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Martinaire Caravan crash

Old 01-18-2016, 04:25 AM
  #71  
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The conflict of interest is that Pratt Whitney investigated the engine and said it did not fail. When we were looking for the engine to investigate it, Pratt Whitney had it in Canada. After we filed a court order requested by the defense, Pratt Whitney shipped it to Michigan for my lawyer's expert to investigate it. When it was investigated by Aeroscope, I had a conference call with my lawyer and the investigator who said there was an obvious turbine wheel failure. That was the original turbine wheel which had 5000 hours on it. After Martinaire removed the turbine wheel for inspection, it failed 30 hours later. We believe there was a mistake in the reassembly of the turbine wheel by Martinaire. I don't have a problem accepting the truth if it was my son's fault. We are all human and make mistakes. I do have a problem if the NTSB blames spatial disorientation affected my son when this was not the case. Our lawyer is writing a letter to the NTSB to reopen this investigation in light of this new evidence of engine failure.
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Old 01-18-2016, 05:16 AM
  #72  
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[QUOTE]
Originally Posted by Kepi View Post
The conflict of interest is that Pratt Whitney investigated the engine and said it did not fail. When we were looking for the engine to investigate it, Pratt Whitney had it in Canada. After we filed a court order requested by the defense, Pratt Whitney shipped it to Michigan for my lawyer's expert to investigate it.
No.....PW was a party to the investigation. It isn't like they had it up there in their secret laboratory with no oversight. They (PW) didn't say it was operational, the NTSB said it was operational. PW doesn't release the engine to anyone. The engine belongs to the NTSB until it is released, just as does every other piece of the investigation, it is all under their jurisdiction.
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Old 01-18-2016, 08:06 AM
  #73  
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[QUOTE=USMCFLYR;2049569]
No.....PW was a party to the investigation. It isn't like they had it up there in their secret laboratory with no oversight. They (PW) didn't say it was operational, the NTSB said it was operational. PW doesn't release the engine to anyone. The engine belongs to the NTSB until it is released, just as does every other piece of the investigation, it is all under their jurisdiction.
The NTSB also usually has investigators at the tear downs, if it's done off-site.
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Old 01-18-2016, 08:21 AM
  #74  
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[QUOTE=JamesNoBrakes;2049749]
Originally Posted by USMCFLYR View Post

The NTSB also usually has investigators at the tear downs, if it's done off-site.
Exactly - that is what I meant if I wasn't clear.
PW reps are just part of the POWERPLANTS team of investigators.
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Old 01-18-2016, 10:51 AM
  #75  
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I think no one here is trying to "blame" your son; just trying to warn you in regards to what your lawyer is telling you. I have an Aviation Lawyer friend. He has plenty of clients, almost all of them passengers.....I can't think of any pilots he has represented as of late. It is highly unlikely that the NTSB missed a broken "turbine wheel." I just hate to see someone swindled. P&W may settle just to "keep costs down" but without a change in the NTSB finding, what would that accomplish. I have seen drawn out court fights shatter those that file and fight them. Even when they "win," be it financial or factual, things are never the same.

Be careful is all folks are saying here, so sad your son's life was snuffed out at such an early age.

