Pilot: Why would anyone leave a perfectly good aircraft? Skydiver: You've never seen a jump plane.

California Pilot to NTSB: We were just hanging 10 when I set up for some chill time with the terra firma. Then I slid the jet juice to Bravo and was like WOAH!, and my chill pal was like WOOOOOAAAHHH, and the plane was like WOAH, and the ground kinda like reached up and just crushed our groove and harshed our mellow.

Caravan, pretty much the easiest to fly. Sad to hear another fatality. I'm a Cessna machinist, my wife WAS a Honeywell avionics engineer (we don't do Honeywell engines in Wichita, plus they moved to Olathe, KS) she now works with gyroscopes at Rockwell Collins. We love all pilots that enjoy our hard work. ❤

I’ve got about 10 years of skydiving ops experience, roughly 1300 in these Garrett vans. This airplane is the easier than a 182 to fly in my opinion, really stable and a nice platform. With that said, if you get slow enough with no power, you can and will see the beta light illuminate and you need to be ready to stand on the prop if you will to keep the airspeed. I saw this accident and immediately thought of a trainee pilot getting slow and/or catching an ill timed downdraft. The story you referenced about the guy saying he was going to put it into beta to beat the divers down, that’s the same condition I’m referencing here. They don’t go over the gate per say, but when the prop fines out to match rpm at low airspeeds, she drops like a homesick bowling ball. You can turn 4 loads an hour like clock work on 66 gallons or so an hour, these planes are a great investment with the right training. There’s no reason ever to skimp on fuel in this ship, they never stop climbing. Rest In Peace!

RIP to the jumpmaster, and prayers for his family and friends for strength. Excellent details on that turbine, Juan! Those engines are fascinating. Amazing how they work. Mind-boggling costs involved with those! Just amazing engineering.

Juan, have been a Patreon patron, am a patron, and will continue to support such great reporting. Love your details and intuition. Hope you continue your great reporting for a very long time.

Juan Brown does another very detailed and interesting analysis. I appreciate them all. As a former US Navy aviator and survivor of 3 A/C accidents, I live by the motto that "whatever can go wrong, will go wrong!" Looks like in this case, the going wrong had a lot of help from the pilot.

Juan, thanks for covering this. I worked with and knew the person who passed away. I’ve been in aviation since 1991, and I’ve lost a number of friends in accidents. It never gets easier, but hopefully we can all learn something.

Tow pilots for sailplanes often have a similar practice, where they will dive back after you get off tow, sometimes executing a Split-S to get turned around and down. In their case they do have a legitimate incentive to get hooked up to the next sailplane as quickly as possible. However, when I was a fairly new student, I got sucked up into a real trash-mover thermal and was too inexperienced to pull the release and turn into it. Because I was high and no longer in his mirror, he thought I had gotten off tow and started his dive back, pulling me along. He then realized I was still on and pulled up, at which point I overshot him and the rope was in danger of wrapping over my wing. He dived again and we were able to finally adjust speeds and get off tow. That was a real pucker moment if I say so myself. Learned my lesson that day.😉

I started following you during the Orville days and I’m continually impressed with your sincerity and ability to convey what is actually going on or has happened in such instances as this.

Hey Juan, quick correction. Both Caravans were Supervans with Garrett Conversions from Texas Turbine. It’s common for FAA registration not to update STC’s for the engine. Beta is also a no go in the Garrett’s. Texas Turbines are extremely nose heavy and lose elevator authority when slow. Additionally once slow, the prop will flatten out to its finest pitch resulting in a huge drag increase exacerbating your already slow airspeed.

I have flown parachute jumpers with a Cessna 206. The club had very strict operational procedures, which included power settings for climb and descent. We never used idle power during descent because we wanted to preserve the engine. With turbine engines, you can be more "reckless". But beta mode is absolute off limit. As far as I know, only the PC-6 Turbo Porter is certified for beta mode in flight. Its engine is modified for that purpose.

