Sky news reporting spitfire incident at East Midlands

You do not have to retract anything, simply disengage the down locks, gravity will do the rest.

Not easy to rotate the locks with the weight on. I cant think of another Spitfire accident where this has happened on the ground.

Its nice to see an open and honest report from a pilot caught out by an engineer’s thoughtless design. If only all pilot’s were so brave.

Aeronaut, you’re not an engineer are you? I doubt it was thoughtlessness that decided to give the aircraft a chassis up/down lever. Surely its down to the ability of the operator to ensure he has a good ‘handle’ on things??

Joking aside, its good to know that pilots make public mistakes as well as the so so many that get missed by most bystanders. We are all human after all…

Its nice to see an open and honest report from a pilot caught out by an engineer’s thoughtless design. If only all pilot’s were so brave.

It also reminds me of one of the sub-set of Sod’s laws I work to but which wasn’t invoked here;
“All personnel involved will exert maximum effort to blame someone else in the event of a ****-up; in the case of a massive ****-up, the degree of creativity exhibited by the explanation is exponentially related to the cost of the ****-up. This creativity is wasted because the cause of a massive ****-up is obvious even to senior management.”

Ever opened the fridge, and tried to cook the Sunday roast in it? Ever been offered a lift, in a car, and tried to get in on the driver’s side? Occasionally, the brain switches off; this time it was in an embarrassingly public place.

You do not have to retract anything, simply disengage the down locks, gravity will do the rest.

As said, if accidents like this never happened, man would never have needed to invent/ design/ develop/ come up with, weight on switches… squat switches or anything else you would like to call them.
It wasn’t the first time it’s happened, and sure as hell, won’t be the last..

Hmm, Flaps = on/off pneumatic switch. Gear is a bit harder to actuate….

It was the classic taxying accident in pre ‘squat switch’ aircraft !

Yup, who hasn’t been distracted and had momentary lapses, accidents happen, ever such a nice guy and no one was more upset about it than the pilot..

To err is human; to forgive, divine.
Alexander Pope

I can see how this happened, pilot was human and probably momentarily distracted. Mistakes happen.

I find it hard to understand how that can be done in a Spit knowing how the U/C retraction works compared to the flaps?????

Report now released.

”The aircraft had landed on Runway 27 at East Midlands Airport and was taxiing to vacate the runway when the undercarriage retracted, causing the wooden propeller to strike the runway and shatter. The pilot stated that he had intended to retract the flaps but inadvertently selected the undercarriage to UP: the levers are on different sides of the cockpit. It is apparently a usual practice to retract the flaps a soon as possible after landing to minimise the effect they have on cooling radiator airflow. There is no weight-on-wheels protection circuit.”

Download report:*

*Vickers Supermarine Spitfire MK XIX, G-RRGN 5-2013.pdf (1,883.92 kb)

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/publications/bulletins/may_2013/vickers_supermarine_spitfire_mk_xix__g_rrgn.cfm

So the wooden blades may have prevented serious damage to the engine but do we know yet wheather just one leg retracted or was it ?

Both main gear legs

Andy

I totally agree with you. Though in the Daily Snails defence they did correctly identify the aircraft that had the incident in the box, it was just the photo of it airborne that did not tally, see

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2258569/Flights-suspended-East-Midlands-airport-undercarriage-Spitfire-collapsed-landing.html

Anyone reading the full article should have been able to put two and two together and not arrive at five..

Spit1940 yes, but safety wise I think one would want a strip and inspection on it.

In brief response to the questions of accuracy amongst press reporting of any incident such as this – well yes it should be reported accurately with any reference photos used showing the actual example where possible rather than another similar one….

My reason for saying that is related to the owner of a certain aircraft with which I have had some involvement. Photos showing this particular one were used in error when reporting an incident involving another, resulting in a few needless enquiries to the owner which had the potential to have a negative result on show bookings for one thing? I don’t doubt that the inaccurate use of ‘stock’ photos was not intended to mislead, but lost earnings as a result of some assuming the wrong identity can be financially damaging as well as hitting the reputation of those owning the wrongly used examples.

Typos and inaccurate wording are another issue altogether of course.

And to the other question, wooden blades.

So the wooden blades may have prevented serious damage to the engine but do we know yet wheather just one leg retracted or was it ?

The ‘Sticky lever’ reference is widely understood.

Its use may be humourous in intent, but it conveys a baseless and unfair ( in the absence of information) judgement on the airmanship of an individual.

It is surely wiser to refrain from such ‘observations’.

It’s just the standard joke, I just happened to beat everyone else to it in this thread. Don’t read anything else into it & get over yourself. hth. :p

That they managed to use a Spitfire PR.XIX picture to me is amazing! I am loathed to criticise them as nobody was hurt and the owner of the French Spitfire probably hasnt’ got any hurt feelings or indeed any desire to go and pick up a copy of the said tabloid!

Do we expect the tabloid press to really research aircraft stories to the finite detail or are they catering to an audience that is probably 99% not aircraft enthusiast?

Both :rolleyes:

Do we expect the tabloid press to really research aircraft stories to the finite detail or are they catering to an audience that is probably 99% not aircraft enthusiast?

When they include the words “this is the Spitfire that crashed”, yes, I do expect them to have made a little more effort with the photo. There are plenty of photos of the post-resto test flying on here if not anywhere else.

Do we expect the tabloid press to really research aircraft stories to the finite detail or are they catering to an audience that is probably 99% not aircraft enthusiast?