All 11 people on Pilatus PC-6 Turbo Porter were killed when the aircraft went down late Sunday morning near Nancy-Essey Airport in northeastern France while conducting a skydiving flight. The 10 skydivers aboard were pairs heading for tandem jumps. There were five people identified as independent nurses and five instructors on the plane, which appeared to have trouble climbing after takeoff and came down on a road next to the airport.
According to Weather Underground, the temperature was in the low 90s at the time of the crash with humidity of about 40% and a dew point of 64°. That made the density altitude about 2,900 feet, more than 2,000 feet higher than the actual field altitude of 750 feet, but whether that was a factor in the crash has not been released.
The aircraft was operated for Tandemotion Parachutisme and occurred about 11 a.m. local time. The same aircraft had done several jump flights that morning. The aircraft reportedly drifted slightly to the left after takeoff before making a left turn and crashing on the road. A witness said there were “no signs of life” when he went to the scene. It was France’s worst ever GA accident and the first major skydiving crash in more than 30 years, according to French officials contacted by France 24. The plane came down in a residential area but did not hit any homes.
French officials confirmed the five nurses who died were friends who were all taking their first parachute jump and were taking a break from the pressure the relentless heatwave in Europe has put on the healthcare system and just about everything else. Mathieu Klein, Mayor of the city of Nancy, said the tragedy was amplified by the fact that the nurses “died in full view of their loved ones, who were preparing to film the tandem skydives.”
Lots of questions–no fire?
Always concerned about the tandem jump operation at our aerodrome. King Air 90, 15+ souls aboard every flight. 4 to 5 loads every day. 3,000 feet of runway so no accelerate / stop capability? All surrounding terrain heavily residential. A 5,000 ft / min descent to a no traffic pattern landing at our -very- busy non-towered airfield. Most local pilots hold a few miles away for duration of each sorte. A News Headline awaiting a date?
Nothing said here is illegal. 14 jumpers plus pilot is a max load for a King Air 90. Accelerate/stop is not required for normal category twins. Only 4-5 loads? Most turbine drop zones can fly 10-20 loads in a day depending on weather. 5000+fpm descents in a turbine plane is also normal procedure. And I have never had to hold away from airport to wait for jumpers to land. If you know where jump run is and the exit point, you can safely operate when jumpers still airborne under canopy.
Everyone who has ever been near it knows that skydiving airplanes regularly takeoff ridiculously far over gross weight on a regular basis. It’s mostly a cowboy mentality flying the airplanes and the new jumpers just assume that everyone else knows what they are doing so they don’t even know enough about it to question the safety of the operation. Newbies are just looking for a thrill and the more experienced skydivers are getting an ego boost from authoritatively teaching the newbies. A PC-6 is probably a good platform to jump out of, but even the best airplanes can only do so much before exceeding the limits of physics and crashing.
And you know this how?
Because in this particular instance the Pilatus doesn’t seem to have been overloaded or out of balance.
Nobody knows a whole lot right now. I am sure some starry and shiny eyed Youtube Super Expert Captain with a pilotshirt and 9 stripes will educate the spectators and armchair pilot experts soon.
“It’s always too early to know, but never too early to speculate.”
What happens on a regular basis is jump planes departing at max capacity with enough fuel for VFR reserves, not over gross but at max gross weight. 10 skydivers is maximum capacity for a PC-6. The one thing pilots of single engine PT6 planes don’t realize is that when the engine either flames out or rolls back to idle, the first thing you do is get the nose down immediately to keep from stalling. When climbing at max weight your speed is close to stall so an PT6 engine failure will result a dramatic increase in drag slowing the plane down quickly, due to prop windmilling. When I went to sim training in the C208B, the instructor told me to aggressively lower the nose to the point of negative G to keep from stalling in the climb. Also after feathering the prop during an engine out, pilots don’t realize just how well a C208 will glide, fully loaded better than a C172. Probably why there are runway overruns after engine out when descending for landing with engine inop.