13 aboard survive the event/ Aircraft was on the way to Oshkosh, but crashed on takeoff.

From the cellphone video near the end f the article, it looks to me that the aircraft,rotated, did not escape ground effect, and came back to earth.

Rotated too soon? Weight and balance problem?? Time will tell.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/07/21/hi ... vived.html

To me it looks like the pilot could not keep the tail up, and when the tail settled back down the plane unintentionally got airborne with out enough airspeed to sustain flight. The pilot appears not have directional control once the wheels left the ground.

That'll buff out.

But seriously, glad to hear everyone ok. In my untrained opinion it looks like that plane may actually be fixable (for lack of a better word).

I saw the cell phone video.
This is a tail dragging plane, if that is the correct expression. That is the tail wheel is the steering wheel and the tail sits very low to the ground when on the wheels. When taking off with such a plane you need to get the tail liftet off of the runway well before you reach take off speed. You then continue in a level fashion with the main wheels still on the runway until reaching take off speed and you slightly lower the tail again to take off. But in this case it seems that the pilots failed in lifting the tail off of the runway at the proper time and instead was increasing the speed towards take off speed with the tail wheel still on the runway and a very high angle of attack. This caused the unexpected and to early lift off of the main wheels, before the speed was sufficient to sustain controlled flight. The aircraft then stalled and the outcome is what we saw on the video.

TWA772LR wrote:

That'll buff out.

But seriously, glad to hear everyone ok. In my untrained opinion it looks like that plane may actually be fixable (for lack of a better word).

That was before it went up in flames. It's a pile of rubble now.

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TWA772LR wrote:

That'll buff out.

But seriously, glad to hear everyone ok. In my untrained opinion it looks like that plane may actually be fixable (for lack of a better word).

The post crash photo looks like the fuselage bruned out and only the wings appeared to be intact. This link has video of the post crash fire.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/07/21/hi ... vived.html

Engine issues. They'd just had an engine overhauled, and it sounds like it may have been the culprit. I know one of the guys at the controls. There was plenty of DC-3 experience in the cockpit.

You can see them beginning to lose directional control prior to the rotation, before it veers into the grass.

After they got it airborne, looks like a fairly classic case of Vmc.

I'm not going to speculate beyond what I've heard from reliable sources.

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Wow sad I hope the aircraft can be fixed and I’m glad everyone made it out.

While I was flying yesterday a DC3 made a precautionary landing at my home airport for some engine issues. They were on the way to Oshkosh as well. Flying old planes certainly does have its exiting and sad moments.

Longhornmaniac wrote:

TWA772LR wrote:

That'll buff out.

But seriously, glad to hear everyone ok. In my untrained opinion it looks like that plane may actually be fixable (for lack of a better word).

That was before it went up in flames. It's a pile of rubble now.

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Missed that part.

There is always tragedy around the EAA every year.

Rumor has it that they forgot to remove the gust locks. Flight profile in the video would appear to match that scenario as well.

Flaps wrote:

Rumor has it that they forgot to remove the gust locks. Flight profile in the video would appear to match that scenario as well.

Where are you hearing that rumor? The flight profile would look markedly different. If they forgot to remove the gust locks, they would've lost control prior to the tail coming up.

From people who were there, they saw smoke coming out of the engine immediately before loss of control. This is pretty consistent with what you see in the video.

Edit: I'm going to leave it there, but in my mind I was thinking "tail wheel lock," not "gust lock." Gust lock is a possibility, but I think based on what I've heard from people who were there personally, it sounds more like an engine issue.

Looking at the video they lost control of the aircraft before lift off...everyone NTSB and FAA will ask the pilot...why didn't you abort the takeoff at such low speed? This is what gets people in trouble all the time...decision making...especially when other people are involved. This could've been easily averted if the engines were cut and the take off suspended.

I'm sure there will be a certificate action here.

Here's another news report on the incident

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local ... -576223562

Here is a cell phone video.
I did not see smoke from an engine nor did I see the rudder move.
I only saw wing waving. I could not tell if alerons were causing it or trying to control aircraft because of gust lock.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/all-1 ... spartanntp


As pointed out up thread there was plenty of talent on board.

Okie

That plane was out of control during the take of roll. I'm not a pilot, but even I can tell that should have been aborted.

