5/1/2002: 14th hole landing

Another fine MSNBC pic. Here, this lady has performed an good landing, which I'm told is any landing that you walk away from.

She experienced plane trouble (they don't say what kind) and was forced to land on the 14th hole at the Lafayette Golf Course in Lafayette, Indiana. Only after landing did the plane flip over, and golfers rushed in to help her.

Pilots, care to comment? It looks like she chose a flat fairway instead of a residential street (well done), and the grass was just too thick and lush to allow the plane to roll along.

Looks like she didn't manage to keep the nosewheel off the ground long enough (an important part of soft-field technique) or the ground was soft enough that the nosegear still collapsed even though she'd shed enough speed that the elevator stalled out and she couldn't hold the nose up anymore.

The nosewheel *is* collapsed, which is what flipped the plane and made that huge divot. Funny we don't see any tracks for the main gear; either the turf wasn't that soft or the tracks just didn't make it into frame. The fact that there's a fleet number on the nose suggests that it's a rental aircraft...and apparently she retrieved her kneeboard and flight bag. Something here is saying "student pilot" to me..


Ouch..

"It's so funny when a girl tries to do something."

--Crow T. Robot

Divot

Man, I hope she replaces that divot, there's golfers waiting to play through...

Yeah. Boys do stupid things too. I just love squeezing that quote in whenever I get a chance

(In case you're unaware, Crow T. Robot was a star on the now-defunct-yet-still-hilariously-funny Mystery Science Theater 3000. They took old movies, sat in front of them and just poked fun at everything. A lot of it is very adult humor - most intelligent people would get a real kick out of it. If you are aware of the show and even enjoy it, please excuse this parenthesized section.)

My dad's a pilot. Once upon a time, he and his brother were flying somewhere - I'm not familiar with the exact details - and they decided to try something new. The Cessna had two tanks - the first was nearing empty and the second was full. Dad and Dick decided to let the plane run out of gas, just for a second, before flipping over to the next tank.

When the time came, my dad was totally expecting it - but he said his heart still skipped a few beats and that "Oh shit" feeling set in when the engine stopped running. Of course, he promptly switched over to the second tank after that and did whatever necessary to ensure they didn't... you know, careen into the ground So yeah, boys do some equally funny (read: dumb) things.

Given the accuracy of Cessna fuel gauges, running a tank dry is the only way to know it's empty. :-)

From the "Journal and Courier" website (http://www.lafayettejc.com):

"A Purdue University student narrowly avoided tragedy Tuesday night when the small plane she was flying crash landed on the 14th green of the Lafayette Golf Course.

Carol Ann Saunders, an aviation technology student at Purdue, was not injured in the crash, which flipped the plane on its top as it landed on the golf course.

Witnesses said they observed the plane coming in smoothly from the west, coasting slowly to the ground. Near the ground, however, the nose of the plane appeared to become unstable, causing it to flip."

Sounds like Maggie's assesment is correct.. she put the nosegear down too early (for a soft field) landing and caused the nosewheel to collapse. Once the nose touched, it looks like the tail just wen over the top of the nose...

Re: 5/1/2002: 14th hole landing

"The nose bcame unstable", eh?

On a close inspection you can see that the left maingear dug in briefly too, just before the flip....and there's no tracks leading up to that divot. LIke maybe the nosegear touched *before* the left main. Possible she forced it onto the ground while it was still going too fast. Might have been a good time to retract the flaps (they're still lowered in the pic), but it's the dickens hard to think of *all* the "coulda/shoulda" items in the heat of the moment.

The left wingtip is a little mangled too, but that prolly happened during the flip.

re: MaggieL

I find it really hard to believe that a plane crashing at stalling speed didn't suffer more damage. I really do think that she touched down first and bled off some speed before the nose gear collapsed. Anybody know the stalling speed of that type of aircraft?

>> Might have been a good time to retract the flaps (they're still lowered in the pic),

Unh? Correct me if I'm wrong but flaps give an airplane more lift thus allowing it to fly slower than normal. Retracting the flaps would have stalled the plane dipping the nose....or am I being think?

dunno

By the relatively short length of that divot and the minor damage to the plane (OK it's toast but you can still tell it's a plane), I'd say she landed on the main wheels in controlled fashion, rolled out a while then finally the nose had to come down and when it did it dug in. Looks like it was only going about 20kts or so when it went over.

I don't think she landed nosewheel first, or you'd just see a big hole and a few pieces of sheetmetal laying around, since that would mean she flew it into the ground rather than land, and she'd have been going a lot faster.

I think she did a good forced landing, but the ground was simply too soft to support an airplane, most likely because it's a golf course and not a runway.

Not such a bad deal, nobody was injured, some of the plane may be salvageable, and the pilot will live to fly another day.

When the FBO hears about the crash the first thing they're going to do is ask if everyone's OK. When they learn that everyone is fine, they'll breath a huge sigh of relief.

Re: re: MaggieL