My only problem with the van is the aircraft's exposure to any sort of ice no matter how light in which you need to find your way out of it right now! You can get away with not flight planning alternatives with some aircraft, not with the van. Your best alternative might be not going at all. I have had to make those decisions many times when I flew the van.

May peace be with a fallen freight dog (brother).

CEN13FA135

I take it Martinaire flies booted Vans.

Rest in Peace.

This sounds almost just like a Van accident in Columbus Rik for AirNet a couple years back....could this have been a unrecoverable weight shift possibility? I dont remember reading what the final determination of the Rik accident was - but they both sound close.

No, the Martinaire plane had less than 100 lbs of freight onboard.

geeze i wonder what it could have been if not the weight shift, one mile is not far at all, esp for ice, possible control issue? I hope they find the cause to help others asap.

RIP fellow freight dog and OOTSK.

Caravan Crash Jan 2013-Jeff Salles
 

I am the father of Jeff Salles, the pilot fatally wounded in this crash. I am having a difficult time dealing with the loss of my son at 26 years of age. I know he was doing what he loved, but that doesn't lessen the deep pain his mother and I are feeling all of our waking hours.

I want to know if anyone knows why this plane would go down within 6 seconds of take-off at night when the weather was clear, -3 degrees centigrade, with a very small load. My son was very careful and a very good pilot. He had the company change out the horizon instrument on the leg before this one and it flew fine until he landed in Pellston from Sault St. Marie. The take-off from Pellston was when he never achieved altitude and crashed into the woods.

Also, I saw posts from "Blackwing" who said he was a friend of Jeff. I am interested in contacting him outside of this forum and ask if he would please contact me at [email protected].

Speculation is all we have for now, but from the NTSB stub it looks like icing is not likely under visual meteorological conditions during the event. Otherwise, that would be my first guess. My next guess is engine or systems failure, followed by pilot error. The latter is the cause of most aircraft accidents unfortunately, and if the pilot was distracted on takeoff by something and lost both instrument and visual reference even momentarily at such low altitude, a CFIT (controlled flight into terrain/obstacles) accident may have been the result. We will not know until the NTSB investigation come back with what they find, engine and systems checks can take a while if metallurgy and other specialties are required. Airplanes being such complex machines, it can take a while to analyze everything.

We feel for your loss.

I will not speculate on this accident as well, but with that being said the Caravan is a easy airplane to fly. It is very forgiving airplane and is one of the main reasons the aircraft is used by FedEx. I have flown Caravans with inflight failures such as a failed attitude indicator because I had a second working attitude indicator. FedEx is also replacing the old instruments with glass instruments in order to reduce the instrument failures and improve situational awareness. Hopefully this will cut down on controlled flight into terrain (CFIT). I am truly sorry for your loss and wish you a speedy healing process.