Posted by:
Brother Of Jerry
(
)
Date: January 03, 2020 02:41PM
On 30 November a Pilatus PC-12 aircraft crashed in Chamberlain SD. I believe there were 12 occupants on the plane, 4 generations of an LDS family from Twin Falls and/or Idaho Falls. I don't recall all the details. Only 2 of the occupants survived the crash.
Discussion of preliminary NTSB report (about 15 minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S8E4wFSmN0Short version: There had been bad icing conditions the night before, bad enough to close I-90 to the WY border. Two of the family members spent 3 hours cleaning ice and snow off the aircraft. There was a flight data recorder which also records voice, though a transcript is not available yet. The plane was heavily loaded, though the effect of that on the crash was not in the preliminary report.
What is known so far is that the plane stalled on takeoff, rolled sharply to the left after the stall commenced, which is typical for a full power stall, caused by engine torque. The debris field was only 85 feet long, so the forward speed of the aircraft was quite slow, and the debris field was pointed toward the airport, which may mean the plane was attempting to return to the airport [me: or it could have just spun around in the stall. Needs further analysis]
The narrator read a Pilatus notice that it can take up to 700 feet to recover from a stall, and the plane that crashed was only 400 feet in the air at the time of the stall.
Final report expected about this time next year. That will no doubt go into whether and how much weather/ice or loading or pilot experience were factors.