Thank you for covering these crashes. My house and office are very near this airport and I have watched thousands of takeoffs and landings here, especially the frequent daily skydiving flights. Since I moved here 4 years ago, I can't tell you how many times I've been out walking my dog and yelled up at the pilot of the skydiving plane, "you're coming in too fast and too high!" My family all calls that pilot "the hot-dogger" because of all the times we were sure he'd crash. It's really shocking to hear that our suspicions were right -- he was racing the skydivers to the ground (referring to the crash in February). The crash sites are only a few yards apart and that location is where they've just prepared the land to build 700 new homes and a surf park. You can imagine that now the locals are questioning the wisdom of building anything there. We're all following along to find out the cause of the crash on Friday. RIP to the Jumpmaster who died in the accident.

Thank you Juan. I enjoy sitting back in the evenings listening to your latest videos. Very instructive, and I always learn something new

I grew up in Oceanside. KOKB was my home airport. Crazy these 2 crashes were just short of final. GoJump pilots were always very professional and polite. Sorry to hear about this and the loss for their family and friends. Thanks for covering this.

Using Beta in flight has caused many accidents. They have an idle gate for a reason in the caravan and most turbo props.

Jaun Thank you for showing the two different engine diagrams and explaining the higher drag from an un-feathered windmilling propeller as well as Beta mode (for ground operations only ) I so appreciate your knowledge and research Really a well done video again 10 stars ✨ out of 10 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Best wishes to you always from Las Vegas Craig Bravo 👏🏻 “See you Here”

Great explanation of the PT6 turboprop as well as the skydiving accidents. I have 1,000 hours with them, and 350 hours Garrett TPE331. Both very great engines. Enjoy your analysiss 👍🏻

Great to see the PT6 engine. In my time in the Dutch air force the PT6-A-25A used on the Pilatus PC7 trainer was by far the most reliable turboshaft of the lot , with zero failures during the TBO.

Once again Juan, an excellent description of the airplane, flight situation and conditions that could have led to this crash. No one does it better.

A few important notes on the TPE-331. I flew the Garrett engine on its’ unique KingAir application the B100 for a few years. The NTS system is fairly simple in how it works vs an auto feather (optional) in the PT-6. It is a mechanical gear system with interlocking “vanes” that in normal flight (engine driving propeller) are held in place by torque. When the propeller starts to turn the engine (negative torque). The angle off these vanes will force the gear attached to the propeller to pop out and trigger the propeller to dump oil pushing it “towards feather”. The interesting thing about this process is that eventually the engine catches up and the propeller attempts to return to its flight pitch before it is cycled again. It winds up causing a rapid pulsing as the propeller is taken in and out of a low pitch-high pitch setting until the pilot either feathers the propeller manually or, the engine runs out of energy. While it may seem counter intuitive to present a pilot with a strange pulsing situation on top of an engine failure it is designed to keep the shaft spinning in case a re-light is achieved. And prevent a rapid slowdown of the engine that could cause shaft warping. The shaft in these engines carry allot of rotational energy and, likewise it takes allot of energy to get them back going. In the B100 we had two 24v batteries as opposed to other KingAirs that had one. We also had a switch where we could operate them in series (48v) to help starts in cold weather. The Garrett is also more susceptible to FOD and Ice damage than the reverse flow PT-6. The Caravan “Super Van” conversion is unique in that they use an engine application that is left turning on a single engine aircraft. Because of this transitioning often between a PT-6 caravan and a TPE-331 caravan can be fundamentally tricky as torque effects now require left rudder rather than right rudder. Because of this, many operators will stick to one engine or the other and avoid a mixed fleet. Other than it’s idiosyncrasies, the Garrett engine is typically a much more efficient and powerful option on most of its applications besides the advantage of nearly instantaneous power. The B100 was a New England to South Florida airplane in most conditions doing the same trip as a light jet taking only 45m longer but burning 1/3rd of the fuel. The fuel burn was also similar to the smaller KingAir 90 despite having the cabin of the larger KingAir 200 and nearly the range of the KingAir 350. (Not to mention the most obvious advantage… being able to be heard from 5 miles away over an idling PT-6 😂). Great insight as always! Without a doubt these videos make a difference keeping aviation safer!

As a lifelong non-pilot aviation enthusiast I found this video the best explanation of how a turbo-prop engine operates, the differences between the designs and the cause and effect relationship between propeller pitch (i.e. need to feather) and engine flame-out. It will be interesting to see if similar poor decisions by the pilot led to the second crash. The comment in the report of the first accident about the passenger taking phone videos showing the controls made me think how useful the implementation of a standard requiring all planes to have a camera mounted in the cockpit above the pilot to record a view of controls and what actions the pilot takes to change them in addition to the current voice and data recorders would make determining causes of crashes easier. The video technology is available and inexpensive and wouldn’t be any more difficult or expensive than using a GoPro to record a blog.

