How hard is it to survive a crash?

I'll start off by saying sorry, I'm a little upset and I am going to ramble a bit. In my profession, these things happen from time to time. Planes go down. One went down yesterday, 87RY, a Be36 and after the S&R reported, we were shocked to find out everyone died, the pilot and a mother and father of 5 small kids.
Kathryn's Report: Beech A36 Bonanza, N87RY: Fatal accident occurred August 28, 2017 in Ellabell, Bryan County, Georgia
And just 2 months ago a c180 went down local with a a mother, father, and their 2 small children in the plane. : Kathryn's Report: Cessna 170, N4244V: Fatal accident occurred April 15, 2017 at Williston Municipal Airport (X60), Levy County, Florida
And here is a family in 2015 Kathryn's Report: Piper PA-32R-300 Cherokee Lance, TLT and GGB LLC, N5802V: Accident occurred May 08, 2015 near Dekalb-Peachtree Airport (KPDK), Atlanta, Georgia

How hard is it to survive a crash in a small GA aircraft?
Back ground, I am a Commercial licenced, multi, instrument rated pilot. I really never had a fear of flying, but over the past few years, I have developed a significant concern over flying, especially with my wife and kids. I think it has a lot to do with starting a family, and ever accident i hear of adds to it.
Back when i flew frequently, the only things I would actually say scared me were low altitude stalls and structural failure. Losing an engine never seemed that significant, there always seemed to be roads, beaches, fields, water nearby. Even in worse case, buildings, trees, most small a/c can fly so slow, who cant survive a 40kt impact?


Obviously, any talk of yesterday's crash of 87ry, is purely hypothetical since there has been no investigation yet, but the news says he radioed in an engine failure and made a gradual decent. What does a be36 stalls at, ~50kts? The crash was found close to a highway, why not land there? Even if the pine trees were the only option, stalling it at 50kts into the top of some trees while wouldn't be pleasant, it doesn't seem lethal? Just seems like many of these crashes shouldn't have ended in fatalities.

 

From the picture it looks like the plane hit a big tree head-on the nose and then fell down to the forest floor. Notice the small trees around the tail aren't cut at all. Looks like the trees were just too thick to keep the plane between them.

It is surprising though that they crashed there in that it appears to have been a clear day, 9:30 am in the morning, with a highway nearby. And there was no fire after the crash which often kills everyone that couldn't get out right away.

I am a low time pilot but my instructors taught me to commit to a field or road and, as you get lower, don't leave its area for a slightly better alternative. If you think you'll be able to walk away from the crash landing, keep the option you know you for sure have. Sometimes we would circle a field for thousands of feet of descent to set up for the emergency landing approach.

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Yep.




Mark

 

Statistically, your odds are not too bad in that scenario. But statistics don't necessarily help you if you crash into a tree. Who knows why the pilot did what he did, but I'm sure at the time it seemed like the right thing to do. Maybe he couldn't make the road and might have stalled/spun if he had tried... no one here was in the cockpit and knows what was really going on.

You never know when your number is up. A prominent tech entrepreneur here died over the weekend of a heart attack at 41-- a guy who biked to work every day, ran all the time, etc. So who knows... but I wouldn't let this keep you from flying.

 

I work in a Level 1 trauma center and basically see MVCs (car accidents) come in all the time. Cars vs cars, motorcycles, pedestrians, horses, trees...you name it. You'd be surprised at how bad the traumas can be even at slower speeds and some of these (other passengers) never make it to us as they died out in the field. If you're traveling faster than your body was design to (i.e. faster than running in a healthy person), you can die from an accident. These GA accident deaths don't surprise me...

Seeing people survive the horrific crashes in motor racing shows what an incredible thing safety technology is. Hopefully it can extend to GA at some point.

 

I think that we should recognize the fragility of aircraft structures. Certainly they are designed to withstand heavy G in flight, albeit limited to the machine's mission. A jet fighter can take big loads but if it encounters a concentrated force or impact for which it wasn't designed, it's going to fold up the same as a lightplane. I'm not trying to sound like an expert, I leave that to Jim Curry who does have the expertise. All I'm trying to do is to point out that airplanes are designed to flight loads within precise parameters dictated by its mission. Aluminum lightplanes are delicate and trees at 60 mph will easily slice them up. I have been messing around with flying machines since the 30's and I have seen many incidents and seen the aftermath both in civilian life and military. They are all bad and there are few survivors. It's part of flying.