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Old 01-18-2016, 05:36 PM
  #76  
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I'm honestly sorry to see you have all drank the kool-aid of the NTSB. But then, you are not the only one. A military pilot friend felt the same way early on but has since told us he is glad we got to the bottom of what happened. I guess you think the government could not make a mistake. I AM careful and this whole lawsuit is now over. I'm not being swindled by a lawyer. Thanks for your input but this is just getting frustrating for me at this point.
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Old 01-18-2016, 07:23 PM
  #77  
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Originally Posted by Kepi View Post
I'm honestly sorry to see you have all drank the kool-aid of the NTSB. But then, you are not the only one. A military pilot friend felt the same way early on but has since told us he is glad we got to the bottom of what happened. I guess you think the government could not make a mistake. I AM careful and this whole lawsuit is now over. I'm not being swindled by a lawyer. Thanks for your input but this is just getting frustrating for me at this point.
The NTSB is not correct and this is not the first time. This explanation makes it nice and tidy for the employer to have no responsibility for putting my son in an aircraft that had too many hours on the engine
I work with the NTSB and I just don't know what the incentive would be to not be truthful, as you are insinuating. There is nothing that they or I get out of not being factual. We've provided many explanations to you and corrected many incorrect assumptions you had about how aircraft fly/react, maintenance programs and what kind of signatures the NTSB and investigators look for. To be so "sure" of your case when you had all these misconceptions makes your case seem questionable to the outsider. You seem to be hinging a lot on this "turbine wheel" when there appears to be plenty of evidence the aircraft was under power and impacted at a high forward speed (indicates it was under power). Again, we are truly sorry for your loss, but I think many of us in this thread have looked at the information you have provided and found that it's not consistent with the rest of the accident.
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Old 01-19-2016, 12:14 AM
  #78  
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One last question. Was this "turbine wheel" that failed in the hot or cold section? Either or, if it failed and the Prop didn't Autofeather (worse case scenario) the propeller blades would indeed still "windmill." Still "turn." They would however not be under full power. There are distinctive "tell marks," a prop/engine under full/partial/no power makes when it hits the ground/a tree/etc.....

I studied this in college, have a degree in Aviation safety. I know a few folks that have been on or are on the Go team or are ASI's across the country. This isn't NHSTA or some committee put together by Lobbyists. These folks know what they are doing. There is a reason other countries ask the NTSB to assist in crashes. They are one of the few things in this country "big government" got right.

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Old 01-20-2016, 04:44 AM
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It was the power turbine that failed. In the compressor section of the turbine wheel, just inches away according to the investigator, the turbine blades were intact. The Aeroscope investigator said this also proves that the damage occurred during the flight and not on impact. In such a case, the propeller would continue to spin in the final seconds of this 58 second flight. He only made it to 260 feet AGL. He was flying at 150 kts only 260 feet AGL when the turbine failed. I believe, and I am no expert, that propeller was still turning fast enough to cause the damage that was reported in the report as seen below.

Excerpt from NTSB report: All three propeller blades remained attached to the propeller hub. The propeller blades were labeled A, B, and C for the purposes of the investigation.
The blades exhibited s-bending, leading edge scoring, dents, and scratches. Blade A remained attached
to the propeller hub, but was not fully intact and a small portion of it was found 200 feet north of
the main wreckage. Blade B and C were intact and remained attached to the propeller hub.

The information from an article below explains that one NTSB rep is used for this type of accident. It says that person can consult the manufacturer of the engine. I have had 3 law firms take on this case and they all agree that the manufacturer does the actual engine tear down and reports its findings to the NTSB. That is not impartial. I don't see how an NTSB rep could be present at the tear down and not see the destruction of the engine parts seen by the Aeroscope investigator. I trust the Aeroscope investigator I spoke with more than the findings in the NTSB report. I don't think the NTSB is intentionally trying to hide any evidence. I just think they are undermanned and accept whatever the manufacturer concludes concerning the engine investigation. I don't know how else to explain such a discrepancy. This wasn't a major airline disaster with many fatalities. It was only one fatality in an aircraft carrying some packages. But to me, it was a major disaster.

Excerpt from article:
There are two kinds of NTSB investigations: field office investigations and headquarters investigations.

Field Office Investigations

Fatal general aviation crashes, as well as some air carrier and commuter accidents with relatively minor injuries, are often investigated by a single field investigator from one of the NTSB's Regional Offices. If necessary, this investigator has access to technical experts at The Bureau of Technology at the NTSB Headquarters in Washington, D.C., the FBI and other federal agencies. He can also obtain consultation from any commercial operator involved or manufacturer of the airplane or its subcomponent parts. Traditionally, the Field Investigator utilizes the assistance of a Flight Standards and/or Air Traffic Control representative from the FAA Regional Office or facility involved.
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Old 01-21-2016, 07:22 AM
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Here is the rest of the story of this accident. I am not afraid to call out the people responsible for my son's death.

