Seaplane down off Miami Beach....

Apparently, there were three infants also on board.

"Flyingmonk" wrote in message
oups.com...
This source saids 19 dead, but it also saids 14 plus two crews were on
board, huh? Doesn't that equal 16?

Toks wrote:
Perfect evidence on why you shouldn't trust media that much!

Well, I never really trusted them.

Jim Macklin wrote:
My guess is that they had a loose or broken fuel line,
caught fire and the fuel vapor exploded and the fire melted
the spar enough for it to fail.. The airplane seems to have
been very sturdy, since the fuselage is intact after the
impact.

Any information as to what altitude they were cruising at? It seems
like it would take a minute or more to soften a spar enough to fail, but
maybe the pilot wasn't aware he had a problem in time. Then again, it
may have been something else entirely. I wonder if they could have hit
a gull or something like that also and cause a problem.


Matt

Jay Honeck wrote:

My guess is that they had a loose or broken fuel line,
caught fire and the fuel vapor exploded and the fire melted
the spar enough for it to fail.


Boy, I sure hope that's "all" it was. (Who'd ever think we'd be saying that
kind of stuff?)

With everyone describing an "explosion" (which the video tends to
support) -- and Chalk's not having to do much in the way of security
screening, as a small carrier -- this could easily have been some kind of a
nut-job with a shoe bomb and a "cause".

That seems unlikely as the video seems to show the fuselage pretty well
intact and the wing separated. Unless the wing has a luggage locker, I
doubt it was a bomb.


Matt

Jim Macklin wrote:

The airplane seems to have
been very sturdy, since the fuselage is intact after the
impact.

There were excellent reasons for people calling Grumman "The Ironworks."

George Patterson
Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to
your slightly older self.

Flyingmonk wrote:
This source saids 19 dead, but it also saids 14 plus two crews were on
board, huh? Doesn't that equal 16?

Plus several infants.

George Patterson
Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to
your slightly older self.

More likely that a fuel line was not properly safetied or
otherwise failed. Turbine engines have fuel pressures as
high a 1,000 PSI, so the fuel system in the engine is highly
stressed. The fuel supply pumps are high capacity and 50 to
100 PSI, so again, the fuel connections and lines are
stressed.

If there was a fuel leak into the nacelle, wing root area,
any source of ignition could cause an explosion and the
resulting fire would soften the aluminum spar quickly. The
emergency procedure for a fire is to shut off the fuel
valves, but if the failure was between the tank and fuel
tank or the valve was damaged, it might not be possible to
shut the fuel off.

The NTSB is very good at investigating this type of failure,
the will track melted and bent metal, see the pattern of
soot and follow the fractures in the metal.


--
James H. Macklin
ATP,CFI,A&P

--
Merry Christmas
Have a Safe and Happy New Year
Live Long and Prosper
Jim Macklin
"Otis Winslow" wrote in message
...
| I'm wondering if fitting turbine engines on the old
airframes
| didn't pull something loose in the wing/mount.
|
| This thing's just a heart breaker. I see them flying all
the
| time when I'm in Miami. They've been flying off Watson
Island
| forever. I've always thought it would be fun to fly with
them
| over to the Bahamas.
|
|
| Jim Macklin wrote:
| My guess is that they had a loose or broken fuel line,
| caught fire and the fuel vapor exploded and the fire
melted
| the spar enough for it to fail.. The airplane seems to
have
| been very sturdy, since the fuselage is intact after the
| impact.
|
| Thanks.
|
|

Bird strikes are common, but Grumman was called the Iron
Works for a reason, they built tough airplanes. Aluminum
melts at 1100 degrees F and has lost most of its strength at
500 degrees. Kerosene fire is high heat and energy, failure
could happen in 10-15 seconds [guess].


--
James H. Macklin
ATP,CFI,A&P

--
Merry Christmas
Have a Safe and Happy New Year
Live Long and Prosper
Jim Macklin
"Matt Whiting" wrote in message
...
| Jim Macklin wrote:
| My guess is that they had a loose or broken fuel line,
| caught fire and the fuel vapor exploded and the fire
melted
| the spar enough for it to fail.. The airplane seems to
have
| been very sturdy, since the fuselage is intact after the
| impact.
|
| Any information as to what altitude they were cruising at?
It seems
| like it would take a minute or more to soften a spar
enough to fail, but
| maybe the pilot wasn't aware he had a problem in time.
Then again, it
| may have been something else entirely. I wonder if they
could have hit
| a gull or something like that also and cause a problem.
|
|
| Matt

Grumman and Republic both built tough airplanes.


--
James H. Macklin
ATP,CFI,A&P

"George Patterson" wrote in message
newsTUpf.7263$7f3.3404@trnddc01...
| Jim Macklin wrote:
|
| The airplane seems to have
| been very sturdy, since the fuselage is intact after the
| impact.
|
| There were excellent reasons for people calling Grumman
"The Ironworks."
|
| George Patterson
| Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by
rights belong to
| your slightly older self.

I'm wondering if fitting turbine engines on the old airframes
didn't pull something loose in the wing/mount.

Turbines run a whole lot smoother than the round Pratts that were on
originally. They don't have the power pulses that radial engines have.
I'd agree with the other posters that it sounds more like a
leaking/broken fuel fitting that went bad, ignited and led to
structural failure.