"There are no old, bold pilots" still hold true 41 years after my first solo.

ty, jb...the more i watch the more i learn, the turbo illustration in particular...shame this resulted in injury and worse.

thanks for the great video, Juan. Patron here reporting in to ATC!

So nice to hear you with a better mic setup!!!

When I was doing a job out of Nome AK, I saw the Garrett TPE331 on Bearing Air's Caravan's, Bearing Air in Nome developed that conversion and the STC! What a beast! It made that sluggish caravan run like a thoroughbred!

Juan - great job, as always!

This is right by my house. I live right by the San Luis Rey Mission in Oceanside. When I take my dog to the park I watch this pilot land every 30 min. He's a very good pilot (at least he looks the part on approach). Like all sky diving pilots, he takes a very steep high bank final approach to get down fast and get the divers back up for another jump. I was always saying to myself if something goes wrong on that approach there's not much energy to get you to the field.

Thanks as always for the updates .Sad to hear of ,fatality .condolences to families

Very informative, thanks, Juan.

Excellent Video, Thanks Brother Juan.

thank you JB. RIP to the jump monitor. Our condolences to the friends and family.

Always appreciate your expert and ongoing investigative reporting. Small note: the highway near the Oceanside airport is not a Freeway. It has cross streets and traffic lights and a 45 mph. speed limit. It is called Hwy. 76 but really isn't even that near the airport.

Thanks, Juan, both for doing the video and responding to my email. Good job.

Here at our local skydive op the pilot gets down as the jumpers are landing, I believe he keeps the rpm up and flattens the pitch, turning the prop into a big speed brake… he turns base so close to the runway you’d swear he won’t make the runway, he also banks about 60-90 degrees base to final. He nails it every time, despite what his approach looks like. It’s fun to watch! They operate a 208 with a beefed up PT-6.

Sloppy dangerous flying. Thanks for the video Juan 👍

Juan Thank you for all you do to keep us informed I really enjoy the channel.

JUAN, GREAT VIDEO, SEE YOU NEXT TIME...

Thanks Juan for reporting and hosting a platform for discussion. Condolences to the lost Pilot in training. I too live in Oceanside (although I fly out of Fallbrook). I got to view both crashed planes. The first appeared to be a "out of fuel/loss of power" scenario. This one, seems to be loss of power and a stall.( It too could be a low fuel situation as there didn't seem to be much fuel at the crash site...) The NTSB inspector stated that there was signs of fuel leakage in the soil (right wing torn from aircraft). However, I couldn't smell it a few hours later...

Seems I am made to subscribe every time I come to visit your channel. Great channel. I have learned so much from your videos.

These clips feel like informal flight school; they're so densely packed with information and I'm learning all sorts of stuff about engines, flying and airplanes. My head spins after one of these, but in a good way! Keep 'em coming Juan, and don't listen to anyone telling you to dumb these videos down!

There are four fat garret blades as opposed to three skinny Pratt blades. The garret in flight idle is low pitch/high rpm. The garret has FADEC. You don’t touch the prop control during any phase of flight or ground operations. The garret STC comes with a whole new van POH for operation with the garret. The garret has an abysmal glide compared to the Pratt. I only have 30 or so hours on the garret van in a jump operation. It’s been over a year since I’ve flown one. That’s what I remember.

Love the pause at 19:34 to appreciate a high performance engine coming on by, reminds me of the air races

Thanks for the information.

I have flown into okb many times. I was slated to fly that plane for the skydiving company- but other things came up. It is pretty Awsome to take off over Oceanside harbor and drop off the paying passengers. Love your stuff.

Thanks, Juan

Another great analysis!

Nice slides of the turbine engines. Very interesting the amount of power the compressor sections require during operation. JayZ has some insight on the free turbine style engines (as well as everything turbine). Thanks Juan.

I've jumped here. I have photos of me in the foreground with the Cessna Caravan we just departed nose-down in the background. Yes, racing skydivers in freefall to terra firma. Didn't seem particularly safe. This was several years ago.

