Vintage plane accident closes DC airport runway

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Associated Press

Vintage plane accident closes DC airport runway
(AP) – 41 minutes ago

ARLINGTON, Va. — The main runway at {Washington} National Airport is closed after a vintage aircraft flipped when it landed.

Film producer Pietro Serapiglia says the aircraft was part of a group of vintage biplanes flying in Tuesday morning to promote the opening of 3-D film "Legends of Flight." Serapiglia says the plane landed, but then it flipped over.

Sybrina Lambeth of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority says no injuries were reported and no commercial planes were involved. She says planes are still taking off from other runways.

The Washington Post reports that the newspaper's transportation writer Ashley Halsey III was the passenger in the vintage Stearman aircraft and neither Halsey nor the pilot were injured.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gJsFki0ha_ykTxCqht4whDWISxTwD9G76DOG0

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Hat tip to the gang at Scan-DC for bringing this to my attention. I can't hear the airport from inside my building, but if I go up on the roof, I should be able to hear them. It's time to charge up the Bearcat SC180.

Edited: Video.

Vintage Biplane Flips Over at {Washington} National

news broadcast, with video of the landing

The video Hassin Bin Sober links to is much better, though I wish the videographer had used a tripod. I mean, how often do you get to see a Stearman land? Passengers on the port side of a taxiing US Airways flight got quite a view. Always wear your seatbelt, or harness in this case.

More editing: Video taken from onboard the Stearman that crashed. You have to see this.

Post Now - Video from plane crash at National Airport

[msongs]

1. vintage planes are cool to look at nt

[Lost4words]

2. how did that happen, did the passenger stomp on the brake?

nose over I assume,.....

[guitar man]

3. yep, one of the hazards of taildraggers

hit the brakes to hard and it's over on its back :crazy:

on edit. I re-read it and saw it was a Stearman, that should have been "tap" the brakes rather than "hit". ;)

[backscatter712]

4. Hope the plane's repairable.

I'd hate to see a valuable vintage plane get totaled...

[guitar man]

5. If it just nosed over into its back

From braking too hard it is totally repairable. One of the best summers I can remember as a teenager was working with my Dad to repair that exact type of airplane after he bought it. It had been involved in the same kind of accident. Mostly wood and fabric work and a new propellor and she was good to go ;)

[Hassin Bin Sober]

6. Video of event:

It appears the brakes may have been engaged prior to touch-down? Perhaps a malfunction? Does the Stearman have a parking brake/lock function?

Looks like the WAPO transportation reporter will have a story to tell his grandkids ... LOL

WaPo Reporter Uninjured in Vintage Plane Crash Updated

UPDATE: Via ARLnow, check out some video recently posted to YouTube of the actual crash.

It was about 9:45 this morning when Alert DC let the city know that eight vintage bi-planes were set to fly into National Airport at some point between 10 and 10:30 a.m. Little did we know at the time that Washington Post reporter Ashley Halsey III was a passenger on one of them, and that the plane would soon crash.

Only two people were aboard the plane, the pilot and Halsey, when it touched down on a runway and then pitched forward and rolled over. Neither the pilot nor the reporter were injured in the crash. We know this courtesy Halsey himself, who has already recovered from the incident enough to report what happened. That's some stone cold shit right there.

Halsey further reports that all commercial airplanes are being moved to a different runway following the crash.


http://dcist.com/2010/06/wapo_reporter_uninjured_in_vintage.php

[guitar man]

7. yes

they have a parking brake, looks like either it was engaged or he was on the brakes when it touched down.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

9. Of course, if the brakes are engaged by pressing the top of the rudder pedals ...

... the pilot wouldn't have rudder control if he left the parking brake engaged. Or is it separate? I've never flown anything like that - or any tail-dragger for that matter.

[guitar man]

10. that's a good question

I don't remember exactly how the parking brakes worked on it, I was a teenager back then, Dad was the one who flew it, I just helped him fix it. I do know that it has toe brakes, top of the rudder pedals engages the brakes.

[FailureToCommunicate]

8. Darn good thing they were wearing seat belts!

[guitar man]

11. Good video from the cockpit

It looks like it will be pretty easy to fix, the rudder/vertical stabilizer didn't sustain anywhere near the damage that the one Dad and I fixed did.

[hayu_lol]

13. Flying these things was a dream...

landing them safely could be a bitch. Toe brakes were separate from the rudder function and were used, once on the ground to turn the aircraft at very slow speeds...as someone has already mentioned, you just 'tap' the brakes or use very low pressure for a final stop. Two kinds of landings: Three point(main gear and tail wheel)was the original plan but this was exchanged for the faster(and sometimes safer)wheel landings on the main gear alone letting the tail slowly drop to the ground as speed decreased. The main gear were pretty close together so a wheel landing could result in a groundloop if you were careless. In the air, the plane was extremely stable and acrobatics were loads of fun.

I took some acrobatic training at Stinson Field near San Antonio in '54. Starter didn't work so my instructor had to 'prop' the engine by hand. He was over 6 feet tall so had little problem with that. First rule of open cockpit flying was to fasten your seatbelt. A bit disconcerting while doing loops to find that you had not fastened it. Lots of struts in the cockpit to hang onto however. Open cockpit flying is really different.

In yellow paint as a Navy Trainer, the Stearman was known as the Yellow Peril.

[guitar man]

14. yes indeed

I wish Dad didn't have to sell his when he did, I was 15 when he let it go, couldn't afford to keep it. :(

Just for grins I punched the N number of the old girl into google and found this. It's the very plane that was hauled in on a trailer in pieces that Dad and I fixed and put back together. Somebody did a fine job restoring it to original configuration, the last time I was it was 1979 and it was black and white, in duster configuration and had a 450hp P&W instead of the original 220hp Continental

[formercia]

12. Love that non-skid runway surface in bad weather.

Sometimes it grabs a bit too much.

[mikelgb]

15. WaPo link with 2 video including from inside the aircraft.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/local-breaking-news/dc/vintage-airplane-crashes-at-na.html