skydivers escape aircraft in uncontrolled dive

what the heck happened here?!

two skydivers leap from an airplane, which immediately pitches over into an uncontrolled dive/spin.

the remaining skydivers are able to escape but it looks like the pilot was unable to recover.

(please ignore the awful sensationalistic narration)

http://www.trutv.com/video/most-daring/least-they-had-parachutes.html?link=truTVshlk

 

Wow. The show just glosses over the death of the poor pilot. I wonder
if anyone considered trying to help him to the exit and strap him on tandem so
he'd have a chance too. Maybe not possible... but would have been a better
ending.

Jedi

 

Do any of you know how to get out of an inverted spin?
Switches

 

No. But I'll bet if anyone does it's you! I just have to assume if THAT pilot knew,
he would have done it. So I'm assuming yours is a trick question, and there is NO
way out of that spin?

Jedi

 

From what I could see in that footage it appeared that there was DOWN elevator applied. I'm not certain but it looked that way to me. My friend, Dean E., started his air show routine with a 13 turn inverted spin and got out of it every time. Methods of recovery differ with the type of plane I guess but in this case it appeared that he had the opposite of what he should have had on the elevators. A Stearman will come out of a spin of any kind by leaving it alone for a while and let it thrash around some. Cubs come out by themselves and I think that the Cessna in the video could have been recovered with back stick and some power. I'm no aerobatic expert so those of you who know about doing this stuff I think should sound off.

 

Eject?

I remember watching a USAF Test Pilot School video on inverted spins. A T-37 pilot was explaining something to the effect that you just idle down, give full elevator and full right rudder, the plane will eventually spin itself into a dive and you just recover the aircraft. Is that not applicable to props as well?

 

While I was attempting a vertical reverse in a Stearman I made the mistake of trying to stop the snap too late and had full forward stick and left rudder fed in when I was inverted.. The airplane started an inverted spin and I instinctively pulled back and gave opposite rudder ( mainly to stop the blast of air that came straight into the cockpit) and quickly found myself headed straight down. Even though I knew that you couldn't hurt the Stearman in the air I had the crap scared out of me for a while. You wake up pretty quick when all that ice cold air finds your butt when it's an inch off the seat. I got some instruction after that and found that the snap was given opposite controls just after the nose passed the vertical and it stopped when the nose was near the horizon. Then you fed in back stick to start the turn.
I have a feeling that the Cessna pilot thought that he was in a normal spin and was trying to stop it with forward stick.

 

Not sure what normal practice is over there, here, slim packs are the usual uncomfortable requirement. From the in-cabin, appears there was nothing happening up front with the pilot wanting to get out.

The last occurrence locally had part of the tailplane disappear.....which might have had the desired effect of prompting the pilot to bail rather than try to regain control. He still only just managed to drag himself out the rear door battling building G ~ only a few seconds under canopy/sub 600' exit.

 

I'm not sure I follow you.... are you saying the pilot in this case made no effort or he
had bailed BEFORE everyone else did? I don't really understand what you said...

Jedi

 

Me too. I couldn't see anything coming off the airplane but I did see it stall and pitch up onto its back and enter an inverted spin. The same thing happened near here a few years ago when all the jumpers rushed aft and aft loaded the airplane which then stalled and spun.

 

I thought pilots were required to have a chute on plains carrying sky divers?

(I think that is what the guy above was trying to say...)

 

After looking at that video several times I'm convinced that that airplane was easily recoverable. Full back stick and kick opposite rudder and make a slow pullup.

 

So you think it could be an issue of an inexperienced and/or panicked pilot?

Jedi

 

Yes.

 

Click Here CC-PJE Comp Air 7 Turbine - pilot also jumped from the aircraft and received minor injuries. Accident occurred on August 18th 2007 at Tobalaba SCTB (Eulogio Sanchez Airport) Click Here Santiago Chile


Here is a video from a pilot who was flying 11 jumpers in a Cessna Caravan in Australia back in 2001, a group of four jumped first - one of the jumpers chute opened as he jumped - killing the jumper as the chute was caught on the tail.

Click Here - video

Accident report

 

awesome. glad to hear the pilot made it out. thanks for posting that! (amazed you were able to track down the specific accident report)

horrible. seeing the picture just before his chute deployed, the bulge... very sad.