Another Plane Crash Kills Family of 6, doctors & athletes

[FCD]

A family of doctors and high-achieving student athletes were among six people killed when a small plane crashed in a muddy field in upstate New York over the weekend.

The Groff family – neuroscientist father Michael Groff, urologist mother Joy Saini, their MIT-grad daughter Karenna and her boyfriend James Sontoro – were all killed Saturday when the private Mitsubishi MU-2B they were travelling in smashed into the ground in Copake, not far from the Massachusetts border, Sontoro’s father confirmed.

Upstate NY MU-2B crash

Low visibility and IFR conditions at the time of the crash, possible icing conditions also present.  I am/was type rated in the Mitsubishi MU-2.  Flown them many times.  It's a great airplane...IF you know how to fly it, and have a lot of flying experience.  It is NOT an aircraft suited for a low-time IFR pilot.  I have no idea the flight time experience of the pilot in this family (the father, whom the article claims was an "experienced pilot"), but can say the MU-2 is not an easy airplane to fly.  Well, it's not particularly hard, but it is very different and not intuitive.

When I read the headline (before reading the story), the first thing I said to myself was...'I'll bet they were landing'.  Sure enough...aircraft went down after a missed approach in IMC (IFR) conditions.  They were in the process of setting up for a go-around when the plane disappeared off of radar and crashed into a field.

The MU-2 is known as a "doctor killer" (similar to the moniker earned by the smaller single engine Beechcraft V-tail Bonanza).  They are attractive to many wealthier professionals because they are as fast as most private jets, but don't have the price tag of a private jet.  The 8 passenger MU-2 is a twin engine turbo-prop aircraft powered twin 650HP Garret turbine engines.  It is capable of speeds up to 350 mph. 

One of the unique characteristics of the MU-2 is that it doesn't have ailerons like almost every other aircraft in existence, the MU-2 uses over-wing spoilers in lieu of ailerons.  This configuration gives the airplane excellent low speed handling characteristics like the King Air, but also allows it high speed cruise like a private jet.  Some will say the MU-2 is a "dangerous plane" to fly, and there have been a number of accidents involving the MU-2.  In fact, over half of the MU-2's ever produced have crashed.  The vast majority of these crashes though are attributable to pilot error.  Pilots underestimate the speed and altitude the plane is capable of.  It is definitely a high performance aircraft; they are very fast and unforgiving.

Despite having more lift at low speeds than a conventional turbine twin like the King Air, and because the airplane has no ailerons, the plane performs like any other on approach.  However, go-arounds are a different matter.  Typically in a missed approach you would apply power and reduce flaps, but with the MU-2 you increase power and decrease your angle of attack on climb out.  Then you reduce flaps.  Most pilots are not used to having this much power, but they forget that the flaps on the MU-2 are so large that it virtually turns into a different airplane when you reduce flaps (i.e. it turns into a jet), so you have to be careful with major flap reductions down low and slow.

Many aircraft owners go though a series of logical upgrades in their flying careers.  They start out in singles like the Cessna 182 or similar.  Then they outgrow the single and upgrade to twin engine aircraft like the Beechcraft Baron or Piper Navajo.  These are all piston engine airplanes.  Often the next upgrade is to move to a turbine aircraft primarily for speed and range.  As you would expect, turbine aircraft are considerably more complex to fly.  Additional certifications are also required (i.e. High performance, and jet/turbine).  There are two ways pilots can go here; they can go with a turbine single like the Pilatus or the TBM, or they can go with a twin engine turbine like the Beechcraft King Air, or the Mitsubishi MU-2.  These last two are significant steps up financially (i.e. they cost 3x-5x) more than piston singles or twins, but are still less than half the cost of a jet.  Because Mitsubishi ceased production of MU-2's in the late '80's, the MU-2 is often far cheaper than a comparable King Air.  This is particularly true given the checkered safety reputation of the MU-2.

Because of the differences in flight characteristics of the MU-2 to other aircraft, this is where people can get in trouble.  The MU-2 actually requires additional specialized training and a different type rating than all other turbine twins in order to fly it.  There used to be a required specialized training program to teach pilots how to fly the MU-2 in particular, but this program was sponsored by Mitsubishi and was cancelled when production ceased.  Now I believe pilots have to seek out this additional training on their own, and people who can provide it are limited.