I'm not a pilot but there's one thing I got from this. If I were to get my PPL and my own plane, I would sure want to learn all about my engine, how it works internally, and what I can and can't do with it in the many different situations. Thanks for the insight.

The caravan has an 8 gallon header tank that both tanks fuel into. Aux pump is in the header tank. The side slip restrictions are to prevent the lack of fuel to the header tank. There is a warning light for low fuel in the header tank.

Excellent as always.............................

Great info content!!

Thanks Juan!

Add "no flaps", most likely purged the engine of fuel from windmilling, usable fuel slung out board in the right wing, this guy created a very bad situation with all that drag, reduced lift and no time for a restart (getting straight and level long enough to get fuel into the hot section, sufficient airflow and rotation). He was 5 minutes behind the airplane when it ran out of sky. RIP Jumpmaster.

Thank you, RB, Nova Scotia

Reading that first accident report though - can only imagine what that pilot passenger was feeling as all that stuff was happening. I spent some time doing medevac flights in East Africa, lots of which were in Caravans and the condtion of the some of the strips it would tolerate gave me great respect for the aircraft. We always had the option of landing pretty much everywhere! So sad that someone died...

Good report. I`m anxious to see if you`re going to comment on the C 152 fatal crash at KMWC in Milwaukee. I worked on my PPL there.

On May 11 2022, a Brazilian Caravan with 9 parachuters aboard, crashed in Boituva. All injured.

There have been a lot of comments stating that the 331 will do this or do that in a particular situation. I’ll refrain from doing the same. I worked for many years rigging fuel controls on both the 331 and the PT6. A number of fuel control units have been used on the 331 including a fly by wire computerized fuel control. Not knowing the engine fuel control system installed on this particular engine means it’s all a guess what he may have been doing with his home grown power management techniques and what the results may have been. Regarding the NTS system, a portion of the engine setup included in flight testing of the NTS system and In flight testing of the Beta mode. Situations a pilot would normally never experience. I was also qualified to fly the aircraft which we were servicing and had a fair amount of stick time doing such. I can certainly understand how a hot dogging pilot could cheat a bit on the approved operating parameters in furthering his rapid decent and short field game. Our testing was always done at altitude as an unstable thrust output or a high drag factor could be a fine and sensitive line, even capable of destabilizing the aircraft to an alarming degree if the fuel control setups were not spot on. (One of the reasons for test flying) It certainly appears the pilot operated in the realm of a test pilot and got caught up in his hot dogging game.

Great Job Juan ! Used to fly the Embraer Banderante with the PT6-34 Engines ! I had an Engine Failure over SBA at 8000 ‘ about the time I got the Failed engine identified it was already Feathered ! I was headed to SBP with A full load of Passengers ! I flew a single eng ILS into SBA ! I also use To fly the Merlin Metro with the Garett Engs . Flying from LAX to SBP 18 Pax again engine fail over SMX Had to feather this one fly a single engine ILS RWY 12 . During Vectors For app I kept in a descent never leveled off . Wasn’t sure I could maintain alt in level flight . I prefer The Pt 6’s over the Garrett’s . PT6 Much more versatile. Oh by the way Both Eng fails were do to Engine driven fuel pumps ! Worn spline Shafts . Emb was Imperial Airlines And the Metro was Sun Airlines . 10 yrs between engine failures ! 25000 hrs and only two engine failures not bad odds . That’s my 2 cents ! Captain Mark H Wirth ( True Safety Is No Accident ) Oh !

Thanks Juan

Respects to the family of the Jumpmaster, on their deep loss.

Thank you very much.

thank you Juan......

Juan, In fact, the PT6 Compressor Section rotating parts turn in the opposite direction of the Power Turbine wheels... Just a bit of trivia. :-) Thanks!!

Wow. One of these skydiving Caravans went off the runway on June 4th at a local airport near me also.

I launched myself on several jumps from the Caravan operated out of Skydive San Diego. I never once recall the pilots talking about nor anyone talking about taking the engine into beta during descent.

Very clear detail.

I have considerable experience with TPE331’s and I found them to be reliable engines. However, I had two incidents during which reverse mode was entered inadvertently during approach. I was extremely lucky to recover just in time before crashing.

