Cameron Air Park is located in a slight geographical bowl, with rising terrain at both ends of the runway. Field elevation is 1,293 feet msl. The single runway is marked 31 and 13, and is 4,051 feet long. The Cameron Park Fire Department reported that the temperature at the scene of the accident around 1300 was 107 degrees Fahrenheit. In addition to the 4 adults on board, the airplane was loaded with 271 pounds of additional baggage/cargo, and at least 60 gallons of fuel. (East of Sacramento CA).
Awful, sad video but also very interesting. Right rudder would have helped counter the adverse yaw. I don’t know but maybe a notch of flaps and raising the gear and lowering the nose near the end might have helped too. It’s possible this plane wasn’t going to fly based on its load and the environment (weather, altitude, etc…).
Remember that those charts are for a clean, new, perfectly rigged plane, with a new, perfectly tuned engine flown by a trained test pilot flying at precise speeds. When you add all of the factors of an older plane (dents, dirty airfoils, misrigged), mid or high time engine 6+ months after annual and a good but not perfect pilot, it is not unusual to need 20+% extra runway. I usually factor in a 50% fudge factor when flying a piston aircraft and also use Sparky Immersons rule from the Mountain Flying Bible: If 70.7% of the speed necessary for rotation is obtained at the halfway point of a runway, you can take off in the remaining distance. If not, abort the takeoff.
FAR 23.45 takes allowances for many things. But I agree why push it. 20% of 3400 is 680’. Opps, out of runway.
I didn’t take into account slope. AIRNAV says it’s a .9. The effect of slope is as follows: Slope effect = sin x aircraft weight. For example, a 3600 lb. aircraft taking off uphill on a .9; slope will have an increased drag of 87.5 lbs. (sin 9 = 0.016; sin 9 x 3600 = 57.6). That puts him over weight for takeoff.
As I am looking carefully at this video, I see brief puffs of light smoke coming out of the Bonanza’s exhaust as it accelerates. Has anybody else noticed this? It is possible the aircraft didn’t develop full power after that making a go no go decision confusing.
At what time on the clock or where do you see the smoke? I see reflections of the runway markings at first and what looks like reflection of the wing on the body just after it passes by the camera. It appears to continue accelerating and looks very heavy near rotation.
I was looking at it again and I think you may be right. It just felt that something wasn’t right and I could have been misled by reflections. I tried to time them and match them with white lines on the runway. I also looked at wing angles and right tire and the hight of the wheel cover. Something held this plane back. Under the conditions at the time, he should have been able to make it. A pilot error of too high angle of attack due to the anticipation of raising terrain may contribute significantly to excessive increase of induced drag. You were right though, the reflection is definitely there.
Probably a lack of leaning to max power at ground level. Yes, the airplane should have made it. 4600DA is not that bad. Heck, aren’t you still climbing in any GA aircraft @ 4600 feet? Sure - so there should have been enough power. He might have pulled it off too soon seeing the runway coming up ahead of him.
I departed LVS on a ferry flight as a student pilot - Las Vegas NM - at 65F in a Cherokee 180 100lbs short of max gross. Thats a DA of close to 7000 feet at the time. We accelerated slowly but not so long as we leaned it, we took off and climbed out at about 400fpm to 10,000DA.
I want to know why this was a fatal - considering that if the airplane was not flying - it was going less than 61kts [right?], which is the max stall speed in a certified single engine airplane. I did not see any immediate fire - and with harnesses - it should have been survivable.
Traumatic code= spinal cord seperation, dissection of a major blood vessel, cardiac rupture, etc… Sometimes it takes less than you think.
Or, was this a medical code? The question we always ask on the ambulance is which came first the ckicken or the egg? Did the plane crash because the pilot had a massive heart attack at rotation?? Could explain the flying…??
All of the theories are interesting and demonstrate the need for a solid investigation. The investigators are lucky to have the video available but there is alot more to this then we are able to see.
What about the EMERGENCY fuel pump? I don’t know about this model, but many Bonanzas have an emergency fuel pump, NOT to be used under normal takeoff or it could over-rich or flood the engine.
Just a thought, It’s been a while since I’ve flown a Bonanza.
I realize that this is speculation; however, from my FlightSafety - Raytheon days, I found that the average weight of that vintage Bonanza was roughly 2400 to 2500 pounds. Even at 2400 lbs, the aircraft would have been overweight (3,663 Max Ramp, 3,650 Max T/O).
Moreover, it will be interesting to find out where the CG was for this flight. Bonanza’s don’t like flying aft CG and/or overweight.
The other thing to consider is that looking at the registration records, this aircraft appears to have been fairly new to this pilot (within a year). That, in and of itself, is not an issue. However, (and I don’t remember if that serial number had it installed or not) I wonder if there was an issue with altitude compensating fuel pump. If installed, and the pilot leaned additionally, this would rob the engine of the necessary fuel to develop max power. When I was an instructor at FlightSafety teaching in the piston classes, this was an important topic of discussion with pilots – some who had never seen such a thing, and those who were used to it, but found themselves without it with their new Bonanza (TCM doesn’t offer that in the current iteration of IO-550 used in the Baron and Bonanza).
There is a lot more to this story that we don’t know about yet – it will be interesting to get all of the details.
