Robert DeLaurentis, well-known pilot, author, and entrepreneur in aviation circles, was involved in a crash-landing Monday night at Felts Field Airport (SFF) in Spokane, Washington.
It is rgood to know that Robert DeLaurentis emerged unharmed, though the loss of an aircraft with such a storied history and profound significance is undeniably sad.
Indeed, but is an aircraft of this sophistication really that susceptible to icing?
Every aircraft is susceptible to icing, some more, some less.
It looks good enough to be trucked to a museum for display. It could be hung next to Max Conrad’s Comanche. Many museums have exhibits that have endured far harsher fates and still have historic significance.
The plane can still be hung from museum rafters. It just won’t look that good.
There is only one thing that causes both engines to fail simultaneously. Fuel. Either blocked, or contaminated. Lot of jet fuel being contaminated with DEF by poorly trained FBO employees.
Hello GeeBee!
Your point about fuel starvation is correct for piston powered birds, but turboprops can suffer inlet icing that can simultaneously introduce “The Sound of Silence”. The pilot reports loud popping noises from both sides - suggests inlet icing.
“It looks good enough to be trucked to a museum for display.” I seriously doubt that we are seeing the crashed aircraft in this pic, though any closely cropped photo (i.e., no landing gear in frame) of a Commander, taken at the right angle, will appear to look like a belly landing due to its minimal ground clearance.
The 900, as virtually all turbine engines have, inlet deicing capabilities, they are used to preventing ice from building and being ingested. If this occurred, and it sounds possible, he failed to turn the system on when encountering icing conditions, or it was broken.
Surprised that no one has addressed the 100 ft a 1/4 mile from the runway approach yet. Seems like scud running in really bad weather to me. Just sayin.
I would agree except the Commander 900 has strong inlet anti-ice and rarely does icing fail both engines simultaneously, usually one starts to lose power followed by the other in a short but not simultaneous manner. Unless he grossly mismanaged his anti-ice operation which seems pretty bizarre for a guy who flew across the North and South poles. Fuel.
I watched “Peace Pilot” on Apple TV over the last couple of days. Inspirational. I highly recommend.
Yeah, that one had me scratching my head too. To me it means ice was forming while on the T.O. roll. because it only tales a 900 about 5-8 seconds to climb to 100 feet after T.O.
I’ll look forward to reading the details as they get released.
It’s just an airplane.
Hopefully NTSB will put necessary resources into the investigation.
They’ve been short of staff and leadership recently.
I don’t know about turbines or de-icing but something doesn’t add up here. I smell a “pilot tale”.
“Smell” is not a good way to determine the cause of an accident.
The Garrett engines are used in several different airplanes including MU2. Company that I worked for lost an MU2 to double engine failure. Final report engine ice.
Engine anti ice is required in visible moisture at or below 5 c.