Posted on 06/09/2014 2:13:52 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Puentes said he videoed the takeoff and turned off his camera and turned it back on after the bang and the alarm bells. The stall warning sounds after the pilot lifts the nose of the airplane just before landing in the water. He did that to prevent the plane from somersaulting when the fixed front landing gear hits the water.
Phil Holstein described the scene - “He says no one was panicking or screaming.”
http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/24219254/plane-crash-passengers-share-their-stories-of-survival
The video matches the witness statements. Rosa Key reaches across to touch her husbands arm seconds before impact which is perfectly natural.
BTW, one thing missing from the Puentes’ video is the sound of the engine. It is perfectly quiet in a plane that does not have a pressurized cabin, the noise of the turboprop should be evident.
Here are some other PT6A-114A turbine blade failures (all in the USA, since Butter doesn’t like the ones that occur in other countries):
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20050722-0
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20070905-0
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20090915-0
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20080601-0
http://www.aopa.org/asf/ntsb/narrative.cfm?ackey=1&evid=20090427X62717
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20121106-0
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20121129-0
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20121203-0
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20131021-0
This last one is from Papua New Guinea, I’m including it because of this description:
“Approximately two minutes into the cruise there was a loud ‘pop’ followed by a complete loss of engine power.”
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20131125-0
Some of that stuff you have to look at the NTSB database to find out the rest of the story. For instance, the third one down has an NTSB# provided with the report (some of the others I’ve looked at don’t have that so it would be a pain to look them up). Using that number, I found the actual NTSB report at http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief2.aspx?ev_id=20090915X12034&ntsbno=ERA09LA523&akey=1
There it says this:
“The airplane was purchased by the owner, without an engine, from an operator located in Switzerland, on June 19, 2008. It was maintained under a continuous airworthiness maintenance program. At the time of the accident, the airplane had been operated for 10,182 hours.
The engine, serial number 17310, was purchased by the operator through Northstar Aerospace, Stroud, Oklahoma, during March 2008. According to an engine logbook entry, it was overhauled by Northstar Aerospace on October 21, 2008. The overhaul was also documented on an FAA airworthiness approval tag, dated February 22, 2007. No previous logbooks or engine history was provided to the current owner. A maintenance record dated September 3, 2002, revealed that the sun gear found on the accident engine was previously removed from another engine due to “spalled gear teeth planetary gear.” Mint Turbines LLC purchased the Northstar Aerospace Turbine Engine Service Group business on May 27, 2009.
The engine was installed on the accident airplane on May 1, 2009. At the time of the accident, the engine had been operated for about 7,620 hours since new, and 65 hours since overhaul.”
What the NTSB investigation focused on as the probable source of the problem was the sun gear, which ultimately was too melted for them to determine what caused the problem. But if I’m understanding it correctly, this overhauled engine was put into this aircraft without the overhauling company revealing to the aircraft owner that the sun gear had previously been removed from a different aircraft because it was broken (spalled). The company which had done the overhaul had sold the business by the time the NTSB conducted its investigation.
This was an old plane, in the first round of production of the Caravan (not a Grand Caravan). Interestingly, the crash happened on Sept 15, 2009 - a few days after the first Obama-regime anniversary of 9-11. The NTSB report says, “The pilot and the five passengers were employees of an industrial services company. At the time of the accident, the occupants were returning from a job site, and the airplane was transporting electric detonators, ammonium nitrate and nitromethane used for blasting operations.” This flight originated from Farmingdale Airport, which Wikipedia says is an airport used by general aviation to alleviate the burden on the airport in nearby NYC.
So every crash has a different story, and it would take major work to uncover them all, especially without seeing the actual NTSB report for each crash. One of the links you gave mentioned that part of the cause of one of the turbine failures was the failure of the operator to do proper inspection before flying that flight. I didn’t look up the NTSB report on that one; not sure if the link you gave provided an NTSB# for it. But stuff like that could explain the discrepancies between what you found and the list I had found regarding the number of engine failures the NTSB had found on properly-maintained commercial aircraft.
The NTSB doesn’t investigate crashes outside the US on non-US aircraft, but it DOES use other countries’ investigations when developing the safety requirements that commercial aircraft in the US have to obey - requirements that Makani Kai went above and beyond, according to Schuman. What those requirements might say about taking a broken part from one aircraft and putting it in another when overhauling an engine, I don’t know. I don’t know if there are standards for welding parts so that a broken part can be recertified, etc. That’s a bit beyond what I have the time to investigate. I’m also not a mechanic so I don’t know what role things like altitude, temperature, etc might have on these things. That stuff would have to be analyzed by a mechanic looking at the actual NTSB reports.