 

An aircraft crew compartment could be designed to withstand an impact with the ground but it would probably be too heavy to fly, have crummy performance if it did fly or too expensive to design, make and market for such an unlikely event. Even race cars don't do well during a head on crash into a wall.

Flying on an airliner is less risky than a GA airplane since airliners are more reliable, mechanically. But if there is an emergency, the GA airplane seems to allow more options for landing, since a big aircraft needs to be within range of an airport in an emergency.

Fitting a parachute system to a GA aircraft may allow a softer landing but you may not be able to steer it to a desired landing spot. It would be interesting to know what the impact speeds are and survivability statistics of aircraft/crew with those systems.

 

Why aren't there crash standards for GA planes? Not much will save you from 200+ kts into the ground but a lot of these accidents seemed to be at speeds that would have been survivable in a modern car at the same speed.

 

Simple. Crash standards= weight. Weight = Fuel. Fuel =Range. Range = Usefulness
Usefulness = Need.

 

This was a little bit of a freak accident, though. I don't have the statistics handy, but I would bet that relatively few engine failure incidents in light single engine airplanes result in injuries, let alone deaths. And most of the ones which do result in deaths are where the pilot tried to stretch the glide and ended up stalling close to the ground.

So again, this was a little bit of a freak accident... just like the 41 year old, athletic guy I mentioned who had a heart attack and died this weekend.

 

Race cars have crash cages, harnesses, helmets with Hans devices to limit neck trauma and even passenger cars have air bags... racers are also vitally concerned with weight saving and best performance. My guess is that the aviation industry could learn a thing or two from the race car experience.

However most folks doesn't want to focus on the downsides and only see the negatives. It seems the industry has moved toward somewhat safer designs and that seems to be a very good thing.

One question I've wondered about is the lack of turbo on engines which can add considerably more power with less weight and still have good life. With the low rpms engine designs it should be a big win... but it is not??

SV

Of course a full speed crash into almost anything is not going to end well!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

same applies to road cars.

 

Cars don't have to fly.



Mark

 

A lot of modern planes come with airbags built into the shoulder harness straps.
My 2009 Cessna 182 had them.
I always hoped I'd never see how they worked.

Supposedly they don't have accidental deployments and are designed to only expand with sudden forward impact g forces.
I wonder if the internals are made by Takata?

[ame]http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lZfPJG3LXxk[/ame]

 

Oh man, read this last night as well. Being close to Savannah and seeing the family really brings it home. Only strong faith and community will get them through this.

There is also a story here that blows your mind:

Kathryn's Report: Piper PA-32RT-300T Turbo Lance II, N36402: Fatal accident occurred December 19, 2015 in Bakersfield, Kern County, California

One thing Kathryn's Report does is it makes it really tragic with the back stories and articles. This family had it all, success, love, respect. Fully developed and beautiful. Now it's over.

On a personal level we flew yesterday in a 2017 SR20 form GMU to GCY to a birthday party for one of the greatest Ferrari Collectors in the country. I can promise you it was the best Ferrari party in the world for that one moment. We would not have gone if we could not have flown, as it cut out about 6-8 hours of driving round trip. No traffic, over the mountains, it was beautiful, and we had a parachute if needed. The avionics are amazing, the plane practically flies itself.

Because of safely, we are looking at SR22s, and Diamond aircraft. I have never read that a composite plane has broken up mid flight unless it was a Cirrus that someone pulled the chute over speed. But of course, there are fatalities in the SR22s but also saves. Lot of them flying, but I suppose the plane is as good as the pilot and their decisions.

That Turbo Lance, why did he do that? His entire family sky dived without parachutes. Had to be horrible. This Bo, why did they even charter a 1994 Bo? They where wealthy enough to afford Turbine. Did they know the pilot? Of course no one wakes up in the morning and says today is the days and it is so easy to Monday morning quarterback behind this computer.

