The pilot reported that, during an uphill takeoff at the airport in Williams, Arizona, about 4,000 feet down the 6,000-foot runway and at 80 knots, he rotated the Beech 36 and stayed in ground effect to gain airspeed.
He began pulling back to establish a climb, but the stall warning horn sounded, so he reduced the pitch attitude. He added that he “constantly attempted” to pitch up until he heard the stall horn.
At the end of the runway, he retracted the landing gear, but it did not affect the airplane’s performance.
He reported he knew the plane had attained a positive climb rate, but did not know the specific value. He then saw that the plane was going to hit a tree, so he pulled back hard, but it hit the tree, then hit the ground.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the right wing.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The airport’s automated weather observation station reported that, about 9 minutes after the accident, the wind was calm, temperature 50°F, dew point 3°F, and an altimeter setting of 30.41 inches of mercury. The airplane departed from runway 18.
The airport elevation was about 6,691 foot mean sea level (msl). Runway 18 was 6,000 feet by 100 feet with a 1.0% up gradient. The calculated density altitude was 7,128 foot. The calculated takeoff distance with flaps up was 2,442 feet, and the takeoff distance over a 50-foot obstacle was 4,440 feet. The calculated climb rate was 670 feet per minute.
The airplane was equipped with additional tip tanks through a supplemental type certificate, which increased the allowable maximum gross weight to 3,833 pounds. The pilot reported that the airplane’s weight at the time of the accident was 3,797 pounds with a center of gravity of 80.7 inches, which was near the forward center of gravity limit.
He added that the FAA inspector estimated that the tree was 35 to 40 feet tall.
The FAA inspector provided an on-scene picture, which included the elevation and latitude and longitude coordinates for the accident site. The elevation was 6,716 feet msl, and based on the coordinates, about 0.4 mile from the end of the runway.
Probable cause: The pilot’s failure to attain a sufficient climb rate during initial climb in high-density altitude conditions with the airplane near its forward center of gravity and maximum gross weight limits, which resulted in an impact with trees.
NTSB Identification: GAA19CA060
This November 2018 accident report is provided by the National Transportation Safety Board. Published as an educational tool, it is intended to help pilots learn from the misfortunes of others.
Common scenario for east of the Rockies pilots venturing west.
I looked at the temperatures for the 2 airports mentioned, on those dates.
3 days before they departed Cedar City, which is at 5,600 ft and the temp was 39 deg.F, which was a density altitude of 5,400 ft.
The failed departure from Williams, at 7,700 ft alt, the temp was 54 deg. F., and a density altitude of 9,200 ft.
That was a huge difference in D.A. between the 2 takeoffs.
OOPS, the airport elevation at Williams is 6,700 ft, so the DA was still about 7,900 ft.
Also, the runway at Cedar City is 8,650 ft long, vs 6,000 at Williams.
According to the pilot’s report, he leaned the mixture – “going down the runway, because of 7700 ft alt, leaned fuel flow to 1350 degrees EGT, for max power”. In the normal procedures section of the POH after the Cruise checklist, there is a full explanation of the leaning procedure, but as it says, “use EGT system to lean the fuel/air mixture when cruising at 75% power or less”, this is for the Cruise phase of a flight.
In the Take-Off checklist, the leaning procedure for takeoff is “Mixture – SET as required by field elevation”. This requires using the fuel flow indicator, rather than the EGT, which has a scale that combines altitude and fuel flow for take-offs and climbs. For SL, the needle would be at 23gph. For higher altitude, the pilot would lean until the needle comes down to the right spot (3000ft/21gph, 5000ft/20gph, 7000ft/18gph, etc). The range for takeoff is 23-17gph. Below that is the range for cruise, from 17gph/75%pwr to 9.5gph/45%pwr. It seems possible that using the EGT rather than the Fuel Flow indicator, the pilot could have leaned down to a fuel flow below the takeoff range.
I think there are a couple of takeaways. Please don’t lean while on the takeoff roll – huge distraction. Preset the mixture at full throttle before brake release. And regardless of what the pilot sets or what the POH numbers are, prove the performance by knowing where the rotation point is on the runway and verifying rotation speed will be reached at that point. In this case he was only about half-way there – an automatic rejection to safely investigate the problem.
Pilot Error and/or Pilot Training Error? 10/90 or 90/10
Years ago, I saw a similar incident at CAP (Civil Airp Patrol) mountain flying course in Alpine, TX, (E38) with same type of plane, A36. DA at the time was about 6000 when a “flat lander” physician landed, taxied around, waited in line for fuel, picked up his grand daughter for a short flight, taxied out, no run up, departed….ALL of this at full rich. Could hear slight missing of engine during departure. All CAP members came running out of hangar to watch the pilot depart, not get out of ground effect and disappeared off end of runway. CAP had a “high bird” aloft for our mountain training mission which was diverted to look for “crash”. Fortunately, nose gear snagged a power line and forced plane down into field. Only nose gear door damaged. NO injuries. “Rescue” had pilot and passenger back at airport less than 15 minutes after departure. Two days later, plane towed to local road, engine stated, run up was OK and flew plane back to local field.
It was obvious to all attendees what the problem was…..lack of leaning mixture for higher altitude takeoff and operations The pilot sued FBO where he rented the plane for “defective” plane and collected $5000. (Ironically, the A36 was owned by CAP member watching the events)
A Beech 36 should be able to climb 1000fpm at sea level. The 7k density altitude should have been no factor at all for this plane. Something else happened.
The takeoff was so far within the plane’s published performance limits that you wonder if there was a malfunction, such as an under-performing engine (needed to be leaned?) or malfunctioning stall warning device.
Or maybe planes just to live up to their published performance numbers. Scares me a bit. That takeoff would be well within the limits of the Cherokee 180 I fly and I would probably have made that takeoff.
Reviewing the calculations provided in the report it seems as if the airplane should have had plenty of available performance to complete the takeoff. Most light airplane performance charts do not provide runway slope adjustments. A 1 percent slope does not seem significant. No mention is made regarding engine performance.
Did the pilot say why he tried to take- uphill?
Your question is not mentioned in the write up that is linked. What the pilot did say is he took off from CDC 3 days prior using the same method and was able to get 600 fpm climb. CDC is a level airport, Fwiw. However the report does not state if the pilot also took off with 94 gallons from CDC. He was hauling around a lot of fuel if he did, like his Clark Field take off. 94 gallons for a 350 or so mile flight to Catalina was certainly more than adequate.
The book values listed show he should have been able to make a normal departure.
He should have been airborne well before half way down the runway. His aircraft’s performance was clearly not normal and quite degraded.
The additional information shows the pilot had quite recently been flying. His home city was listed on the east coast in the report. What should have been a glorious aerial adventure went south and the pilot and his friend were lucky to live to tell.
The information also showed the pilot was 75.
I’m not that old. I hope to be flying then, if I am lucky enough to be above ground. Personally, I have gone by the rule ; If I am not off the ground by the time I am half way down the runway I will admit ” something ” is wrong. Hopefully I will decide to exit by the end of the runway and find out exactly what.
I know nothing about the 550 (Continental?), but if he had an injector “get dirty” after mag check the engine would not necessarily run rough, it is that it is not producing “full power” and so acceleration is not as expected.
If one is watching, one will see that they have used more runway than expected and should shutdown.
This problem has affected a few Lances that have crashed as a result (IO540s).