A2A Aerostar Emergency Landing

[wblackret]

Scott, glad you and Jake are ok.

[Scott - A2A]

Damn, that year did not go without fighting to the end it seems.

The main thing is that you guys are alright, and I hope the damage was relatively minimal as well. Were you lucky enough to avoid props hit the ground entirely?

-Esa

No, we feathered on short final and while the props were stopped, one tip on each engine made contact.

Scott

[DHenriques_]

Damn, that year did not go without fighting to the end it seems.

The main thing is that you guys are alright, and I hope the damage was relatively minimal as well. Were you lucky enough to avoid props hit the ground entirely?

-Esa

Scott and I were on the phone for an hour discussing what happened.
In my opinion the two of them couldn't have done a better job of handling the situation. Back engineering the incident they basically did what a loose interpretation of an axiom put together by the Greek poet Archilochus would have said as he postulated on change; that being that in an emergency situation a pilot "never rises to the occasion". A pilot descends down to the level of their most recent training".
The guys did a first rate job. They zipped through the startle factor, settled in to a coordinated approach to handling the problem, analyzed the situation, called in some outside expert Aerostar assistance, and generally worked the issue as a well oiled team with the result being a lightly damaged aircraft and two good men walking away from it all in one piece.

There has always been some discussion among the "enlightened folk" concerning the feathering of props on final on a belly landing to save damage to the engines. Personally I favor doing it if the approach is stabilized and once the runway can be made. The props will usually stop on a compression stroke or just before that so saving the props is random and iffy, but saving the crank and the internals can be minimized if you get lucky.
The Aerostar being a midwing has this added advantage and it paid off in this case. They did catch a blade but with any luck at all the required engine tear down might not reveal severe damage. I hope so anyway.
Hell of a way to end a hell of a year, but thanks to two good pilots this one was not as bad as it could have been.
Dudley Henriques

[addman]

Wow! Did not expect to read something like that here. Thank goodness you are both safe and that the plane is in one piece. 2020 really was a sucky year, here's to 2021! Maybe now we'll get som "accu-skid" tech in future releases.

[Thog10]

Very glad you are both safe and well!

[AKar]

Damn, that year did not go without fighting to the end it seems.

The main thing is that you guys are alright, and I hope the damage was relatively minimal as well. Were you lucky enough to avoid props hit the ground entirely?

-Esa

Scott and I were on the phone for an hour discussing what happened.
In my opinion the two of them couldn't have done a better job of handling the situation. Back engineering the incident they basically did what a loose interpretation of an axiom put together by the Greek poet Archilochus would have said as he postulated on change; that being that in an emergency situation a pilot "never rises to the occasion". A pilot descends down to the level of their most recent training".
The guys did a first rate job. They zipped through the startle factor, settled in to a coordinated approach to handling the problem, analyzed the situation, called in some outside expert Aerostar assistance, and generally worked the issue as a well oiled team with the result being a lightly damaged aircraft and two good men walking away from it all in one piece.

There has always been some discussion among the "enlightened folk" concerning the feathering of props on final on a belly landing to save damage to the engines. Personally I favor doing it if the approach is stabilized and once the runway can be made. The props will usually stop on a compression stroke or just before that so saving the props is random and iffy, but saving the crank and the internals can be minimized if you get lucky.
The Aerostar being a midwing has this added advantage and it paid off in this case. They did catch a blade but with any luck at all the required engine tear down might not reveal severe damage. I hope so anyway.
Hell of a way to end a hell of a year, but thanks to two good pilots this one was not as bad as it could have been.
Dudley Henriques

Yeah, quickly checking the image (not knowing the Aerostar's dimensions) I thought the alignments of the props were rather lucky, hence my thought, but on closer look it is obvious that it would have been extremely improbable outcome to avoid any ground contact altogether. Anyways, a stopped blade hitting the ground is a tons greater outcome than having a running engine stopped by a prop strike. While it results in the same dis-/re-assembly of the power plants, the list of replacement parts tends to be shorter, with any luck at least.

Obviously it is not a priority at all in such situation, but to me it shows all the presence of mind, not only bringing the plane down safely but also being able to minimize the damages in such circumstances.

-Esa

[DHenriques_]

Damn, that year did not go without fighting to the end it seems.

