Fortunately there were no injuries, but it’s not every day that an airliner lands on a road a couple of minutes after taking off. I first wrote about this yesterday, but wanted to take another look at the topic, since air traffic control audio has been released from the incident.
Continue reading: Plane Takes Off From Washington Dulles, Lands On Road
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Pilot here - one of the things drilled into you from practically day one of lessons is that if you have an engine failure on takeoff (in a single-engine plane), do not try to turn around and land on the runway behind you. You lose way more altitude gliding through a 180-degree turn than you think. These pilots did the right thing by landing on the nearest surface ahead of them. Also, the bent propellor blade is almost certainly post-impact.
Not something I want to read as I’m on the ground at Dulles pulling up to takeoff LOL.
From whence does Southern Airways Express depart (and arrive, for that matter), the A gates?
On the flight path image, does ut look like they were turning around twice? Along hwy 606
Ben,
Returning to airport immediately after an engine failure at low altitude is called the impossible turn. AOPA did an experiment 2 years back to demonstrate that off-field emergency landing is almost always more survivable than attempting to return to field. The experiment is documented here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFVFKq3QqXo
Southern just announced service to IPT here in PA starting in May - American abandoned us in 2021. This doesn't instill a lot of confidence, but we'll see what NTSB finds.
It was snowing here earlier. Schools and local governments were closed so very light traffic.
They depart from the "H" gates. The waiting area is basically the other side of the central checkpoint/Capital One lounge from the Z gates (main terminal, west side). These were built for planes on hardstand using mobile lounges for departure. Southern parks parallel to the main terminal building on that side and has a shuttle bus.
Same, my instructor used to say "we lose an engine on take off, we're going straight ahead"
To piggyback on Corey and FAA Pilot, if you ask any commercial pilot what they do during the first minute after takeoff, the answer will be "nothing." Absent engine-out or catastrophic failure, they will only take action after that first minute. This much we know: 1) snowing and potentially icing conditions, 2) overflown driver heard the roar of the engine/prop, 3) pilot sounded "composed" on radio. Let the investigation ensue.
I go out of LNS a lot. Southern’s pilots are, for the most part, young pilots building time so they can eventually get to the majors. For most it’s their first job after flight instructing. The Caravan is a great airplane that comes with a rock solid engine (PT6). It will be very important to learn what brought the airplane down. I agree with you that the pilot made a great off field landing. Let’s find out what forced her to do it.
Ironically, the guy talking in that video, Richard McSpadden Jr., AOPA Senior Vice President, died in a plane crash about 3 months ago.