Plane Crash

It was a clear sunny Sunday on July 25th 2010.  I had scheduled a sight seeing flight for some friends of a friend.  He had company from England and wanted me to fly them over the falls by Tumbler Ridge B.C. ( see earlier post for Kanuseo falls.)  The second passenger was a resident of Fort St. John.  I had declined the third passenger due to being near max.weight without the fourth person

.  ( you can click on the pictures to enlarge.)

The winds were steady at about 12 knots that morning when we met at the Dawson Creek airport.  I told my passengers that the area they wished to view was nestled in the mountains and because of ground turbulence it could get rather unpleasant.  They wished to continue with the flight so I informed them that we would go however should they feel at all ill they should immediately inform me and we would turn back.  We experienced minor turbulence upon take-off which soon smoothed out once we reached altitude.  We enjoyed the flight till we reached the valley where we began descending  towards the falls. We were experiencing minor turbulence since we began our decent into the valley.   We were approximately 500' from the valley floor when a passenger indicated that she was feeling rather ill.  I immediately turned around and began to ascend....too little too late..... the passenger projectile vomited all over the dash and floor.  Apparently she had blueberries and cherry coke before we left. ( I'll just leave that to your imagination.)  Looking down to my right was Tumbler Ridge airport less than 500' below us.  Now I do not like Tumbler Ridge airport at the best of times.  Being nestled in the mountains with very uneven terrain, up hill both ways, ( yes that's possible and true) makes it a tricky strip to land.  Add the 15knot winds doesn't help.  However the wind was a direct head wind and I know what it's like to feel ill in the air so  decided to land so the passenger could get some air and we could try to clean up the plane somewhat.

 We were already traveling downwind right and I had been monitoring the airports channel.  There was no traffic.  I called a downwind right, turned base and then final.  I  throttled back to 1500 rpm and set 30 degrees flap. I set the glide to land on the apron.  My air speed was 80 mph.  too fast... I applied full flap which brought my speed down to just over 70mph.  My glide was still good, aimed right for the start of the apron. We were approaching from the top of the google image above.  You can see the clear cut of trees in line with the runway.  It was when we neared the top of the tree line that we began to sink. The wind below the tree line changed and I no longer had the airspeed required to fly.   It was clear that we no longer would make the runway apron. No problem, a small burst of power generally corrects the problem. I applied full power but continued to sink.  I recalled during one of my flight lessons when my instructor was teaching overshooting.  He was in control of the demonstration and when he pulled up from the touchdown, unknown to him I "helped" out by reaching over and flipping the switch to raise the flaps.  He sat up straight and at attention as we experienced a slight "sink".  He soon discovered what I had done and used the opportunity to explain to me the cause of drag.  Flaps cause drag which allows for slower flight, however you also need air speed to create lift.  It is a tough balance to try to figure out when you are in such close proximity to the ground and you are attempting to make your craft fly!  I had aborted the idea of landing and just wanted to fly! I do believe we made the apron with a contact bounce.   I tried dropping  15 degrees of flap to try to gain some airspeed but it didn't seem to help.  It is a real inner battle when everything within you says, " pull up! Pull up!! and yet you know that if you do you will stall the aircraft and do a nose dive into the ground.  Yet you continue to sink! I was now  too close to the ground to push the stick  to a nose down attitude to gain speed. The best I could hope for was a controlled "hard" landing.  We were about to make contact again and I could no longer resist the urge to pull back.  I noticed that in my flair the right wing was higher in the air. I was about to correct that when the upper wing stalled and we "slammed" into the runway.  I believe the right wing and right landing gear struck the runway at the same time.  All we heard was a large "crunch" as we struck the runway.  The engine instantly stopped running and we slid, scraping,  approximately 150' down the runway and slid off the right side.  All I remember thinking was, " wow....that was smooth!" Nothing in the plane even moved, except for the keys falling out of the ignition. 

Everyone seemed to be fine so we exited the aircraft to observe the damage.  All three landing gear were sheared off and laying quite close together about 75' back in the middle of the runway. I walked over and cleared them from the runway. The right wing was curled up at the tip yet the wing tip was not even cracked. The right and left wings were damaged at the landing gear connections.

The prop was turned into curly fries.   Tumbler Ridge airport has no personnel and no activity.  No emergency phones and no cell phone reception.  I removed the back seat and climbed into the tail to turn off the automatic locator's transmitter. We then walked nearly a mile down to the highway and hitched a ride to Tumbler Ridge town center. ( Approximately a 15min. ride.)  Once there we phoned our friend and requested he drive the 1 1/2 hr to come get us.

Once back home I phoned Tumber Ridge public works emergency phone contact and reported the incident.  I also e-mailed a report to transport Canada.  It was treated as an incident and no investigation was conducted.  I collected insurance on the airplane. 