Was it going at high enough speed when the main gear lifted up from ground? The tail gear was still on the ground, and it seems like it was going slowly. If you don't have wings in horizontal position (tail gear off the ground) wouldn't the angle of attack cause an early liftoff, perhaps with not enough speed to sustain flight?

GVROYphx wrote:

Looking at the video they lost control of the aircraft before lift off...everyone NTSB and FAA will ask the pilot...why didn't you abort the takeoff at such low speed? This is what gets people in trouble all the time...decision making...especially when other people are involved. This could've been easily averted if the engines were cut and the take off suspended.

I'm sure there will be a certificate action here.

Way to jump to conclusions.

Longhornmaniac wrote:

Engine issues. They'd just had an engine overhauled, and it sounds like it may have been the culprit. I know one of the guys at the controls. There was plenty of DC-3 experience in the cockpit.

You can see them beginning to lose directional control prior to the rotation, before it veers into the grass.

After they got it airborne, looks like a fairly classic case of Vmc.

I'm not going to speculate beyond what I've heard from reliable sources.

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From the YouTube video, it appears there is dirt being stirred up on the right side of the aircraft before it veers to the right.

Sooner787 wrote:

Glad to hear everyone escaped this C-47 crash

Yeah me too!

AirlineCritic wrote:

Was it going at high enough speed when the main gear lifted up from ground? The tail gear was still on the ground, and it seems like it was going slowly. If you don't have wings in horizontal position (tail gear off the ground) wouldn't the angle of attack cause an early liftoff, perhaps with not enough speed to sustain flight?

Exactly.

The main observation here is that the tail was on the ground all the time. Tail on the ground WILL cause way too early lift off because of the corresponding very high angle of attack. So, the question here is why was the tail on the ground so far into the take off roll?

Maybe there was engine problems. Maybe the pilots was running out of runway. Maybe the pilots was deliberately keeping the tail on the ground in a desperate attempt to get airborne. All this is only speculation, but the main fact still is that the tail was on the ground all the time wich is a completely impossible take off attitude or configuration for this type of aircraft.

While better than nothing, the video doesn't give a very clear view of the position of the control surfaces...which would probably tell most of the story.

I think it's clear that with the angle of attack from the tail on the ground, it took off much too early without enough speed to sustain flight out of ground effect. It looks like once the pilot realized what was happening, he chopped power before things got too out of hand.

What we don't know is why he couldn't raise the tail. In a normal DC3/C47 takeoff, the tail comes up almost immediately after rolling.

Maybe it's shadows, but it almost looks like the elevators went up, keeping the tail on the ground...when they should go down, to raise the tail for the takeoff run.

Longhornmaniac wrote:

Engine issues. They'd just had an engine overhauled, and it sounds like it may have been the culprit. I know one of the guys at the controls. There was plenty of DC-3 experience in the cockpit.

You can see them beginning to lose directional control prior to the rotation, before it veers into the grass.

After they got it airborne, looks like a fairly classic case of Vmc.

I'm not going to speculate beyond what I've heard from reliable sources.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

Er, you just did

Takeoff video....

https://youtu.be/Sfosck22574

Flaps wrote:

Rumor has it that they forgot to remove the gust locks. Flight profile in the video would appear to match that scenario as well.

Sure hope that turns out to be wrong. Losing an aircraft and risking 13 lives for something so basic and simple would be wipe out the "experienced crew" aspect very fast. Everybody makes a mistake once in a while but there are some you can't make, period. That would be one of them...........

You might miss them on the walkaround but not doing a control check? - been awhile since I flew a DC-3 though.

Max Q wrote:

Longhornmaniac wrote:

Engine issues. They'd just had an engine overhauled, and it sounds like it may have been the culprit. I know one of the guys at the controls. There was plenty of DC-3 experience in the cockpit.

You can see them beginning to lose directional control prior to the rotation, before it veers into the grass.

After they got it airborne, looks like a fairly classic case of Vmc.

I'm not going to speculate beyond what I've heard from reliable sources.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

Er, you just did

No I didn't.

sgbroimp wrote:

Flaps wrote:

Rumor has it that they forgot to remove the gust locks. Flight profile in the video would appear to match that scenario as well.

