survival of the fittest

This route also put us in line for a straight in apporach using the runway 29 GPS approach at Scone.  The flight time to Scone was in the vicinity of 30 minutes. We departed off runway 34 right at Sydney and probably entered cloud around 12-15,000 feet.  The radar was indicating that there were thunderstorms towards Maitland. We requested to fly right of track.  We were given the freedom to deviate around the weather  and return to track under under cover of sydney radar.  On levelling out at flight level 200 we then returned to the direct track to Scone.

Ian was calculating the descent point when all of a sudden there was a whack.  My screen went blank, I looked across to Ian’s screen which was working, then back to mine. My screen returned to normal.  We were in a nose down attitude (literally pointing at mother earth) with a 75 degree angle of bank to the left.  The airspeed indicator was showing a constant descent speed of 240 kts which I thought was odd.  Pointing at mother earth my thoughts were that the speed should be winding up.  The vertical speed indicator was off the clock and the alitimter from memory was aproaching 15,000 feet..

I immediately cut the power to zero, rotated the wings level with the rudders only and very very gently and smoothly raised the nose to regain altitude. I think we passed through FL 200 on the way back up, before rectifying the situation and returning to FL200. 

One of the boys came and talked to us as we proceeded to descend into Scone.  Understandably he wanted to know what was going on. I Was not much help really. Upon landing, there was much discussion as to what had happened. I had no idea, Ian had no idea although he thought we may have been caught in the edge of a thunderstorm, but  we were just as bemused as the passnegers.  All I knew was that the aircraft was in one piece and in my view OK, as the recovery had been very gentle.

On the ground at Scone the discussion revolved arount whether we should onwards to Wagga. But bofore making any decisions I found a pilot engineer on the airport that I knew and I asked him to walk around the aircraft with me and see whether he could find any rivets out of place, any bending in the fuselage.  Even though I say it myself I was not expecting any structural problems as I had been super gentle in fixing the whole situation.  He could not find anything along the fuselage or up and down the vertical fin..  As to continuing the flight on to Wagga one boy said he was happy to go to Wagga if I said it was OK, the other boy said no he was not going anywhere.  After a committee meeting we opted to cancel the rest of the flight and return to Sydney.  I gave much thought as to whether I should ground the aircraft at Scone but decided not to due to the gentleness of the recovery.

On return to the office Richard Katsch our thrid kingair pilot and computer guru, searched through all the data in the kingair computer  that he could lay his hands on.  He found  nothing that would tell us what had happened.  On the Monday morning I towed the kingair up to Hawkers maintenance, told them what had happended.  I asked them to give the aircraft a good going over both externally and internally..  They kept the kingair for a week and ran a fine tooth comb over N1542.  .  They found not a rivett out of place, nor any bend in the airframe. “Job dun good.” I guess ultimately that is what one is paid for.!!

There are three safety organisations that look after Aviation in -Australia.  Despite losing 4 to 5000 feet and regaining altitude.  There was silence.

That week I started making enquiries through system to see if I could find out what had happened.  Meanwhile with the aircraft up in Hawker Maintenance meant that Raytheon (the manufacturer of Kingairs) in the USA wanted to know what happened.  Of course you the know the pilot is to blame.  A visitiation of 3 aircraft experts came the next morning to the office.   Quite  frankly they had the audacity to tell me that I had stalled the aircraft.

I looked at them in silence. Then I said.  “How do you know?” “How do you decide that with the nose pointing at mother earth, the arispeed doing 240 kts and the Vertical Speed Indicator off the clock – that that represents a stall?”

“It would be nice if you poked around the aircraft systems and helped me find the answers before you tell me that I stalled. You have not asked me one question. You have just stated that I stalled.”

The next day they came back and apoligised” they had forgotten that the wingtips of a kingair have stalling sensors in them which would have alerted me to an impending stall.” “ Thank you” I said “now what else?”.  They had nothing else to offer.  I could see I was on my own, again.

I rang up Air Traffic next day and asked was there an investigation taking place in relation to the N1542 sudden loss of altitude.  They initially said “what incident?” Then their response was changed to:  “US registered aircraft, ring up the FAA and ask them to investigate.” What can one say?

The Flying Operations Inspector who looked after Clamback and Hennessy, rang me some weeks later and said “you have been leading an exciting life”.  He had seen the kingair in the Hawker hangar and made some of his own inquiries.  He told me I had been descending at 15000 feet per minute which gave us about 1 minute to mother earth and killing us all. I asked how he knew this and he told me that every aircraft that departs from Sydney has permanently recorded on radar their rate of climb, their altitudes and rates of descent. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority knew that the aircraft was going down at 15,000 feet per mintue.  I said “why is there no investigation”.  He said the reason was that I had done the correct thing, taken the aircraft up for a full inspection at Hawkers maintenance and the aircraft had been found to be in perfect order. it could resume flying.  What could one say?