My instructor once told me that any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.  Any landing where the plane can fly again is a great landing.  I guess this was a good landing, however it was not great.  The plane was written off.  I could have replaced the plane with one of equal or better condition from the proceeds of the insurance.  However it is hard to justify the expense of an airplane when you don't have one.  I have decided that i need to pay off my mortgage before i purchase a new plane.  I also know more now and would want a faster more powerful airplane that wouldn't give me soo much trouble getting over the mountains.  What I would want doesn't exist for under $400k.  I plan to keep up my license and will be continuing with my posts.   It will just be from rental planes.  What I miss most is the idea that the plane is sitting there waiting for me to take off whenever I want.  There is a real freedom in that.  Maybe some day I can get that freedom back.  For now i will be content just to be.

Kinuseo Falls

Kinuseo falls are locatated just south east of Tumbler Ridge B.C. Canada. They are nestled against the east side of a mountain range. This picture was taken by my friend Ken Drover. In order to get into possition for this shot we climbed up the mountain range and then made a sharp diving turn towards and around the falls. My passenger window doesn't open so there is a bit of window glare but I think he got the perfect shot of the falls. Thanks Ken!

Invermere

I had the opertunity to fly a friend from Dawson Creek to Invermere BC. The flight took 3 hrs. from Dawson Creek to Invermere and 5.1 hrs. from Invermere to Dawson Creek. As you can tell tale winds are far better than head winds. Invermere is a pretty town nestled in the British Columbia Mountains. Invermere is located near Radium Hot Springs and Banff and about 50 miles south west from Calgary Alberta.

There is a vast change of scenery between Dawson Creek and Invermere. I will let the following pictures speak for themselves. You can enlarge the pictures by left clicking on them.

You may have to enlarge the photo to see the Dawson Creek landing strip that welcomed me home.

This is my view coming in for a landing in Dawson Creek B.C. It's a great veiw but visability isn't great with the setting sun in they eyes.

Dawson Local

Dawson Creek on June 14 2009 and look! No snow to be found and it's GREEN!!

City of Dawson Creek B.C. Located in central B.C. ( central north and south)

We are currently building a new home. The foundation is poured. Our lot is centered on the block, second street from the top not including the back alley. You can see the layout of the house and garage in white insulated foam forms. View is taken from the South side.
You may have to click on the pictures to enlarge them in order to find our future home.

This is taken from the north East corner. The lot is right on the edge of the wing. It is very hard to take a picture of a lot when your camera has a delay and you are traveling 180 km. per hour.

This is taken from the North.

Once again from the south.

This was taken several miles west of Dawson Creek. The city has a population of approximately 13,000 people.

This picture is of a friends home on 160 acres just up from the street. I did a few simulated emergency approches to his field.

An interesting formation of land just West of Dawson Creek. I believe this is Kiskatnaw river. ( I'm sure that's spelled wrong but i'm too lazy to look it up. )

Same Area

And another

Ok! I over did that one!

Some of the foundations are being errected for the wind turbines on Bear Mountain.

Sorry about the quality of this picture. More of the wind turbine bases.

This was taken a few miles west of Dawson Creek. Population is aproximately 13000 people. Well that may be streaching it a bit.

Dawson Creek's airport's runnway runs parallel with the city's sewer lagoon. You can land on the lagoon if you have floats. :-)

Well it's now 9:30 pm and my baby is put away till next time. It was a GREAT evening for a flight and i enjoyed it imensly. As you can see there is plenty of daylight left. This day sun rise is at 416am and sun set is at 9:47. This day has 17hrs, 31 min., and 22 seconds of daylight.

Edmonton Alberta

My daughter, Andrea, lives in Edmonton and desired to visit us for awhile so I flew to Edmonton to pick her up and took her back home. It is a 2.5 to 3 hr. flight one way between Edmonton and Dawson Creek B.C.. Andrea is an aspiring photographer and took these pictures. This picture is of the west end of Edmonton. This flight was taken on April 30th.

This is one of many small lakes between Dawson Creek and Edmonton. The snow is gone from the land but not cleared from the lakes yet.

This picture is taken approximately 50 miles East of Grand Prairie Alberta. Each clearing that you see is an oil or gas well site. The roads that tie each site to the other is one of the neatest overall sites i have ever seen. Just glancing down one could easily see 100 well sites.

I'm not to sure where this one was taken. I'm thinking somewhere near Sexsmith Alberta.

This picture is taken on the West outskirts of Edmonton. For the return flight to Edmonton the weather briefing included some shower activity on rout as well as some towering cumulus clouds and low ceilings. Fluffy cumulus began to form shortly after departure and I fought the desire to climb through the holes and fly atop the clouds as the cloud layer was quite shallow, 7000' to 8500', and the flight would be much smoother above. However Andrea enjoys being tossed about a bit and experience has taught me to trust the weather briefings. It was a good thing too as the cumulus cloud slowly changed to cirrus cloud with a solid ceiling in Edmonton of 4000'. I would have been stuck above cloud in a controlled zone. Not good! So we landed, had coffee with her and her boyfriend, Cory, and had an uneventful flight home.