Sea plane crash in Washington, press photo gives likely cause away..

Run_to_da_hills

Looking at the photo of this seaplane that crashed in a Washington State lake, it looks as if it landed with the wheels down on the skids. Surely this would cause a rough landing.

http://www.komonews.com/news/114427699.html

ronnie3585

Gear down landing in a seaplane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6e3n1RYvsI

Run_to_da_hills

RIP to the kid.

bobblepuzzle

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Looking at the photo of this seaplane that crashed in a Washington State lake, it looks as if it landed with the wheels down on the skids. Surely this would cause a rough landing.

http://www.komonews.com/news/114427699.html

There are two possibilities, either he landed in the wrong config, or the force of the crash caused the landing gear to appear visible

RadioRetro

Police said it appeared the plane's wheels were down when it landed, which caused the crash.

From the article.

Bearcat

time and time again, the primary cause of sea planes landing accidents are landing with the gear extended on water which as you can see from the you tube vid causes a violent cart wheel on landing. That poor little boy was a rag doll when that aircraft landed and suffered a horendous death. His father will live out the rest of his days with a big if. Very sad.

jmayo

bobblepuzzle wrote: »

There are two possibilities, either he landed in the wrong config, or the force of the crash caused the landing gear to appear visible

What do you mean landed in the wrong config, you mean with undercarriage down ?

I don't think the boy would have been like a rag doll, infact i think he was securely strapped in, so apart form whiplash he might have been fine.

Actually I believe that video above is of a 182 landing in 2006.
There was another incident like this in Maine a few years back.

If the wheels were down prior to touchdown it could cause the aircraft to somersalt.

The undercarriage check would be on the before landing checks just like the rudders.

Not sure if there was a cockpit light and a wing mounted mirror for physical check ?

Amphibians are not favoured by bush plane operators both becuase of the extra weight and the chance of accidents like this.

Bearcat

JMayo............cartwheeling is a violent act and this is what I deduce what happened here. .....the boy died a violent death and was finished off by drowning......imho.

You must be an aviation pro...do you have a copy of the NTSB report?

jmayo

Bearcat wrote: »

JMayo............cartwheeling is a violent act and this is what I deduce what happened here. .....the boy died a violent death and was finished off by drowning......imho.

You must be an aviation pro...do you have a copy of the NTSB report?

I know "cartwheeling" is a physically violent action but we do not knwo what went on in the cockpit as of yet.
At the moment it is all conjecture, because we do not have the report and I think claiming that the poor child was flung around like a rag doll is not something we should we doing.

I am not a pro but have done float flying.
From experience there are a couple of major ways you can end up going nose first in and flipping.
One would be if the gear is down.
The other way could be if you make a total bags of a glassy water landing.

Looking at the photos it appears the former may have happened here.
That is all we can deduce at the moment, nothing else however dramatic it may or may not have been for the poor vitcim.