piper cargo twin crashes in eastern washington

rps wrote:
Bob Gardner wrote:
He was westbound, Spokane to Seattle, so he wasn't into the mountains yet.
Nothing has been said about an engine out, but "unable to maintain altitude"
doesn't make sense if both engines were running...and there certainly wasn't
any ice in Eastern Washington that night.

AirPac is a good outfit, great people to work for.

I've flown with the this pilot a couple of times. He and his friend,
who I've also flown with, joined AirPac a few months ago.

I understand from the news that AirPac had another crash a few months
ago.


I also have flown with him, and knew him. Man it is depressing finding
out the pilot is someone you know.

AirPac had a crash earlier this year, and a failed nose gear recently.
However, I would not speculate on the cause, until the NTSB does their
job. I am fairly sure that the FAA/NTSB are looking at all aspects of it.


Len
KBFI

As reluctant as I am to assign blame before all the facts are in, it does
appear that Eric Beard was "ducking under" on a nonprecision approach,
making it hard to point fingers in any other direction. The Easton crash
sounds to me (again, without any factual knowledge), like a mechanical.

I've known Greg and Michelle Thompson since the 1980's, and I know that
losing any of their pilots is like losing a member of their family.

Bob Gardner

"Len" wrote in message
...
rps wrote:
Bob Gardner wrote:
He was westbound, Spokane to Seattle, so he wasn't into the mountains
yet.
Nothing has been said about an engine out, but "unable to maintain
altitude"
doesn't make sense if both engines were running...and there certainly
wasn't
any ice in Eastern Washington that night.

AirPac is a good outfit, great people to work for.

I've flown with the this pilot a couple of times. He and his friend,
who I've also flown with, joined AirPac a few months ago.

I understand from the news that AirPac had another crash a few months
ago.


I also have flown with him, and knew him. Man it is depressing finding out
the pilot is someone you know.

AirPac had a crash earlier this year, and a failed nose gear recently.
However, I would not speculate on the cause, until the NTSB does their
job. I am fairly sure that the FAA/NTSB are looking at all aspects of it.


Len
KBFI

"Bob Gardner" wrote in message
. ..
As reluctant as I am to assign blame before all the facts are in, it does
appear that Eric Beard was "ducking under" on a nonprecision approach,
making it hard to point fingers in any other direction. The Easton crash
sounds to me (again, without any factual knowledge), like a mechanical.

I agree that the events leading up to the crash suggest a mechanical problem
(especially with the pilot radioing about what sounded like some sort of
mechanical issue). But even if they determine what mechanical problem
existed, if any, it doesn't explain how the pilot failed to make a
successful emergency landing.

While forested, it's not as though there are no clear areas in which to
land. Even the area shown in the news footage appears reasonably landable
with plenty of space between the trees and open terrain generally. Given
the terrain, if the airplane had struck a tree during the landing roll, or
had come to rest against a tree or something like that, I think it would
have been understandable. But one witness they interviewed for the news
said that he saw the airplane descending upside down, meaning that it had
struck a tree (losing the wing) prior to landing.

The question of why *that* happened will be much harder to answer, assuming
it's answered at all.

Pete

On 12 Jul 2006 09:49:50 -0700, "rps" wrote:

Bob Gardner wrote:
He was westbound, Spokane to Seattle, so he wasn't into the mountains yet.
Nothing has been said about an engine out, but "unable to maintain altitude"
doesn't make sense if both engines were running...and there certainly wasn't
any ice in Eastern Washington that night.

AirPac is a good outfit, great people to work for.

I've flown with the this pilot a couple of times. He and his friend,
who I've also flown with, joined AirPac a few months ago.

I understand from the news that AirPac had another crash a few months
ago.

The other (previous) AirPac crash was at Bayview (KBVS, Eric Beard was
the pilot).

JFYI, the Easton wreckage has been recovered. Engine tear-downs
/ inspections are commencing as I type this (word has it neither
propeller was feathered at the time of the crash). Hopefully
the NTSB will be able to determine what went wrong....

Bela P. Havasreti

Can I go?

steve wrote:

I was planning to fly to Bozeman, MT next weekend for fishing,

Sure come on over the mounatins a little farther towards Billings. I
know of a local wrecked Maule whose parts you can peruse. Get here
before the farmers do.



Maule Driver wrote:

Can I go?

steve wrote:


I was planning to fly to Bozeman, MT next weekend for fishing,

In article ,
Newps wrote:

Sure come on over the mounatins a little farther towards Billings. I
know of a local wrecked Maule whose parts you can peruse. Get here
before the farmers do.

Is that the one that happened at the flyin last weekend?
There is no preliminary report in on the FAA website.

john smith wrote:

In article ,
Newps wrote:


Sure come on over the mounatins a little farther towards Billings. I
know of a local wrecked Maule whose parts you can peruse. Get here
before the farmers do.


Is that the one that happened at the flyin last weekend?
There is no preliminary report in on the FAA website.

Is that right? Funny how that works.

In article ,
Newps wrote:

john smith wrote:

In article ,
Newps wrote:


Sure come on over the mounatins a little farther towards Billings. I
know of a local wrecked Maule whose parts you can peruse. Get here
before the farmers do.


Is that the one that happened at the flyin last weekend?
There is no preliminary report in on the FAA website.

Is that right? Funny how that works.

You forgot to add... :-))

Steve

Day VFR only.
No landings/takeoffs at short back woods fields or high altitude
fields.
No overloaded bird. Don't bring all the fish back in one trip )
Plenty of gas for each leg.
Have co-pilot run a verbal checklist each take off and landing.

Straight and level point A to point B should be a piece of cake.

Good fishing.

Big John
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On Tue, 11 Jul 2006 10:10:30 -0700, "steve"
wrote:

Just heard about this on the morning news. Apparently pilot with 4 months
with the company had trouble maintaining altitude and attempted a landing at
the Easton, WA airstrip. It sounds like he came up short and crashed into
some trees, then cartwheeled and burst into flames.

This is tragic, and I have to wonder if he should have gone for the freeway,
which is also nearby. My instructor for BFR grilled me on what alternative
sites are available if it become apparent you aren't going to make your
emergency touch down point.

My deepest condolences to the family and friends of the pilot.

I was planning to fly to Bozeman, MT next weekend for fishing, but this has
my wife saying a definite no-way to my flying out there. She does have
somewhat of a point though. I just got checkout out for my complex rating,
and will have at best, 4 hours of time in type as PIC before going on this
trip.