SR-22 Crash in Zurich

Guest Discussion
61

Rick,

The accident occurred at 15:58 LT (BEAA report) :

rapport.jpg
rapport.jpg700×331 72.6 KB

The METAR was :

LSZH 221350Z 31008KT 3000 -DZ FEW003 SCT007 BKN014 08/07 Q1021 NOSIG :

  • METAR time is Zoulou time. In Zurich on the 22th LT was GMT+2, so 15:58LT was 13:58Zoulou.

  • In Europe visibility is given in meter: 3000 m are 1.864 SM

The visibility observed at Zurich airport 8 mn before the crash was less than 2SM.

62

Another bad news. Third person just died in hospital (33-years old woman). Fourth person is in hospital, but in good condition.

–

Tomasz

63

Possible location of SR22 accident siteOct 08.kmz (693 Bytes)

I notice in the second photo what looks like the four PAPI
lights for runway 14 (to the left of the Cirrus). They might be approach lights though.

I have ‘pinned’ the PAPI’s on GoogleEarth and pinned what I think is the “White Observation Building” in the background of
the picture

GoogleEarth shows shadow of an aerial/mast in the vicinity of the PAPI’s too - if that is what they are.

IF control was lost very near the ground (say 50ft) this aerial might be a factor the investigation team review.

KMZ attached (trying anyways)… View:/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.UserFiles/00.00.00.67.00/Possible-location-of-SR22-accident-siteOct-08.kmz

Possible location of SR22 accident siteOct 08.kmz (693 Bytes)

64

I have grab some more photos, you can dowload them from ftp://ftp.guru.pl/SR22_Zurich.rar

I have prepared a map, showing place of an accident:

  • point “1” is the place, that most of photos have been taken from, it`s location is

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=47.486545,8.534456&spn=0.000467,0.000858&z=20

  • point “2” is the white building, it`s location is

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=47.478347,8.530134&spn=0.000467,0.000858&z=20

  • point “X” is the crash location, centered link is

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=47.484433,8.533341&spn=0.000933,0.001717&z=19

–

Regars,

Tomasz

65

Thanks Tomasz.

Any news of the survivors?

66

Jon, as I wrote earlier:

Third person just died in hospital (33y woman). Fourth person (passenger from a rear seat) is in Zurich hospital, but in good condition. BTW: He made a phone call to their company (all of them working for the same company) immedietely after the crash, and before ambulance arrived, so he probably knows all details of this accindent.

–

Tomasz

67

So sorry to hear this news Tomasz, especially if this lady was the injured person you knew. I hope the fourh recovers well. Look after yourself too friend.

68

I don’t get it. Loss of power or loss of an engine especially in IMC is a big deal but this guy could see the ground. The chute was the best option in hind sight but I think since he could see the ground it was not thought of. So what is left, landing somewhere. What happened to the most basic training, DO NOT LET THE PLANE STALL. When we are falling out of the sky do we get so blinded to think pulling up on the controls will somehow make the plane rise to safety. It is too bad to see this crash in a flat grass field where on another day we all could make a clean landing.

69

Did I miss something or was it somewhat more clear the other day that the probable “power loss” was an alternator failure; not an engine failure?

70

No news since the Swiss accident report indicates the pilot reported an alternator problem as the reason to divert to Zurich.

Cheers
Rick

71

Marc, after reading the NTSB reports for several VFR-into-IMC accidents, it is common that some last-moment maneuvering happened. Once you start maneuvering low to the ground with minimal visibility, how well can you maintain your situational awareness? And if you start to lose it, do you attempt recovery or pull the CAPS handle?

Apparently, YES! Call it reflex, call it trained response, call it habit, whatever. That’s exactly what the Indianapolis accident profile data showed. I suspect that’s what happens in many of the Cirrus landing accidents.

Amen!

Cheers
Rick

72

Rick:

I think you have to consider a very important point. A landing with the CAPS is not a “clean landing” as you put it. A CAPS landing is a controlled crash. As such, pilots are not going to want to pull the handle unless they feel they are going to crash anyway and a CAPS crash is better than the alternative. But most pilots landing planes believe they can still land the plane and are therefore less likely to think they should pull the handle.

I believe you had one such landing yourself a few years ago where the outcome was temporarily in doubt. You did not pull the handle because in your mind the situation was “recoverable” and it was. So the pilot has to BELIEVE the situation is not recoverable to decide to pull. It would be a lot different, I believe, if a CAPS pull resulted in a non crash landing. More would pull if that were the case.

73

I thought about this the other day.

What is one truth about every flight we’ve ever made? For most of us, each and every one has ended in a successful landing.

And, NONE have ended in a CAPS pull.

So, no matter how dire things seem to get, there’s past history pushing us to continue to the expected positive outcome.

I managed to pilot a Cirrus that had lost a wing right into the ground from about 4,000’. Good thing it was in a simulator. It opened my eyes and I’ll try to search for my PIREP on it later.

Found it:

http://www.cirruspilots.org/forums/t/22993.aspx?View=Threaded%20wing&Match=And&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Old=allposts&Main=220862

Sorry about the formatting - probably artifacts of the forum change.

74

Ed,

Thanks for the pointer back. That was one of the great all-time COPA posts. I’ve fixed the formatting glitches.

