177RG Lake Havasu

[pmanton]

https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/authorities-investigating-plane-crash-at-lake-havasu-city-airport

We have a 177RG here at our airpark. I hope it's not him.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

control lock not removed?

That's an idea, but pretty hard to do in the Cardinal if the normal control lock was being used. It is right in the control column in front of you and there is a big metal flag which hangs down to the left to cover the magneto/ignition switch. I suppose one could also even quickly pull it out in flight if necessary (not that I would want to try!)

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

This was from the Gone West thread and has some interesting discussion of the numbers.

I followed the ADS-B Exchange link. It's a bit confusing because of the way they color it, and it has his landing as well as the takeoff. However, it looks like he used full length for takeoff on runway 14 at KHII at 18:08 local. For reference, KHII is at 783 MSL.

After the last ping on the ground (on the taxiway), the first ping airborne is maybe 1700 feet down the runway but has no altitude or speed data other than that. The next one is 4400 feet down the runway, at 1000 feet baro altitude/700 geometric, vertical speed never exceeded 192 ft/min but was showing as 64 ft/min over the runway.

The baro altitude never went above 1000. Groundspeed never got above 65. A little over 6000 feet down the runway, speed dropped from 65 to 56 in 3 seconds with no corresponding increase in altitude, suggesting something happened there... But speed stayed there so it wasn't a total power loss or anything. About 900 feet from the end of the runway, geometric altitude went up 50 feet and a turn of about 45º to the right occurred.

So, maybe a mechanical issue, disguised by the high DA causing bad performance too, mechanical issue got worse partway down the runway but there was still power, just not enough to go? Who knows. We'll find out in a year. I hope there are some answers then.