SKYDIVERS CAMS CAPTURE PLANES CRASH - 11/04/2013 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9Hmz2XiJGs#ws)
I'm sure some of you have seen/heard about this. The video is quite intense.
Wow! Glad everybody got out okay!
Quote from: Panache on November 05, 2013, 10:35:01 AM
Wow! Glad everybody got out okay!
Everybody was climbing out, improves your chances of survival when you're outside of the plane.
But whoa.
As if the intention was for all those jumpers to be out there hanging onto the struts and both aircraft worth of them all go at the same time.
Only.. the aircraft got sucked together.
The freaky part to me is the seemingly instant fireball the other turned into when the wing snapped off. Maybe that model had a wet wing and it breached the fuel bladder, otherwise I can't imagine that happening since the source of heat and voltage is down lower at the front and as far as one can see in the video, it didn't appear to hit the power plant. With all that blow by, I would have thought the fuel would just vaporize.
Quote from: NIN on November 05, 2013, 11:02:40 AM
Quote from: Panache on November 05, 2013, 10:35:01 AM
Wow! Glad everybody got out okay!
Everybody was climbing out, improves your chances of survival when you're outside of the plane.
But whoa.
Well, everybody but the pilots...
Quote from: a2capt on November 05, 2013, 11:37:14 AM
As if the intention was for all those jumpers to be out there hanging onto the struts and both aircraft worth of them all go at the same time.
Only.. the aircraft got sucked together.
The freaky part to me is the seemingly instant fireball the other turned into when the wing snapped off. Maybe that model had a wet wing and it breached the fuel bladder, otherwise I can't imagine that happening since the source of heat and voltage is down lower at the front and as far as one can see in the video, it didn't appear to hit the power plant. With all that blow by, I would have thought the fuel would just vaporize.
Well, that was the intention. :) They were doing a multi-plane formation jump
(when you come from a small Cessna-only DZ, the only time you get to see more than 3-4 people in freefall with you is either a special airplane came to visit, you went to another DZ with a big plane, or you do formation loads) and it appears the trail pilot lost his slot.
Trail has two jobs: fly your slot and don't run into lead. From the video, based on having done more than a few Cessna formation loads, I'd guess that there were probably a half-dozen goof ups here. The ones I can think of so far are:
- trail setup too close and on the wrong side;
- lead probably didn't do a hot job of airspeed management on climbout (lots of drag when skydivers start crowding the step) and slowed down beyond the briefed airspeed on jumprun;
- trail didn't catch the closure rate as lead slowed down (watch the video, he's paying attention to the climbout, and due to being setup too close to begin with, didn't give him a ton of options in any event);
- trail didn't do a hot job of directional control, and having been setup to the left instead of the right as the jumpers climbed out and added drag, the plane veered to the right (if you're setup on the right, you veer further way from lead, which makes it harder for the skydivers to get together. Beats raining aluminum from the sky, IMHO)
There are probably a few more.
The prop on trail cut into the top of lead's wing. Pierced fuel tank, immediately vaporized fuel, hot exhaust on trail just right there (could aluminum spark when the prop hits it? Maybe something not aluminum in the wing): here ya go, instant fireball.
Dude who climbed out and got in front of the strut (not a cool climbout, IMHO.. I would never suggest that sort of climbout) is one of the luckiest guys in this whole thing. He had a high potential for injury, flying debris, fiery death, etc.
I've seen some pretty frightening videos in 19 years of jumping. The scariest one like this I ever saw was in the late 1990s at a boogie in Indiana when one of the two CASA 212s at the boogie stalled on jumprun due to extreme aft CG. Nothing like watching a CASA in free fall with the cameraman, inverted, in a flat spin. Serious.
This video is scarier. Much.
Yea I was very surprised that the prop took the wing out but didn't mince the jumpers. Lucky. All of them. Real lucky.
Actually, if you watch the video on the today show website, they show the multiple views over and over again . If I had to guess I would say that the right wing of the aircraft failed because the structural limitations of the attachment points and associated structure was exceeded.
Suddenly you've got an unsupported aluminum structure that is attempting to hold up the gross weight of two aircraft. Left wing had weight pressing down on it as did the fuselage. The right wing then folded up and over the nose of the other aircraft.
I have to admit, the footage from one of those GoPros is pretty handy, let alone 4 5.
Quote from: NIN on November 05, 2013, 09:01:10 PM
Actually, if you watch the video on the today show website, they show the multiple views over and over again . If I had to guess I would say that the right wing of the aircraft failed because the structural limitations of the attachment points and associated structure was exceeded.