75

And therein lies the trap. Belief and ability are different. Cirrus pilots have the option and certainly talk like they have the belief, witness Cory Lidle’s interviews about the Cirrus he bought. But are Cirrus pilots trained to develop the ability?

Wrong. I didn’t pull the handle because I was unaware that I had that option! [:$] It never entered my mind. I didn’t realize that I had a different choice until I was sitting in the CPPP session that introduced Single Pilot Resource Management on the west coast months later. What a shock that was!

Subtle. Non-crash landing, eh? How about non-fatal crash?

More thoughts for a Pull early, pull often! blog entry coming to mind . . .

Cheers
Rick

76

That makes me wonder… what is it about military pilots that enables them to make the tough decision to eject? Is it training, the atmosphere within their own organizations that exists making it clear that there are times when ejection is THE option, a set of parameters that says in such-and-such a scenario the option is to eject, in another situation land the plane?

I have no empirical data to suggest military pilots eject more often than Cirrus pilots pull the chute but each action is similar – at least in that once the handle is pulled the pilot becomes a passenger dependent on a system rather than his/her piloting skill. Maybe some of the former military pilots could shed some light on the training and SOPs they dealt with during their time in the jets.

77

I can give you a pertial answer. I do not know how they are trained to make the “ejection decision” but I do know the liklihood they will eject quickly or not is a function of the cause of the incident. If they have an event such as a structural failure or being hit by something that fails controllability of the plane or ANY incident NOT cuased by them, they will eject faster.

If they feel the airplane is in peril becasue of something THEY induced, they will likely try to save the plane and only bail out as a last resort.

78

I’ve been looking for details on the training programs for military ejection seats. Here’s an odd link to a fire department web site with a great description of the ejection seat training program:

We can learn from how the military trains pilots to
eject. First, there are very specific ejection decision parameters for
each type of aircraft. The ejection decision parameters are a series of
IF- THEN logic statements for example: If conditions for no-flap
carrier landing are not optimum, eject. If neither engine can be
restarted, eject. If hydraulic pressure does not recover, eject. If
still out of control by 10,000 feet above terrene, eject (NATOPS flight
manual F-4J, US Navy 1995). There can be a dozen or more ejection
parameters for a specific aircraft.

The summary continues about training pilots to eject:

In spite of all this training and practice pilots
still fail or delay to eject. According to Richard Leland, Director
Aeromedical Training Institute Environmental Tectonics Corp., there are
10 reasons for failure or delayed ejection that must be address in
ejection training:
1. Temporal Distortion (time seems to speedup or slow down).
2. Reluctance to relinquish control of ones situation.

3. Channeled attention (continuing with a
previous selected course of action because other more significant
information is not perceived).

4. Loss of situational awareness (controlled flight into terrain).

5. Fear of the unknown (reluctance to leave the security of the cockpit)

6. Fear of retribution (loss of the aircraft)

7. Lack of procedural knowledge

8. Attempting to fix the problem.

9. Pride (ego)

10. Denial (this isn’t happening to me.)

The article concludes about adapting this to firefighters:

The military model of developing ejection doctrine
may be useful to the fire service to develop Mayday doctrine for
firefighters. The ejection doctrine for pilots begins as follows. “The
first and absolutely most important factor in the ejection process is
the decision to eject” (Ejection seat training operations and maintains
manual. p.3-1, Environmental Tectonics Corp. Southampton, PA 1999).
“You should understand that the decision to eject or bailout must be
made by the pilot on the ground before flying. You should establish
firmly and clearly in you mind under which circumstances you will
abandon the aircraft” (Ejection seat trainer. p2 Environmental
Tectonics Corp. Southampton, PA).

Think there is a challenge for Cirrus pilots to train to use CAPS?

Cheers
Rick

79

Marc,

As I understand it the power failure was electric, not engine.

According to a transscript and a poster on liveatc.net the plane was over intersection 16/28, requested 180 to return to the 14 and stalled in the turn…

Here’s the transscript:

26:15
ATC asks for altitute
N-BD reports PWR failure and Requests VFR
Final: “maintain vis. GND contact, HDG 140. keep the tracking to the field”

26:53
Final: “twelve o clock pos., range two miles”

27:40 Final: …16, you’re approaching now the intersection between RWY 16 and 28
N4567BD: … we do a 180 and approach the RWY 14?
27:51 Final: Confirm you have still visual GND contact?
N4567BD: We have still and we have RWY in sight, BD
27:56 Final: N7BD contact TWR 118.1 for further instructions.
28:20 N4567BD: …RWY14, BD
28:26 TWR: BD, do you have RWY in sight?
No more contact

Speculation, but does sound logical that this would be low level stall / spin. Low speed + high bank? Would also explain why he pulled no chute; he was visual to the airport, almost on top of the runway. Simple tight circuit would have put him at the 14; most people would not pull the chute at that time I guess…

Assuming power failure was indeed electrical, not engine (why would you request a 180 which puts you on downwind to a runway with a dead engine?), this could be a logical explaination I think.

Arnoud

80

Arnoud and others, please check the weather METARs for Zurich earlier in this thread:

LSZH 221350Z 31008KT 3000 -DZ FEW003 SCT007 BKN014 08/07 Q1021 NOSIG

Do I read this to mean that landing on runway 14 would be with a tailwind? Or would each approach result in a circle to land on another runway?

Cheers
Rick