The main thing is that you guys are alright, and I hope the damage was relatively minimal as well. Were you lucky enough to avoid props hit the ground entirely?

-Esa

Scott and I were on the phone for an hour discussing what happened.
In my opinion the two of them couldn't have done a better job of handling the situation. Back engineering the incident they basically did what a loose interpretation of an axiom put together by the Greek poet Archilochus would have said as he postulated on change; that being that in an emergency situation a pilot "never rises to the occasion". A pilot descends down to the level of their most recent training".
The guys did a first rate job. They zipped through the startle factor, settled in to a coordinated approach to handling the problem, analyzed the situation, called in some outside expert Aerostar assistance, and generally worked the issue as a well oiled team with the result being a lightly damaged aircraft and two good men walking away from it all in one piece.

There has always been some discussion among the "enlightened folk" concerning the feathering of props on final on a belly landing to save damage to the engines. Personally I favor doing it if the approach is stabilized and once the runway can be made. The props will usually stop on a compression stroke or just before that so saving the props is random and iffy, but saving the crank and the internals can be minimized if you get lucky.
The Aerostar being a midwing has this added advantage and it paid off in this case. They did catch a blade but with any luck at all the required engine tear down might not reveal severe damage. I hope so anyway.
Hell of a way to end a hell of a year, but thanks to two good pilots this one was not as bad as it could have been.
Dudley Henriques

Yeah, quickly checking the image (not knowing the Aerostar's dimensions) I thought the alignments of the props were rather lucky, hence my thought, but on closer look it is obvious that it would have been extremely improbable outcome to avoid any ground contact altogether. Anyways, a stopped blade hitting the ground is a tons greater outcome than having a running engine stopped by a prop strike. While it results in the same dis-/re-assembly of the power plants, the list of replacement parts tends to be shorter, with any luck at least.

Obviously it is not a priority at all in such situation, but to me it shows all the presence of mind, not only bringing the plane down safely but also being able to minimize the damages in such circumstances.

-Esa

Yeah, they did a great job!

Did you happen to catch the film of the guy who put his Aerostar down gear up, skidded for about 50 feet on the asphalt caught and curled all his prop blades, then rotated back up and flew it away on to another field?
Dumbest and luckiest thing I ever saw. He made it too, bent props and all. The film is on Utube in case you missed it.
DH

[Tomas Linnet]

must this gentleman here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgdSflS ... WPBF25News

[gulredrel]

Glad, you're okay and everything went so well under the circumstances.

Would be interested to hear, why one of the main gear didn't want to deploy, if you can figure this out.

[DHenriques_]

must this gentleman here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgdSflS ... WPBF25News

Yup............that's him !
DH

[Tug002]

must this gentleman here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgdSflS ... WPBF25News

Yup............that's him !
DH

Yes saw the video, can not understand why anyone would do that.
Glad that everyone is safe. Great work guys.

Keep smiling
Tug

[DHenriques_]

must this gentleman here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgdSflS ... WPBF25News

Yup............that's him !
DH

Yes saw the video, can not understand why anyone would do that.
Glad that everyone is safe. Great work guys.

Keep smiling
Tug

Instinctive reaction. Involuntary. Executed during the startle factor period. Not a conscious response.
It's a human factors textbook example for the above.
DH

[Skyfox]

Holy ?()^ guys.

Omg. I am glad that you all are okay and in good health.

Be safe....

[TymK]

I'll leave the technical stuff to the experts, but let me just say I'm really glad you two managed to get out of that unscathed.

[guillaume78150]

I would always choose a very long smooth hard surface to belly land something like an Aerostar over uneven grass. I can't speak for other airplanes but I was thinking of the Messerschmidt Me-163 "Komet" as we were skidding. This plane has a skid and was designed to land this way:


The Aerostar felt like it was designed to land on it's belly as it was perfectly controllable.

BTW an interesting tidbit, we requested fire retardant foam and the airport said "due to environmental concerns, we no longer use that." This is true for even a passenger plane with hundreds of people. In our case all they would have needed was a very narrow path, as said above, it was controllable on the ground. Some other airplanes may not have faired as well as this beautifully designed and tough airplane.

Scott

Thanks Scott.
As the first series Arado 234. It looks like germans paved the road for belly landing.
Do the engines stop with the propellers in the right position ?
Could you assess the damages on the fuselage bottom ?