Skymaster down in Los Angeles

[kbecker]

I just watched a youtube video of the accident aircraft, may have been taken on the day of the accident. It was some ground ops at Whiteman. There is one view of the aft of the aircraft as it is taxiing away. The back and undercarriage of the plane look pretty dirty---may be oil, hydraulic fluid, dirt, etc. I can't tell.

Perhaps there were issues with the hydraulic system that could have been noticed earlier if the plane had been cleaned. I always try to do a post-flight inspection including getting under the plane to look for oil, hydraulic fluid, etc.

I had my gear doors fail to close one time--It turned out that I tried to retract the flaps and retract the gear at the same time. It tripped the hydraulic gear motor breaker and left the rear doors open. After resetting the breaker I was able to cycle the gear and the rear doors closed.

Kevin

[mshac]

Originally Posted by kbecker

I just watched a youtube video of the accident aircraft, may have been taken on the day of the accident.

I saw it too. I thought to myself, what are the chances that some random airplane groupie would post a video of this airplane the same day it crashed?

I don't know if the video was new or old, but the belly was black from either leaking oil or, more likely, leaking hydraulic fluid.

I think his system was low on fluid. He was 61, so its possible the stress of the situation caused him to have a stroke or coronary event. This would explain the lack of a stall recovery. We may never know.

Also, the pilot requested 2500' when the controller asked him what he wanted after reporting the gear issue. According to the ADS-B tracking, he never initiated a climb from 2000'. Just another data point to consider.