Posted on 11/11/2013 4:57:24 PM PST by Nachum
Controversial Republican Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe has confirmed that his son died in a plane crash on Sunday.
Dr. Perry Inhofe worked as an orthopedic surgeon in Tulsa and was piloting the Mitsubishi MU-2B-25 twin turboprop aircraft that came down five miles from Tulsa International Airport.
Oklahoma Highway Patrol spokesman George Brown said authorities confirmed that one person died in the crash which occurred at 3.40 p.m.in a heavily wooded area.
According to flight tracking websites the aircraft took off from Salina, Kansas and was due to land at the airport after a 45 minute flight.
Pilots cleared to land after the fatal crash reported to Tulsa World that the aircraft Dr. Inhofe was flying experienced engine failure.
Witnesses Jake Bray and his uncle, Bryon Fry, were in the woods when the plane crashed about 400 yards away.
'I saw it go over once and don't think anything of it,' Bray said to Tulsa World. 'Then it circled around and I saw one propeller out. Then it nosed down and went down hard.
'It started spiraling out of control and it hit the ground.
'We were talking about trying and maybe pulling the guy out if that was possible.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
..And due to the design of the flight controls...
...requires prompt recognition and execution of engine-out procedures in order to handle the emergency and land safely.
Dr. Inhofe - RIP
I’m not a pilot, but it looks like he crashed less than 10 miles from the airport. Incredibly close.
A client of mine survived a crash (at night) a few years ago. He pointed out to me that Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma are easy to find an emergency landing spot in, since its so flat and mostly clear of trees.
I wonder if Inhofe was so close to an urban area, that he lost that advantage, and did not have endless flat terrain to land in.
“Controversial Republican Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe...” What?
I had the pleasure of living in Tulsa for three years, and got to know Mayor Inhofe about a year after I moved away. My first meeting with him was in his office in Tulsa and he talked about a recent trip he had led to Central America on a relief mission. The mission consisted of people who owned and flew their own aircraft, and that was just one of their activities. From all I have seen of him, controversy was probably about what anyone in public office would encounter.
Go take a peek at the site that shall not be named and you can see all of the DUmmies dancing on the grave of this poor guy. These people are full of such hate they would kill you If ever given the power and the opportunity – don’t forget that. It’s what leftists do.
Eerily and ironically...
The same mountainside that claimed the life of Frank Sinatra's mother in the crash of a chartered Learjet.
The Mitsubishi MU-2B is a fairly high performance aircraft but also fairly old so takes a bit of skill to fly and has a history of biting those that are not well trained in its flight characteristics. The FAA requires special certification for this plane and although it can be flown by a single pilot it probably should be flown with two, especially if they are low hours pilots as it can get away from you very quickly in an engine out situation. Not a good plane for a week-end warrior and noticed that the guy has only been flying since 2009 so probably doesn’t have as much experience as you would want with this type of plane.
The MU-2 dowan’t have ailerons, it uses spoilers.
In an engine out condition, you bank toward the good engine, but end up losing total lift due to the spoiler killing lift on the wing with the operating engine. Very high power setting is needed to offset this, and a turn away from the bad engine may not be possible due to not having enough power available to sustain level flight.
This will cause either a drop in airspeed or altitude. Neither are good if at low altitude maneuvering to land.
WAG: He was too low to dead stick it, and the available engine only caused him to depart controlled flight not fly the aircraft.
Leerjets.
Don't you think that SOMETIMES some people just have too much money?
One engine out on a turbo prop (any type prop) aircraft with engines that far apart makes the aircraft hard to control. You have to keep up a minimum amout of airspeed (VMC) to have enough rudder control to counteract the push from the opposite engine. The small size rudder doesn’t help either. In other words, if engine is out on one side and you get slow, then add lots of power to the good engine the aircraft wants to flip over the top. If you get too slow that’s exactly what will happen. If there is not enough airspeed for the rudder to counteract the force of the prop trying to turn the aircraft over then the ONLY choice you have is to reduce power on the good engine and lower the nose to pick up speed. If the ground is too close then the best you can hope for is to land with the wings level. It takes a lot of training to handle these situations correctly.
Well, nevertheless, it was a MILITARY “small plane”, an F-4 Phantom.
It was very sad to see Dean Martin’s life spiral down after losing his son. He was very proud of young Dino.
Good explanation
I’m pretty sure it was this type of aircraft that was the corporate plane of a company I shall not name; but if this IS that type of aircraft, I know a couple people at that company who did not want to fly in it because it had no bathroom — of any kind. Okay for a flight of no longer than an hour, and that’s with an empty bladder and no chili for lunch.
Both propellers fell off?
Prayers up.
I pray I die before any of my children
It was an F4-C. Martin flew for the 309th TAC Fighter Squadron when I was in the 307th. They lost 4 jets that I recall, and sabotage was suspected.
Just one, I think. Enough to crash.
Point is, propellers don’t usually go wandering off by themselves.
It’s actually not flat and treeless around Tulsa. The Arkansas River bottom is on the west and south side of town and is fairly flat terrain, but the rest of the area has a bunch of hills and a lot of timber. It appears from the pictures that the plane crashed in a heavily timbered area.
Very sad. This kind of news could break a lot of men. Hopefully, it will not break the good senator.
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