First, I spoke with the lawyer today. The NTSB is a board, not an agency, that is nominated. There are no more than 4000 investigators to investigate all of the aircraft, maritime, train, etc accidents. They usually do a good job on major airline investigations. Many of these investigators are not pilots. They only need an MBA to get the position. My lawyer has dealt with this for the last 40 years. He knows what he is talking about. He spent thousands on my case with no return to him. There was no representative present at the tear down of the engine in this case. It says in their own words on the NTSB Accident website that:

*** Note: NTSB investigators either traveled in support of this investigation or conducted a significant amount of investigative work
without any travel, and used data obtained from various sources to prepare this aircraft accident report. ***

So no, they did not have to be present at this single fatality, general aviation accident engine tear down. They were not present and used data obtained from Pratt Whitney. PW is safe anyway because the engine had more than 5000 hours on it and would blame the maintenance on Martinaire. Cessna is protected because the age of the aircraft falls under GARA.

Everything falls on Martinaire mechanics out of Lansing, Michigan who took out the turbine wheel for inspection and incorrectly reassembled it to cause it to last only 30 hours. Improperly balancing the assembly would cause it to fail so quickly. The person in charge of the Lansing mechanics is Pat Jemison, Director of Maintenance.

So my 26 year old son moved to Lansing, Michigan from Louisiana to take on this job with his girlfriend, also a pilot hired by Martinaire. They both wanted to get valuable turbine time. I gave him a quick hug before he left and whispered in his ear "be safe".

He called us after a couple of weeks to say the Martinaire Lansing office was not doing things "by the book" as they were taught by the Martinaire home office in Addison, TX. The other employees there in Lansing told my son that after some time, he would do the same. My son didn't agree with that. He called his boss, Alan Rusinowitz, COO of Martinaire, to tell him about this. Did Alan go up there to straighten his employees out on this issue. No, he did not. He told my son to just do his job and not worry about the other employees. That was a fatal mistake. I blame Alan Rusinowitz for my son's death. Had he done his job, my son might be alive today. Had Pat Jemison done his job, maybe the mistake in the reassembly of the turbine wheel would never have happened. These people with have to live with themselves for not caring about the lives of their employees. I can only hope in Karma.

So, the day of the accident, my son's girlfriend was on the schedule to fly. She had less experience than my son so she had to copilot with one of Martinaire's established pilots. That day, no other Martinaire pilot was available to fly with her so they called in my son, who was able to fly solo. He flew to Sault Ste. Marie. The attitude indicator went out so my son called Lansing to say he would not fly the aircraft until it was fixed. The Lansing office, low on pilots, had no choice but to have his girlfriend fly a mechanic to replace the attitude indicator. My son flew the plane to Pellston to refuel before heading south to Lansing. It is when he took off from Pellston that he disappeared. This airport has no radar tower that could have traced his flight. It wasn't until hours later that his girlfriend called us to say he was late. A search was called around Pellston but no transponder was detected. We tried to call his cell phone but it was damaged. They only found him by driving around at night and detecting a strong smell of fuel in the woods near an intersection southwest of the airport. They found him under the engine. We got the call and our life has been a nightmare since then. Insult to injury is the NTSB blaming my son for spatial disorientation when we now have proof that he lost his engine.

This inaccurate NTSB report is because it's the path of least resistance, as my lawyer told me. They are protecting the industry.
It's a dirty little secret in your industry and you have a choice to believe it or not, but it is the truth. My son bet his life on it by trusting Martinaire. Martinaire fought tooth and nail to prevent us from just investigating the crash. They required court orders to do so and my lawyer has never run into that situation before. They know they messed up from the beginning. They had the gall to show up at my son's memorial. May they rot in hell.
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