That last one that you mentioned, in Papua New Guinea, happened 2 weeks before the Fuddy crash. It said it was the official preliminary report, created 17 days after the crash. What struck me about that report is the detailed information it provided and the sources it named for those details. They knew and reported that stuff 17 days after the crash. Compare that with what the NTSB has reported now - 6-7 months later - on BOTH the Cessna crashes in Hawaii last year, within 50 days and 25 miles of each other.
In that Papua New Guinea crash, the pilot tried to land on a runway, couldn’t stop in time, crashed into trees, and ultimately flipped the plane when landing on a swamp. But the pilot was able to get out all but 3? (IIRC) of the 10 passengers, IIRC.
These engines do fail because of turbine blade failures whether the failure itself is due to poor maintenance, faulty parts, corrosion or metal fatigue, they do fail. Until the tear down report is released (I suspect Fuddy’s brother’s lawyer may have a copy) we won’t know.
I use the planes registration number from the aviation safety net report to search the NTSB database.
Look at this crash from November, 2012.
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/GenPDF.aspx?id=CEN13FA049&rpt=p
Still no final report. Sometimes the NTSB is just slow.
The stall warning sounds when the speed gets too slow. It would do that whether the engine failed or whether the pilot simply turned off the engine.
Kawasaki at one point said that once he realized the engine wouldn’t start back up he told the passengers to prepare for a crash landing. I think instead of sitting there calmly looking around I would have been trying to find the life jacket. But none of that happened until after the stall warning, when Rosa Key acted surprised and Puentes suddenly swooped into action - action he hadn’t taken after the loud bang, the engine stopping, and the rapid descent. For a guy who was interested in documenting the parts of the flight (the landing on his flight to Kalaupapa that morning, and the takeoff of this flight), he shows a long, extended interest in documenting the PEOPLE rather than the flight itself, in that time between the “loud bang” and the stall warning.
And having 2 GoPros and waterproof microphone with him on what was supposed to be a business trip to repair the roof on the Catholic church is .... prescient... just as doing his recording in the plane using a GoPro ON A 2-FOOT STICK was, well, convenient to filming a water episode but not so convenient for filming a takeoff through the window in a crowded seat... It’s kind of amazing how he was able to get the shots of himself rummaging with both hands to find the life jacket, when one hand would have been holding the GoPro stick... And swimming while holding onto that GoPro stick must have been really fun.
The ABC announcer at http://ondemand.abcnews.com/playback/abcnews/140110_gma_crash_0731_700.mp4 introduced the Puentes video showing the perfectly calm passengers by saying, “Those passengers don’t know it yet, but they are seconds away from experiencing the worst fear of every airline traveler. Suddenly the alarm sounds. The plane is going down...”
The Nightline announcer says of that same pre-stall-warning portion of the video, that the passengers DO know they’re going down. Yet none of them is looking for a life jacket or doing anything out of the ordinary. I’d have been looking around trying to find out what made the noise, or looking to see what the pilot was doing, or looking for a life jacket, or praying, or calling somebody on a cell phone. Or talking to my husband asking him what’s going on. Or SOMETHING. Nobody on that plane was talking to anybody else. Nobody was straining to see anything. Nobody was moving their arms at all. They were all just sitting there like lumps. The guy in the front seat could have seen if there were sparks and lights on the pilot’s panel as Kawasaki claimed, but he’s not even trying to see anything, not communicating with his wife/partner (and yes, the records show that they were travel companions, booked in the same transaction). He’s just sitting there like everything is hunky-dory.
FAA would not release any of the findings of their compliance investigation because the NTSB wasn’t done with their investigation yet and they were supposedly worried that somebody like me could alter records that the NTSB might eventually need for their investigation. If in the same pre-final-report situation the NTSB itself released records to Fuddy who could actually be motivated to alter records in order to gain financially, I call foul.
HDOT claims it won’t release ANY airport records as long as there is ANY investigation going on. Not to anybody. Ever. Of course, that was a week after the same guy told me I was being given a runaround because that whole excuse was a load of crock...
I don’t have any evidence the attorney has a copy of the teardown report other then the fact he made a very specific reference to the blades expanding and touching the housing. Maybe he’s basing that on a previous engine failure but I don’t recall any that cite that particular type of failure.
“The stall warning sounds when the speed gets too slow. It would do that whether the engine failed or whether the pilot simply turned off the engine.”
When the engine failed the pilot would drop the noise to gain speed and maintain lift. there would be no stall warning at that point. But when the plane nears the ocean, he would lift the noise to decease speed and avoid the fixed noise gear from contacting the ocean first. In the video the stall warning goes off about ten seconds before touchdown. that makes perfect sense.
“I think instead of sitting there calmly looking around I would have been trying to find the life jacket.”