Sure hope that turns out to be wrong. Losing an aircraft and risking 13 lives for something so basic and simple would be wipe out the "experienced crew" aspect very fast. Everybody makes a mistake once in a while but there are some you can't make, period. That would be one of them...........

Doesn't look like a gust lock to me.
Gust lock will keep the elevator flush with the horizontal. In which case the elevator should develop more than sufficient lift to bring up the tail, very early in the take-off run at low speed. The main wings produced sufficient lift to bring up the entire plane, but the elevator did not produce enough lift to bring up the tail?? Looks more like weight and balance issue (aft CoG), shifting load or something.

I wonder if the plane was recently re-rigged. Control/trim cables occasionally get crossed.

Flaps wrote:

Rumor has it that they forgot to remove the gust locks. Flight profile in the video would appear to match that scenario as well.

That was exactly what happened to a KLM DC-3 in Copenhagen on 26 January 1947. All 6 crew and 16 passengers (including the Swedish Crown Prince) perished.

Also in that case the cockpit was filled with vast experience. For instance the captain held Dutch commercial certificate number one, issued 1921. He had been decorated with "Orde van Oranje-Nassau" for having done more than 50 roundtrips Amsterdam - Jakarta (Indonesia) with various Fokker planes and DC-2/DC-3 with endless hundreds of fuel stops.

Is it normal to make a no flaps takeoff? It would seem this is normal. The elevators appear flat. At tail wheel liftoff the rudder is deflected slightly to drive the nose right. Tailwheel goes back to dirt kicking up dust. Rudder is back to straight no elevator deflection-flat.The aircraft lifts off (previously mentioned angle of attack issue mentioned is seen) Slight rudder deflection seen (normally to drive nose right) at the same time left wing drops to ground.Plane continues down runway as it goes off runway tail briefly lifts plane then left wing grabs then plane goes off runway and the landing gear collapses The engines "sound" right for takeoff. But I wonder what the vacuum readings might have been. I magnified an enlarged series of stops from the video (the one with sound) for this.

From FB (not mine):

“New status in life - airplane crash survivor. Not one you want. Tina and I were on the flight when the C-47 Bluebonnet Belle crashed on takeoff Sat, 7/21 at Burnet, Tx. There were 13 of us on board, including the crew, and we all made it out. Several suffered burns and 3 of those were admitted to burn units and 3 others, including Tina, were treated and released. As of this evening, only 1 is still under burn care and he will completely recover after a few more weeks of burn care. Tina has blisters that are requiring wound care, but she is in no pain aside from a bruised rib. Most of the burn victims were burned exiting the airplane. Fuel had spilled all over the ground and had splashed over the top of the plane. The 1st two to open the aft door were burned the worst. Some had to jump through the fire to get out. You can find videos and pictures of the crash and the aftermath all over the internet - search for C-47 crash. As Operations Officer for the Highland Lakes squadron, this flight was operated under my authority, which means I have spent the last 3 days helping gather facts and documents to share with the NTSB, the FAA and CAF. It's encouraging to see these professionals working on this and we are especially grateful for the support and assistance from Jim Lasche and Buddy Cooksey from CAF HQ! Most of us lost our cell phones, computers, tablets, clothes, etc, in the fire, so it has been hard to stay in contact. Plane crashes, esp those caught on video - seem to draw incredible speculation and this one is no exception. The experts, the NTSB will take months or even years analyzing the facts of this accident to determine what happened, but many people seem to think they can watch a grainy video and know all sorts of things. As a semi-insider in this thing, there are some things I can say with certainty. The engines were operating just fine - very smooth, appearing to make good power. The CG was near the center of the envelope. The gross weight at takeoff was slightly under our self-imposed limit of 25,200 lbs, which is more than 1000 lbs less than the normal max gross weight for this model of C-47. The gust locks had been removed and the controls were operating freely. The tailwheel was properly locked at the start of the takeoff run. So all you speculators.....just STFU! The outpouring of sympathy and remorse from all of our friends and family, the CAF community, the larger Warbird community, Daks over Normany, D-Day Squadron has been heartening and very appreciated. Highland Lakes Squadron has been caring for Bluebonnet Belle since 2001 and we are all heart-broken at her loss. But we are blessed to be alive and have only recoverable injuries. Our Bluebonnet Airshow is still on for Sept 8th and it will be a great show! Thanks to everyone for the concern, wishes and prayers! We are fine!”