If you read KR, it happens every week somewhere in the world. I love flying from a casual GA standpoint. Nothing beats it, and we will continue as we are comfortable with the risk. We are doing all we can do to learn from others tragic mistakes.
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When Jack Roush crashed. They were out, he could have afforded them? Would they have saved his eye? I think it was gouged out by the glare shield if I remember correctly.
Roush walked off the plane and was sent to the hospital where he was initially listed in serious condition. His injuries included a fractured back, broken jaw, and the loss of his left eye. Yes, that's right — Roush lost his left eye.
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If Jack Roush had put on the shoulder harness that was hanging behind his seat, he would have saved his eye.

I will tell you, after that accident I have become much more religious about wearing my shoulder harness for takeoff and landing. I used to ignore it too.

 

The two accidents, from a causal point of view, have absolutely nothing in common. This one is a VFR pilot flying into IFR conditions at night... recipe for disaster. The one the OP is talking about is an engine failure in a single, which generally should be a survivable event.

People die in all sorts of weird fluke accidents. Just a few weeks ago, a couple of girls, freshmen in college and best friends since grade school, slipped on some rocks and fell to their deaths on a local trail. Really tragic story. It happens. Should we not go hiking any more?

 

o rly?
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If I have learned anything from CCN, it's that this is the most racist post ever. For SHAME!


Mark

 

That owl meme has nothing to do with racism.

No harm done. No need to call Amber Lamps.

 

So, many of you are touching in the same issues that impact aircraft accident survivability. The first couple days of the USAF mishap investigation course was spent drilling these into our dense craniums. Bottom line is that survivability is affected by five main factors. The container is the first. The area where people are must after a crash have what is known as survivable occupiable space. In other words, you can crash at 10 knots, but if the space crushes you by folding you into what's left, you die. Restraints are next...these keep you from impacting things that poke your eyes out, crush your skull, snap your neck, etc. Third is energy. Where does the crash energy go with respect to the human occupants? How fast is any energy transmitted? We think in terms of g, but the bottom line is that the human is moving at the same speed as the aircraft and when it stops, the KE of the occupant has to go somewhere...where it goes and how fast are an important part of determining survivability. A 90 degree impact to mother earth at 100 Knots is not likely survivable under any circumstance, but a 1-2 degree impact over smooth surface over a prolonged number of seconds can be (sounds like a crappy landing right?). Environment is next. If the occupant body is restrained and decelerative forces are survivable, how would it be if the occupants's arms, legs, or heads flew out in front of them during the impact against all manner of sharp-edged aluminum superstructure parts such as instrument panels, glare shields, etc. Delethalization of interiors has been a big part of automotive safety as well...the early Corvettes had steel dash boards...now they are all padded. Of course there are other examples here. Last is Post crash...did the plane sink in water, catch fire, land on Antarctica?

Most anything discussed above relates to these five factors somehow...

 

I think the most interesting example of this I know is a Turbo Commander accident from around 1990. They were doing a visual approach into an airport with some hills around it. Why the accident happened isn't relevant.

What is interesting is that they hit the trees in more or less a straight and level attitude. The nose dug in, and the airplane went rotating through the trees. The pilot and front seat passenger were killed instantly, but the passengers sitting on the aft couch survived (well, the initial impact, anyway-- one of them died of exposure later). They were right at the center of rotation as the airplane somersaulted through the trees.

Tragic accident, though. I knew the PIC fairly well, and he was the last person I would have expected to end up doing this.

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=39708

I had quite a bit of time in that 690A, in the months before the accident.

 

It was a joke. I am sure Chas got it.


Mark

 

All this says again that airplanes are designed to cope with flight loads with the lightest structure possible, not with the earth or earth bound objects. Iv'e seen where aluminum structures turn into giant chopping machines or giant presses. No belts, straps or helmets are going to help. When I was working I had an assignment to design a 100 gallon potable water tank to be suspended in the overhead in a freighter. It had to sustain a 14G (I think) crash load to keep it from breaking lose and destroying things in front of it. One of the engineers with whom I was working asked why it had to sustain that much forward G. I told him that was the assignment and he said," That doesn't make any damn sense, everybody forward of that will be dead anyway at a 14G impact!"