(OT, sort of) B-17 crash in Conecticut

eze240 · **Joined:** Sat Feb 06, 2010 9:29 am **Posts:** 319

It was my understanding, from various stories heard and read, that two engines out on one side is practically uncontrollable....the best you can hope for is to hold a general direction and slow the rate of altitude loss....with landing being pretty much power off....
From what I've gathered, the report is rather damming of the crew and Collins...indications of a rather long string of substandard practices, short cutting, etc....
In my experience, this sort of thing comes out of underlying financial issues....examples such as Chalks, Eastern, etc... Even the American accident was financial in nature, as they wanted to minimize down time and picked up their time saver measures from Continental, who had not had a catastrophic accident with it, up to then...which made them complacent...
Much the same was likely happening here....
Now, on the other hand....while there were bad issues with their operation, that's not a reason to stop all other operations....
Unfortunately, over the last few years I've noticed that govt bureaucracy has tended to be very damming of these situations and prone to justifying increased regulations....a classic example of over regulation and govt power grabbing, thru a consistent need to justify each agencies existence....
We can only hope cooler heads will prevail in the end...
In any case, we must all remember what ultimately comes from trying to "get by", short cutting, etc....don't do it....once you start, even for a short time, it very easily becomes your regular practice....

Chuck Richards · **Joined:** Sun Jul 20, 2008 12:21 am **Posts:** 60

This is no surprise at all really. Just have a close look at how
many of the sport parachuting dropzones "maintain" their aircraft.
Non-jumpers always ask: "Why jump out of a perfectly good airplane?"
The sardonic skydiver's answer is always: "It's not perfectly good,
a parachute is much safer!"

EJ Berry · **Posted:** Fri Mar 27, 2020 4:46 pm

I'm reminded of a B-17 crew that lost two engines on the same side over Eastern Germany. They knew they couldn't get back to England, or even the liberated part of France, so they tried for Sweden. A Luftwaffe FW 190 fighter showed up, saw the two engines out, and decided to leave them alone. The B-17 couldn't hold altitude so they gradually lost altitude and made it to a belly landing in Sweden. For them the war was over, but they were internees, not POW's. Sweden later returned the crew to the U.S. with a promise they would not participate in the European Theatre (ETO).

Phil Mulligan

Alan Walker · **Posted:** Sat Mar 28, 2020 12:35 am

KevinM wrote:

Alan Walker wrote:

KevinM wrote:

[*]Why not declare an emergency and ask tower to roll the trucks? When it comes to fire suppression, every second counts.[/list]

/Kevin Madore

Communicate is the last thing on the list. I'm not surprised that the pilot didn't declare-if you're fighting the aircraft for control, talking to ATC becomes a pretty low priority. The guys in the front seats were too busy trying to make the crash a survivable one to talk. That's why ATC has the authority to declare an emergency on behalf of a pilot if necessary.

All of us who fly understand....or should understand, the mantra of Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. It certainly does not make sense to be talking to ATC if they cannot help you. That said, this airplane was in the traffic pattern and a planned emergency landing was imminent, and the success of such was likely in doubt. The airplane was not being flown single pilot. One pilot flies, the other handles everything else. If the crew had doubts about being able to make a safe landing, getting the trucks rolling takes only a couple of words. The mike button is on the yoke. In my mind, simple observation of the emergency in progress should also have led the tower crew to hit the button. An airplane at 500 feet on downwind with a reported engine issue is NOT normal.

I still wonder why the crew elected to continue for RW6, when RW33 was there for the taking once they got on the right downwind. Still, other than hitting the localizer antenna, which is frangible, they landed in a relatively clear area. If they had only been able to keep the aircraft in the runway environment it is likely that most if not all of the folks on board would have survived.

/Kevin Madore

Given what has come out of the investigation so far, I suspect that the pilot locked on to landing on RW6 as it was the runway they were cleared for and that 33 was closed. It also seems (from the radio exchange between the pilot and controller) that the pilot not flying was indecisive as to the urgency of the situation-the controller had to ask the pilot a couple of times if he needed to get on the ground immediately or could remain airborne and work his situation out. From what I heard, it appears that he never got a clear response and made the right decision to send the inbound traffic around. Maybe they thought that they were too close in to get on the deck on 33 for some reason. At any rate, they ended up landing short of the runway in the approach lights (and that rarely ends well).