I used to live in Oceanside for about 6 years one street over from the beach right by the pier love that place.That sounds like to me they've got a problem with hot dog pilots at this company, when the plane is constantly on the ground before the jumpers and there are allot of complaints of reckless and dangerous flying that tells you a little something right there. I now live right next to Ft Bragg in North Carolina and there's a little airport right here off the base where they skydive and some of those pilots nose dive it just to get down before the jumpers. I don't know if it's like their culture that's the normal way they fly but I've noticed not just this operation, but other operations I have personally witnessed that this kind of flying seems to be the norm.

Just like a Pratt....a Garret 331 engine(before Honeywell) prop will go to feather whenever there is a loss of engine oil pressure....in fact, you have to put the prop on "START LOCKS" during shutdown to prevent the prop going to feather after shut down....this was necessary for an easier start...because the 331 has a single shaft...which makes starting more difficult.

Such a tragedy :-( . But you do a excellent jobb in explaining. I hat to say that I love to see this content but I do cause I think It's so important. I'm not a pilot but I've always been interested... I love your content keep upp the good work you do your doing a fantastic jobb.

My reaction to “those gauges are inaccurate” is to get them looked at and calibrated if needed, not simply fly it and assume you’re okay on fuel.

I've flown various flavors of PT6 & Garret powered aircraft, and while these power-plants have different pros and cons, they require radically different handling. I suspect these two accidents have one thing in common: Unexpected flame-out due to excessive attitude resulting fuel tank un-porting (is that the correct term?) and the engine momentarily being fed air, not kerosene. The 2 different engine types require different procedures for air restart but in these cases I suspect the killer in these accidents is prop control: A turboprop in idle (or flamed out!) and prop controls at max RPM (not to mention in Beta range) creates immense drag, and a pilot using or exceeding this part of the envelope must be intimately familiar with getting the prop out of fine pitch. The only aircraft I know that can safely be abused in this way (near-vertical attitude with the prop in beta) is the PT6-powered Pilatus PC-6 Porter. I have never flown the type, but I imagine the critical issue is the design of the fuel system.

I'm a jumper, not a pilot, but have many jumps out of the 208B. The following comments are not directed at the incidents at GoJump. The 208 and 208B are very common in skydive operations. The Garret conversion is a great balance of power versus fuel burn and a major upgrade compared to the stock 675 SHP P&W. A full plane and the number of jumper loads per hour is what makes the dropzone money. The time to jump run altitude and time of decent are equally as important. In turbine operations, the time of decent of the plane is common for the plane to be landing +/- the same time as the jumpers. It's not a race, just the way things time out. For jump operations, it is common for the plane to be fueled for 3 loads plus required reserves. Once the plane becomes a glider, with engine out and prop feathered, the plane will have an incredible glide rate if it is empty of jumpers and the light fuel load. The pilot can underestimate the glide and land longer than anticipated. As dropzones are frequently on smaller airports with shorter runways, there have been several incidents where the pilot was able to get the plane onto the runway, then over ran due to loss of BETA, no drag from the feathered prop and only the hydraulic brakes. Obviously, the altitude of engine loss, if passengers still onboard, and amount of time the plane is a glider makes a difference when deciding to feather or not. Since for jump operations, the climb/decent is circling around the airport, the maximum amount of required glide might not be as important as compared to a travelling flight where just getting back to a runway is of first priority. I have jumped at this DZ, but when it was operated by the previous drop zone owner.

All me and my mom jumped out of for my 30th birthday a few years ago was a small Cessna with nothing inside but the pilots seat😆. Everything else had been taken out. At around 11,000ft out we jumped out over Danridge Tennessee.

Good job as always juan . your reporting is spot on. Also you should open up an account on rumble they do not censor content creators such as yourself

Ha! My first gig was flying a 182 for jumpers with Tide Water Sky Sports, Suffolk Virginia, in 1986. Summer heat! What an into into the industry! On my first day I was told by the owner that if I couldn't put it down on the ground before my jumpers he would find somebody who could and having just completed my commercial rating I was happy as a clam rolling the damn thing over and Diving back towards the ground

Cool to see OV-10's still in service!! It was the first military aircraft I supported for DOD!!