Anyway...RIP to the family...who were going to celebrate yet another birthday.

P.S. Here's a weird factoid about this incident.  The plane was flying from White Plains, NY to Hudson, NY, just under 95 miles (a very, very, short flight for this type of aircraft).  From there, they were going to drive another 50 miles west to the Catskill mountains.  But, if they would have just driven from White Plains directly to the Catskills, it was only 100 miles.  When you consider all the time spent pre-flighting the airplane, taxiing around at the airport(s), renting a car, and then still driving 50 miles; this all would have taken WAY longer than if they would have just driven the 100 miles from their origin.  My conclusion here is that it sounds like there was some 'ego' involved in this flight..."Hey, let's fly my cool new airplane, because we can!"...kind of thing.  When I was flying the MU-2, I would have always strongly discouraged a flight this short.  Way too much risk in return for very little to zero gain.  Just odd, IMO.

[Michigan Swampbuck]

Thanks for your informed explanation of this crash. With all the aerial accidents lately, I am becoming Chicken Little and believe that the sky really is falling. Understanding, at least to the degree a layman can, is reassuring to me in some way. Not that it makes me want to fly the friendly skies anytime soon.

[Nugget]

What MSB said; thanks, FCD!

One has to wonder why MSM is 'showcasing' every single crash these days....kind of like every neo-nazi, skinhead, white supremist gets days-or-weeks of news coverage while the far more prevalent criminals of liberal flavor barely get honorable mention.

[FCD]

The more I look into their flight plan the stranger this incident gets. 

Looking at their actual flight plan, it looks like they called a missed approach a good 8 to 9 miles before they ever even got into the pattern at Columbia County Airport (though their flight plan indicated they were going to Hudson Valley Regional Airport which was 50 miles south of this location).  Their altitude profile clearly shows a descent into Columbia County and then a climb out to the northeast and then a turn to the east shortly after that.  So, not sure what happened there, but maybe they had diverted to an alternate (either after being directed, or by re-filing their flight plan mid-flight). 

After the missed approach (if you could even call it that) into Hudson Valley they climbed from 2,575 feet up to 3,800 AGL in about 2 minutes, then made a turn to the south east and began to descend again.  So, something was clearly wrong at this point; they should have maintained altitude or even climbed further at this point as they were headed the opposite direction of any airfield.  3,800 feet in IMC conditions is an ideal altitude be in some heavy icing conditions.  Given the terrain, they didn't really have any option to descend under the icing conditions, so this would have left them with no choice but to climb up out of the icing conditions, but they were descending.  This seems indicative of icing.  The MU-2 is equipped with deicing equipment (both electrical heat, and inflatable leading edge boots), but whether either of these two systems were in use is unclear.  Given the conditions, I would have had at least the electric system on just in case, and would have been watching the leading edges to see if we needed the boots...and I'd have been begging ATC for higher to get up above those conditions.  (But obviously, I wasn't flying that day, so who knows what really happened.)  At that altitude ATC would never direct you to descend due to terrain, so the only way to go would be up.  

Just some very unusual data.  ATC indicates they attempted to contact N635TA (4) separate times, (3) times to warn them of low altitude coming back on radar.  ATC also indicates they did not get any replies to any of their calls, nor did they receive any distress calls.  Given N635TA was requesting vectors immediately before this suggests they had encountered a high workload (high stress) condition on the flight deck delaying their comms back to ATC.  This is indicative of some sort of problem going on.

The Groff family had owned the plane for approximately 1 year prior to the crash.  Based on this, I'd say Groff didn't have a lot of left seat (PIC) time in the MU-2B-40; probably no more than 100 hours or so.  That's not a lot for a complex airplane like the MU-2B, especially when you're in "the uglies" and don't have altitude and speed on your side.

Lastly, the NTSB indicated there is some kind of a FDC onboard this aircraft, although they didn't call it that, so it must be some alternate type system.  And they also indicated the device had, in fact, been recovered intact.  So, depending on what this device was, it might hold a lot of clues as to the cause.

All for now.