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Old 01-24-2016, 07:02 AM
  #84  
Kepi
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Joined APC: Jan 2013
Posts: 34
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I haven't seen pictures. I asked for a copy of the report. The investigator has his notes and photos. No actual report is printed until the case goes to trial. This is because my lawyer would have to share the evidence with the defense at some point in the case. This is standard procedure in these cases as there is no sense letting the defense know what we know.

The 93% power is a speculated average based on the GPS chip placed in a simulator. If he was continuing to accelerate throughout the flight, why would his rate of climb decay as mentioned in these sentences from the report?

"The airplane continued accelerating while climbing at about 500 to 700 fpm to an altitude of about 960 feet MSL (240 feet AGL). The rate of climb then decayed, and after reaching a peak altitude of about 980 feet MSL (260 feet AGL) at 19:57:45, the airplane started to descend, and ultimately impacted terrain about 1 mile west-southwest of the departure end of the runway."

He must have lost the engine during the acceleration at 93% power which would make sense since the engine was being put under maximum stress. Why else would he descend at that point? All he had to do was hold on to that setting and he would have continued to climb.

Also, since they are using the last GPS position (at the beginning of the descent) to speculate the time of impact, I don't believe they can say he was actually accelerating into the ground unless they had more GPS coordinates during the descent. The following is from their report:

"The exact time of the impact is not known, but the simulation model flight time from the last recorded GPS position to the location and elevation of the impact site was estimated at 15 seconds, putting the time of impact at 19:58:13. The simulation rate of descent from 19:57:52 to the time of impact is about 650 to 680 fpm. The elapsed time from when the airplane became airborne at 19:57:19 to impact is 54 seconds."

So the estimated descent is actually similar to the measured ascent. My lawyer and I believe he had control of the aircraft and was trying to make an emergency landing. He didn't lose control or get spatial disorientation and fly into the ground.

The 650 to 680 fpm rate of descent is velocity and says nothing about acceleration. They would have needed more coordinates to say he was accelerating on impact. So yes, at 650 fpm rate of descent and altitude of 240 feet AGL, it would be a matter of seconds to fall from the sky.

Correct me if anything doesn't make sense as I am not a pilot or crash investigator. My lawyer had been both a pilot and lawyer of over 30 years. He deals with many crash investigations and owned a aircraft with a PT6 engine. He doesn't believe my son just flew into the ground. If my lawyer believed there was a chance of that, he wouldn't have taken this case nor put thousands of dollars.
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