on their downwind, they likely would have made it, they were trading alt for speed, and they had no alt to start with.

3. Maintenance was clearly a serious issue, they would not have had an emergency had things not gotten so bad in the first place (losing 2 on the same side is bad mojo).

4. Poor emergency briefing to passengers on seatbelts, egress in an emergency, etc. I have to say, in my B-17 ride that was similar, and I spent a few hours in a Collings Foundation B-24 years ago (ride never happened, there was engine trouble, and we were in the plane while they worked on it—2 different days, lol).