vagabond

My instructor always reassured me that even if the engine failed, we could still glide along for a bit and find a strip of something to land on. I'm curious as to why this aircraft landed hard on its nose. What circumstances would lead to this?

From Seattle Times:

Two women died when a small aircraft crashed in a Snohomish County field Saturday afternoon.

The pilot, a 54-year-old from Camano Island, told her husband shortly before the crash that she was losing or had lost power, according to Snohomish County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Rebecca Hover. It was not clear whether the pilot spoke with her husband by cellphone or some other means.

The pilot and her passenger, her 34-year-old niece from Oak Harbor, died at the scene. The Sheriff's Office did not release the women's names. No one else was injured.

The women had planned to fly a short distance, from Arlington Municipal Airport in Snohomish County to Camano Island, where the pilot had an airstrip on her property.

Just before 1 p.m., the experimental fixed-wing aircraft crashed on its nose in a field near the 25700 block of 95th Avenue Northwest just outside Stanwood, Hover said.

The Federal Aviation Administration is leading the investigation.

rickair7777

Losing all power doers not result in a nose-dive. Handled correctly, the airplane just becomes a glider.

Several possibilities here...

- The news media may have got it all wrong. This is EXTREMELY unlikely and has probably never actually happened in recorded human history, but it's theoretically possible so I thought I'd throw it out there

- The pilot may have tried to glide to a landing spot that was simply too far away. As the airplane sinks towards the ground and it looks like it's going to land short of the desired spot, an inexperienced pilot may have a tendancy to pull the nose back to "stretch" the glide. This doesn't work without an engine, and the airplane will soon stall at low altitude, causing the nose to drop and the airplane to plummet, resulting in a nose-down crash.

- The airplane landed in a normal attitude on a soft surface, but the nose wheel sunk in causing the airplane to pitch forward on the nose. This one is usually survivable though.

de727ups

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/200....near.Stanwood.

It looks like they tried to make a forced landing in a field and nosed over on touchdown. I've seen pics of much worse where people walked away.

stinsonjr

My vote is stall/spin. No tire marks leading to the wreckage which would indicate landing and rolling and nosing over in a soft field (if the field was that soft, wouldn't there be divots from the landing/rollout?).

The fuselage behind the wings shows damage that looks like the metal compressed from a great deal of force. Looks to me like the airplane came down nose first which would indicate a stall/spin. Just my opinion from looking at the picture.

hotelmode

How can you tell from that photo?

stinsonjr

The photo I saw was from De727UPS link in his post which lead to a news site. The photo shown was taken from behind the airplane showing the botom of wings/belly. I assumed that if it was a noseover on a soft field, the tracks would have been just prior to the wreckage. Probably not explaining in an articulate way - hope that makes sense.

hotelmode

I see what you mean. There are what looks like some tracks to the left of the plane in the photo, maybe it got turned around somehow?

Or maybe it spun... there is full left rudder and full left aileron, perhaps an effort to stop the spin?

SmoothOnTop

Maybe where the controls ended up as a result of impact....guessing 40+ G's at crash....sad

SmoothOnTop

Does anybody see lines across the top of the photo?

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/200....near.Stanwood

maybe, a good approach followed by a flip on the wires or stall/spin to avoid???

stinsonjr

Good catch! That could be it. It looks like, from the crinkling of the fuselage skins behind the wing, that the force of the wreck was pretty extreme. Could a soft-field noseover create this kind of force?