Dash 8 stolen at SEA

[davidj]

A Bombardier Dash-8 Q400 aircraft operated by Alaska Airlines subsidiary Horizon Air was stolen from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) on Friday night with no passengers on board by a 29-year old airline mechanic.

The mechanic had a few screws loose?

Horizon Air Q400 Crashes After Being Stolen From Seattle Airport

Strategic Sentinel on Twitter

 

[OZDUCK]

Lots of chatter about this on the Net. Also, lots of Youtube footage showing the plane doing rolls etc and being chased by F-15's. It then crashed - luckily on a lightly populated island.

/www.nytimes.com/2018/08/11/us/seattle-plane-crash-stolen.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Davidj started a thread on this incident in the Travel News Forum as I was writing mine. I guess this one can be closed.

 

[MikaD]

A Bombardier Dash-8 Q400 aircraft operated by Alaska Airlines subsidiary Horizon Air was stolen from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) on Friday night with no passengers on board by a 29-year old airline mechanic.

The mechanic had a few screws loose?

Horizon Air Q400 Crashes After Being Stolen From Seattle Airport

Strategic Sentinel on Twitter

That roll in the video is terrifying, kept waiting for the splash

 

[astrosly]

That roll in the video is terrifying, kept waiting for the splash

Wouldn't have thought a DHC8 could do a roll like that

 

[davidj]

Wouldn't have thought a DHC8 could do a roll like that

QFA is running them too far within the SOP.

 

[OZDUCK]

Wouldn't have thought a DHC8 could do a roll like that

'
I guess it does prove how "strong" planes really are. It certainly seemed to have taken a lot of beating before the crash.

 

[astrosly]

QFA is running them too far within the SOP.

I often get the QF DHC8 and REX Saab flying over my place arriving around the same time and note the REX approach often has a significantly greater turn angle; someone told me because the wing is affixed to the top of the fuselage on the DHC8 it can't make such manoeuvres too easily. Clearly that was wrong.

 

[rock86]

Thankfully no one else was hurt.

 

[Himeno]

ATC http://garchives1.broadcastify.com/15227/20180810/201808102255-590200-15227.mp3

 

[andy2015]

Wouldn't have thought a DHC8 could do a roll like that

 

[jb747]

I often get the QF DHC8 and REX Saab flying over my place arriving around the same time and note the REX approach often has a significantly greater turn angle; someone told me because the wing is affixed to the top of the fuselage on the DHC8 it can't make such manoeuvres too easily. Clearly that was wrong.

The location of the wing will have an effect upon stability, but it has no effect whatsoever on the ability to achieve a given angle of bank. If Rex are generally using more bank than QLink, it may mean that they are faster at the same point, or that their autopilot uses more bank, or even that they don't use the a/p.

There's a world of difference between the 707 roll, done by a professional, and the Q400's. He buries the nose, and very nearly flies into the ground... Even though Tex says the barrel is a 1g manoeuvre, it isn't really...otherwise you'd never be able to get the nose to come up. I suspect he means 1g more than our usual 1g gravity field...in which case he's pulling a max of 2g. G limit for most airliners is 2.5g. If you look at the recent Farnborough videos, a C130 was looped there...and I'd expect he'd need about 4g to do that.

 

[tgh]

He probably didn't care where he broke it and so it's possibly a good example of an airframe taken well beyond it's design envelope and holding together. Would have made a better vid it he had managed to fold a wing …

 

[davidj]

So what happens to all the pax, cargo hold, catering trolleys etc when this happens? They are stowed in a way to take a 360 roll?

If only you could do one in a sim

 

[trooper]

The location of the wing will have an effect upon stability, but it has no effect whatsoever on the ability to achieve a given angle of bank. If Rex are generally using more bank than QLink, it may mean that they are faster at the same point, or that their autopilot uses more bank, or even that they don't use the a/p.

There's a world of difference between the 707 roll, done by a professional, and the Q400's. He buries the nose, and very nearly flies into the ground... Even though Tex says the barrel is a 1g manoeuvre, it isn't really...otherwise you'd never be able to get the nose to come up. I suspect he means 1g more than our usual 1g gravity field...in which case he's pulling a max of 2g. G limit for most airliners is 2.5g. If you look at the recent Farnborough videos, a C130 was looped there...and I'd expect he'd need about 4g to do that.

OK...so how did Bob hoover do his famous "pour from the jug while barrel rolling"? that certainly looked like maintaining 1 g to me! What am I missing here?

 

[jb747]

So what happens to all the pax, cargo hold, catering trolleys etc when this happens? They are stowed in a way to take a 360 roll?

Nothing, as long as you keep the g positive, and not too extreme.

If only you could do one in a sim

In the sim...of course you can. I think I've rolled all of the airliners I've flown there. You just have to put the AB into direct law first.

OK...so how did Bob hoover do his famous "pour from the jug while barrel rolling"? that certainly looked like maintaining 1 g to me! What am I missing here?

He's maintaining positive G (i.e. towards the floor). If the nose is rising, then there must be greater than 1.

 

[N860CR]

Rex also doesn't have a program in place for monitoring flight parametres. At most airlines, the regulator mandates an electronic system of monitoring (that looks at things like approach speeds, time of flap selection, rates of descent, bank angles etc etc) and if the system "pings" something excessive, it will be followedup with the crew.

Rex doesn't have to do this, so there is probably less stress about flying tight circuits with higher bank angles etc