So your argument is they didn’t do what I would have done?
” he shows a long, extended interest in documenting the PEOPLE rather than the flight itself”
After the engine quit it makes perfect sense to film inside the cabin. notice he turned the camera out the window just before touchdown.
“2 GoPros and waterproof microphone with him on what was supposed to be a business trip to repair the roof on the Catholic church is”
I’ve seen construction workers working on custom homes at the beach bring their surfboards to work so they could catch some waves during lunch.
” It’s kind of amazing how he was able to get the shots of himself rummaging with both hands to find the life jacket, when one hand would have been holding the GoPro stick”
not really, the stick could be under his arm pit. He clear wasn’t following his hands because the camera loses them out of frame.
“And swimming while holding onto that GoPro stick must have been really fun.”
For an experienced spear fisherman it would seem like second nature.
“Those passengers don’t know it yet,”
She also said the plane was spiraling down which it clearly wasn’t.
“the passengers DO know they’re going down.’
And according to the announcer they are not making a sound.
“or praying, or calling somebody on a cell phone. Or talking to my husband asking him what’s going on. Or SOMETHING.”
Since we only see about 40 seconds of the pre-splashdown video, how do you they didn’t do any of those things. There’s a point where as a passenger on a plane with no engine there isn’t much you can do but sit there.
“He’s just sitting there like everything is hunky-dory.”
Maybe he was silently praying. From the video you can really only see two people - Rosa and Loretta.
And remember there is no engine noise at any time in the video.
They have Finally come out with an Investigative Report: (http://dms.ntsb.gov/pubdms/search/hitlist.cfm?docketID=58552&CFID=461373&CFTOKEN=21723a869be2ce0a-C5CCE339-0127-C28E-16F5D6B3B54AFF74) and it at best is a thorough piece of obfuscation.
What is interesting is the P&W(Pratt & Whitney) Engineering report concerning the engine: pictures were taken, and a “white powder substance” was recorded. It was identified as “magnesium sulfate” and it coated the CT Hub where the turbine blades are located. Of course, seawater and magnesium can create this compound, but it exhibited a ‘fine coating’ over the entire assembly. Magnesium has a high flashpoint and burns “white hot” as it’s ignited. It merely took out the turbine blades which resulted in an immediate stall. The propeller didn’t seize(although later when the gearbox was corroded it did), and the fuel system didn’t ignite-which could have caused a ‘catastrophic’ explosion and scattered the aircraft in a zillion pieces.
Of course, the “obvious” was that it was staged; they ‘practiced’ with another plane of a different carrier in Hawaii 2 mos. prior, (http://dms.ntsb.gov/pubdms/search/hitlist.cfm?docketID=57831&CFID=461373&CFTOKEN=21723a869be2ce0a-C5CCE339-0127-C28E-16F5D6B3B54AFF74) and in this incident, the same plane w/the same engine with the same set of circumstances had the same occurrence; this time the pilots landed it with no fatalities.(in Hawaii)
The same white “glaze” showed up-they attributed it to ‘aggressive glass beading’ of the CT Vanes w/the turbine blades installed. The Aircraft Repair Vendor refuted P&W’s Engineering Report saying that they would “never do such a thing” and I agree with them. The blades are ‘loose’, and when the turbine is initially rotated, you can hear them ‘move position’. This would cause material to blow all over and migrate to further stages. But the “glaze” is unmistakable; suggesting “both” engines were subjected to the same treatment.
My suspicion was that the pilot, Clyde Kawasaki, was involved in it. If the ‘igniter’ was used again after initial climb, you could ‘pinpoint’ your crash, ensuring rapid rescue, and with a “hot”/vs cold magnesium ribbon taped inside the turbine next to the igniter, the pilot could simply ‘turn on’ the igniter again, this time with a hot engine and the magnesium would “vaporize”, taking out the turbine blades but not causing a catastrophic ‘explosion’ which would destroy the aircraft. There would be no ‘detonator’, wires or equipment that would have to be destroyed, or leave a tell-tale fingerprint; there’s plenty of magnesium in aircraft engines
to remove suspicion.
Of course, this plane was never meant to be ‘found’ once it sank, but the owner of Makani Air had it salvaged, finding it in 70’ of water. The pilots of both crashes were wayyyy overqualified for Cessna 208B’s; Clyde Kawasaki had many hours and instructor ratings in multi-engine, commercial aircraft. With both 208B’s crashing(a plane and an engine w/an impeccable record) within 2 months-in Hawaii????, and the circumstances of their failures remarkably similar, the single ‘clue’ in each crash was the “coating” identified as magnesium oxide over the CT Hub and blade area. I believe the glass beading in the 1st crash was ‘planted’ in an attempt to cover the coating.
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