I used to see the ov-10 broncos all the time in Vietnam and at fort Sill Oklahoma when I got back and I had a plastic model of one

There have been two major fatal accidents in Sweden in recent years concerning skydiving operations. Örebro 2021 (investigation not complete, but seems to have stalled just after take off) and Umeå 2019 (stalled and went into a spin just before jumping, air speed was too low to manage the weight transfer of the jumpers moving towards the door). There were nine fataities in each accident. It seems the aeroplane part of skydiving might possibly be more dangerous than the parachute part.

Hey Blanco...my previous experience with the Garret TPE-331 was in the J41. There was an "NTS" or Negative Torque Sensing system whereby the system would sense negative torque and turn on ignition to prevent a flame out. I can't recall if there was an auto-feather teature (maybe on take-off?) or not. What's your experience with Garret?

May God comfort the family of the jump master. My sincerest condolences.

Thanks for the explanation of the workings of the PT6. I was told years ago by an engine LAME that (theoretically), one could hold on to a propeller connected to a PT6 for about 30 seconds after ignition, but after that it would be impossible. :) With the Garrett direct-drive engine, is it possible to overfuel the engine if the propeller RPM drops far enough, e.g. by having the propeller pitch too coarse? The reason why I ask is that the Rolls Royce Dart engine coupled to the 4-blade Dowty-Rotol propeller (as fitted to the F-27) was susceptible to that, especially when taxiing and somehow getting the prop past the ground fine lock - once the EGT needle headed to the right, the turbine had cooked and it was too late to save the engine. There were a few incidences of F-27s experiencing engine failure on approach when the pilots had the pitch set too coarse for the HP cock setting, thus overfuelling the engine and cooking the turbine.

Can you look into the one that happened today in Panama City Beach. (ECP) The news said there were 2 fatalities and 1 in critical. The weather wasn’t bad today and the winds didn’t seem anything out of the normal.

Lots of time in a jetstream back in the mid 80’s with garrett 331 engines. I agree with all the posts below. Also FYI same engine was used in the old 737 models for the apu

I saw the crashed aircraft on Saturday morning on the way to my son's soccer tournament. To Juan's discussion point, I've also in the past witnessed the pilots race sky divers many times while at the soccer field near the airport.

I made my first jump in Baldwin in 1978...static line. Been jumping since!! I am 64 last Saturday.

We had a turbine lancair at Flagstaff and the pilot, a former A6 Vietnam Vet emphasized you always turn boost pump on when changing tanks, because cone valves effect fuel pressure without the boost pump leading to ....drum roll.. engine unlighting.

Good review. I had an engine failure years ago flying an MU2 with TPE331 engines. FYI, it isn't full auto feather. Its negative torque sensing reduces blade pitch, but the pilot must still feather the engine.

Several things. The torque on the engine is in the same direction weather in flight or beta mode as the prop continues to spin in the same direction. The issue with beta in flight is, in a single engine installation, pushing the air forward in front of the prop robs all your tail surfaces air flow. No rudder, no elevator authority. Ground operation in beta is limited by engine temp because of reduced/no airflow. The NTS is only to keep the prop from turning the engine to fast. Without this protection the prop could overspeed the turbine. None of the single engine installations I have flown had a feather control. As long as the engine is turning and making oil pressure the prop will not feather but will continue to windmill at a speed less than 105%.

We would commonly use a 60 degree bank and with a little bit of rudder to keep the nose up.. this gave best decent. But you would want to mix your turns left and right equally.

A 331 and PT6 are like opposite ends of the world for turbines, be curious what the emergency flight manual procedures were per the STC, the engines are operated and controlled differently and what additional training did the pilot have for operating the aircraft with the STC installed

That is not what the book says. Another comment by the voice of reason that I would bet will be highly scrutinize. Thanks Juan for your abilities and saying the right thing at the right time.

Saw this plane on Saturday as we drove by. It hit pretty hard in the nose, and right wing was off the aircraft. Very sad to see first hand.

Thanks!

I rode front right seat down with a full load after weather moved in. The pilot flying the 208 used Beta to get us lower. The intense vibration on the tail was very much like a stall event.

I was teaching a guy to fly a 208 at a dropnzone. When the jumpers wentout, he pulled the fuel level to off instead of throttle back. Had to do restart it took a good 1500' it get spooled up again. I was 10k so no big whoop. But I did start keeping hand by the fuel lever when every taught someone else.