Suddenly you've got an unsupported aluminum structure that is attempting to hold up the gross weight of two aircraft. Left wing had weight pressing down on it as did the fuselage. The right wing then folded up and over the nose of the other aircraft.
I have to admit, the footage from one of those GoPros is pretty handy, let alone 4.
Can you link to the today show's video? YouTube video is gone.
Quote from: JerseyCadet on November 05, 2013, 09:38:06 PM
Can you link to the today show's video? YouTube video is gone.
http://www.today.com/news/skydivers-planes-collide-mid-air-helmet-cams-capture-fall-8C11531939 (http://www.today.com/news/skydivers-planes-collide-mid-air-helmet-cams-capture-fall-8C11531939) (there are TWO interviews with Matt Lauer. One with the 9 jumpers and then one with the pilot who landed his plane and three of the jumpers). Further down on that page is a video with all the camera angles running at once. I wish they had the daggone thing in HD.
BTW, I pegged it: 9 skydivers, 5 cameras on the load.
Jeez, we've become tourists. :)
Quote from: NIN on November 05, 2013, 09:01:10 PM
I have to admit, the footage from one of those GoPros is pretty handy, let alone 4 5.
I'll bet that there are some investigators at the NTSB who are just itching to get their hands on the raw video.
It's going to make fore a very detailed and comprehensive report...nothing like high-resolution video from multiple angles of an event to provide details about what happened.
Quote from: JerseyCadet on November 05, 2013, 09:38:06 PMCan you link to the today show's video? YouTube video is gone.
That's why I snag videos like that when I see them the first time. :)
Not to threadcromance too much here, but the high-def versions of the camera vids from Wisconsin showed up on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p6hqMnsLFY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p6hqMnsLFY)
I must alert you: skydivers don't exactly have the language skills of the Church Lady, so at a certain point thing go from 'Oh, golly, that looks like it might be a bad thing!" to "Oh @#$%!" You have been warned.
You can see when they came together, the jumpers that were already out appeared to be "sitting" on the empennage, aft of the ELT antenna, as if it were a park bench, before the wing broke off and the whole thing gave way.
Quote from: usafaux2004 on November 05, 2013, 02:33:40 PM
Yea I was very surprised that the prop took the wing out but didn't mince the jumpers. Lucky. All of them. Real lucky.
Don't think it was the prop that "disconnected" that wing.
It seperated right at the production break where at attaches to the fuselage.
Most likely the impact did the deed because it came off so cleanly.
Quote from: PHall on November 30, 2013, 09:02:12 PM
Quote from: usafaux2004 on November 05, 2013, 02:33:40 PM
Yea I was very surprised that the prop took the wing out but didn't mince the jumpers. Lucky. All of them. Real lucky.
Don't think it was the prop that "disconnected" that wing.
It seperated right at the production break where at attaches to the fuselage.
Most likely the impact did the deed because it came off so cleanly.
If you watch the 3rd camera view from the trail (the one that was "most climbed out"), it almost seems like the lead plane gets forced down and nose high and its aerodynamic forces that cause the right wing to peel up and over.
It would appear that the wing broke off due to being forced downward, while the outer edge didn't quite "sink" as fast. The fuel fire is most likely a product of the bladder busting and fuel finding sparks in all that metal mashing, or perhaps hot exhaust gas started it.
Your link was broken...so I'll post another.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBZd14ScQiU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBZd14ScQiU)
The link a few posts up, works, and is straight from the GoPro's, no NBC blabber at all, or video from 10 rips ago.
QuoteQuoteYea I was very surprised that the prop took the wing out but didn't mince the jumpers. Lucky. All of them. Real lucky.
Don't think it was the prop that "disconnected" that wing.
It seperated right at the production break where at attaches to the fuselage.
Yep, the skin starts to tear right at the factory joint.
(http://www.m2ei.com/jump_planes/1-33.310.png)
And 1.3 seconds later the wing is at 90° to the top of the cabin as the plane rolls to the left. The upper wing skin is separating from the main wing structure at this point and the wing snaps off three frames later.
(http://www.m2ei.com/jump_planes/1-34.630.png)
About 0.4 seconds later the bottom of the wing is visible behind the jumper on the strut. The damage to the root of the left wing caused by the right landing gear of the upper plane is at center. The fire explodes about a half second after this on the left side, igniting fuel from both wings.
(http://www.m2ei.com/jump_planes/1-35.030.png)
Mike