Caravan Crashed During Flight Test (Updated) - AVweb

Two pilots and two flight test engineers were killed in the crash of a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan that was undergoing flight testing when the wings came off in Washington State on Friday. The plane, owned by Copper Mountain Aviation in Alaska, crashed near Everett, Washington, Friday morning after spending about a half-hour doing a variety of maneuvers to establish baseline performance data before it was to be modified. According to the Seattle Times, the aircraft was crewed by personnel from Seattle mod shop Raisbeck Engineering and had not yet been altered.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/report-says-caravan-crashed-during-flight-testing

Its confusing to not have an accident date in the text of the article. Finally found a date on the flighaware screen shot from 2020?

DB you may be looking at the Google Earth imagery date, not the flightaware overlay date which appears to e to be 11/18/2022.

The article was published on Saturday and says the accident occurred “Friday morning”.

“Wings?” How can both wings come off? I think it was a hybrid. How many batteries was it trying to carry?

what… did you not read the entire column?
They were getting baseline performance reports before adding to make them fuel efficient “and had not yet been altered” before the crash.
There were no new batteries involved at all, this was no hybrid.

"Reinbeck Chairman Hal Chrisman told the Times… ‘I think the most important thing is we were flying an aircraft in which we had not installed our modification yet,’. That information is relatively obvious and would have presented itself during the investigation without his statement. But, …“the most important thing…?” Really? What about the four humans who lost their lives and the many lives that will be changed forever.

More info is is now available. This was not the hybrid version. It appears that the pod testing could possibly have damaged the aircraft.

At least one source indicates that it was a single wing, which was found apart from the crash site.

But the same article referenced ‘wings’ just a few paragraphs later…

Hopefully the investigation doesn’t take too long. Most Caravans flying are working airplanes, not just sitting in a hangar waiting for a private owner to go for a ride. RIP to those lost and their families in this accident.

I thought the same thing. Unless the quote is partial and we don’t have the full contect

"…the most important thing is we were flying an aircraft in which we had not installed our modification yet,”. I think the most important thing is that four people are dead.