Douglas C47 crash video

Thank heavens everyone got out OK.

https://fighterjetsworld.com/2018/07/21/douglas-c-47-plane-crash-at-burnet-municipal-airport-with-13-passengers-on-board/

 

Very lucky!

There's some crazy footage on that site.
Saw this mid air collision with parachuters jumping. It shows all their helmet cams. Insane

https://fighterjetsworld.com/2018/07/22/watch-skydivers-who-miraculously-survived-mid-air-collision-between-two-planes/

 

Hazarding a quess, it appears to me that there wasn't sufficient airspeed to take off. It looked like the right wing stalled and then the left wing followed. Glad all occupants are safe!.

 

I was referring to the DC-3 crash, not the mid-air.

 

Looks like an engine loss, you can see one of the props spinning slower than the other then smoke come out of the engine right before it crashed.

 

You cannot tell prop speed with that type of shutter... so, no, you cannot tell if it slows.
Props always look goofy.

Looked for smoke... don't see it, until after it hits.

 

here is a little better quality video, you can see the puff of smoke from at around 24 seconds...

 

It looks like they did not lower the flaps the wing looks like it is in a clean cruise configuration.

 

I just completed a conversation with a high time highly experienced "old Douglas Pilot" and he, after viewing stop sequence frames of the incident, noticed the lack of control inputs throughout the entire episode. No rudder inputs, no aileron inputs, and no corrections after stalling. He thinks that the control locks were still in place. Questionable, also, is that the power was never cut back during the loss of control and contact with the ground..

 

Fair number of vehicles running to the scene.....no one to be seen running closer to help......maybe the POV just doesn't show them.....too dangerous to help?

 

Shades of the Boeing 299.....

 

Yes.

 

Wow... he's right, even the ailerons don't move at all...

 

That is why we have checklists.

 

I remember 2-3 years ago a G-IV tried to take off with the control locks on... overran and killed all.
The pilot, it turned out, had not done checklists for most previous flights... caught up with him... and his pax.

There was also a problem with the G-IV control lock system; it let the throttles advance far enough to take off I think.

 

What appears to be the problem could be incorrect, so the proof lies in the hands of the FAA inspectors. With everyone surviving the incident , it shouldn't be difficult to determine. Since this occurred I have chatted with a bunch of my ol' buddies and everyone of them has mentioned similar incidents with the same type and a few others. The good old thumbs up routine and a complete control rotation is the very first thing on the list.

 

More comments coming in from DC-3 pilots. "No yaw control on take off. "Tail never came up." "Attempted to take off at three point attitude." "No aileron inputs."
" Wings stalled, no directional control." "The DC-3 is a 'Rudder airplane' and the rudder was inactive." " Sh----Y flying technique."

 

Two words keep popping in the conversations with old timers, " Gust Locks."

 

As I mentioned above, the same thing happened to the Boeing 299, the B-17 prototype. It initially cost Boeing a win in a bomber competition, which then went to the Douglas B-18, ironically a DC-3 derivative. Fortunately people realized that the 299 was a much better airplane, and the B-17 went on to great fame. (The B-18s built stayed stateside and were mainly used as trainers.)

Here is the charred wreckage of the 299 after the fire was put out.
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Preflight procedure on a DC-3 and many other airplanes that are equipped with portable gust locks is for the ground crew to remove ALL gust locks and bring them forward so that the pilot can see them and COUNT THEM to ascertain that all have been removed before taxi. Lock pins in retractable landing gear aircraft are pulled and displayed for counting. Also the controls then are rotated in every direction to assure that everything is free and operational.

 

Sounds like it was not gust locks, in this case. Rather the guy in the right seat lost directional control, the left seat guy tried to fix it and over-controlled, then tried to horse the airplane into the air to miss a culvert. He missed the culvert, but stalled and crashed... and DC-3s don't have great stall characteristics.

 

Several different opinions here...

http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2018/07/douglas-c-47b-dc-3-accident-occurred.html

 

If you look for it, you can find a video by Dan Gryder, who trained the crew and has spoken with them, on what happened. It's somewhere on facebook.

 

I'm just looking and trying to figure it out like everybody else so I defer to you. Looking at the crash wreckage one can see that the elevators are in trail and not hanging down. This seems odd to me because there would not likely to be any cables with tension still on them after the fuselage is burned out. I still can't see any aileron control movement during the incident.

 

Here is the video:

https://www.facebook.com/22721303173...6540281816740/