Why did this plane crash?

[Xavven]

In the video, the plane seems to be landing nose-down. And they landed with a tail wind. Why didn't the pilot circle to the opposite runway and land into the wind?

 

http://www.9news.com/news/article/374248/339/Newly-released-video-of-Aspen-plane-crash

[Nealius]

The only people who know why they chose to land with a tail wind are dead, unfortunately.

Edited January 22, 2014 by Nealius

[kerillnater]

The only people who know why they chose to land with a tail wind are dead, unfortunately.

 

LOL. There's a reason why that is called tail. :music_whistling:

[PFunk1606688187]

The specifics of why the aircraft came down how it did can't be known without access to data from the recorders, but probably the fact that they were landing with a 20 knots tail wind made them fast and high on the approach and trying to force it down they came in at a ludicrous sink rate.

 

Lets see, when you're going too fast, ie. the tail wind is blowing you forward, you could have trouble bleeding speed and maintaining the correct sink rate to stay on glide slope. Perhaps the aircraft was too fast and to get down to approach speed they didn't descend as fast as they needed to then finding themselves high on a short final they made the poor decision of trying to come in too steep and for some reason failed to pull out.

 

With no specifics necessary its pretty certain they were in an unstable approach and failed to make the only sensible choice which was to go around. Why they were landing on the wrong runway is another thing to wonder about, but it is Aspen so maybe there is some kind of terrain issue that makes reciprocal approaches dangerous, or maybe the pilot was a yahoo and didn't care to check the ATIS for local winds.

 

Too many questions with not enough info, so its all speculation.

[dumgrunt]

from a vague and uncertain memory, aren't there certain situations when you do want to land with the wind? sure looks like he spudded in.

[Darkwolf]

Alcohol ?

[Aginor]

from a vague and uncertain memory, aren't there certain situations when you do want to land with the wind? sure looks like he spudded in.

 

I can't imagine any where you would want to, but there are situations where you have to decide to land with the wind because everything else means landing somewhere else than your runway.

It's a common thing to do for sailplanes. Pilots hate it, but they do such landings during their training numerous times. That's because you could get into a situation where you are too low to circle but too high to land straight.

The problem is just that you are near your stall speed but still too fast for a regular landing.

IIRC most planes are capable of a touchdown with twice their normal landing speed, btw. So not that big of a deal. but you have to brake hard or have lots of runway. So you're probably not able to come to a halt then, depending how long the runway is and such things.

And of course this is highly risky. If your nose gear tires blow you're in trouble, for example.

Unfortunately I can't watch the video with my connection here. Maybe he touched down with one main wheel first and his wingtip collided with the ground? That's another risk of fast landings.

EDIT: Also, strong gusts of wind tend to try and flip your plane around and such things, even fairly big ones. Not so much fun. So maybe the reason wasn't the tail wind but the gusts.

Edited January 28, 2014 by Aginor

[AlphaOneSix]

http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/showthread.php?t=67258

[Aginor]

Ok, it seems it is normal in Aspen to land on 15 and depart from 33, because of a mountain that's in the way. Also it seems they had 15kts of tail wind, which certainly isn't something to be happy about but not that bad. Somebody in that thread AlphaOneSix linked to mentioned that 10kts is supposed to be the maximum allowed though.

Don't have time to read it all now, will do that when I come home.

[danilop]

More than 20 kts tail wind approach, mountainous terrain ... looking for big trouble. Unfortunately they've found it :( Should have diverted to the nearest safe airport ... if they had been able to - we don't know the reason why they have attempted landing in that circumstances.

Edited January 28, 2014 by danilop

[GRUNT -Shrek-]

In the video, the plane seems to be landing nose-down. And they landed with a tail wind. Why didn't the pilot circle to the opposite runway and land into the wind?

 

http://www.9news.com/news/article/374248/339/Newly-released-video-of-Aspen-plane-crash

 

 

Report: http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20140105-1

[cichlidfan]

Damn, cameras 3 and 5!!

[genbrien]

Our CL-601 is limited to 10kts tailwind/24kt Xwind. The Challenger don't have leading edge flaps, and you land it without (or very little) flare because it tends to float. I asked one of my pilot about that crashed, and said that probable after it hit the runway and bounced, probably stalled(or near stalling) and stick pusher did the rest.

Still stupid after the 1st overshoot with those conditions

[X93355]

Looks like a stall from that angle, bad decision not to go around or divert. We are taught to go around if any doubt at all. Sad that their family and friends were waiting at the airport to be picked up.

[Cake]

If they were slow and trying to make it work, wind shear may heave led to a stall and what we are seeing, but who knows? I guess we'll eventually hear from the NTSB.