Four killed in Bangalore air crash

All four persons on board a small aircraft were killed when it crashed into a tank at Gowdanapalya on this city's outskirts today.

The four-seat aircraft, which was bound for Cochin, developed a technical problem and plunged into the tank six minutes after taking off from the airport here, Deputy Commissioner of Police Alok Kumar said.

Four persons, including the pilot, were in the P68 aircraft that was chartered by the Joy Alukkas jewellery group of Cochin, airport sources said.

The aircraft took off from here at 1535 hrs and the pilot communicated to the air traffic control tower that he was returning as the plane had developed a problem. A few minutes later, the control tower lost contact with the aircraft.

Police identified the dead as Sunil Joseph, Santhosh Kumar, K Shanmugam and Mohammed Basheer.

The aircraft was going to Kochi to pick up Joy Alukkas, chairman of the Joy Alukkas jewellery group, and take him to Thiruvanthapuram to attend a function when the mishap occurred, the group's media manager Balakrishna Periya said in Kochi....


Shanmugam was in MFC and he is a friend of my mate...

May their souls rest in peace....

Is this a/c the one owned by joy alukkas.Because he owns one P-68 registration VT-JOY.

Yes Iceman the P-68 was owned by him....
From what I know, a P-68 is not an easy piece of machinery to fly on a single engine....so an engine failure in the climb phase (close to the ground) can be quite a handful...esp on a hot day with a full load of passengers...
The actual cause of the accident is still unknown...lets wait and see...

Well RIP to the deceased.

would be interesting to know the reason for the crash.

Does anybody know how much time DGCA take to complete a GA accident investigation.

Has the panel of investigators setup?

Latest Update abt the accident

Quote :

Engine seizure caused plane crash
Bangalore: The preliminary findings of the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) team inquiring into the crash of the six-seater plane in South Bangalore on Saturday, have revealed that an engine seizure was the cause of the crash.
Senior aviation officials told TOI that the plane seems to have crashed due to an engine seizure. Initial findings indicate that an engine experienced a sudden loss of power and thrust, and thus, seized. "Surprisingly, the loss of thrust seems to have affected both engines. That normally doesn’t happen in a twin-engine aircraft, but that gives us reason to investigate the crash in that direction," an official said.
The cause of the engine seizure has been related to technical factors. "There seems to have been a technical snag in the engine. What exactly caused the snag and whether the snag, on its own, caused the engine to seize is not known yet. All factors leading to or causing engine seizure are being looked into," the officials involved in the crash investigation explained. The cause of engine seizure has not been established because the aircraft ‘does not have the black box and cockpit voice recorder.’

Wrong fuel caused plane crash?
Bangalore: The six-seat Vulcanair Partenavia (P-68C) aircraft that crashed shortly after take-off here on Saturday appears to have had the wrong fuel in its tank. This discovery has led the investigating team from Chennai to shift its focus to the city’s HAL Airport, where the aircraft was last refuelled.
The team found traces of Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) from the wreckage, instead of the blue-dyed low-lead Avgas 100LL that should have gone into the P-68C tank. While ATF is used by turbine-powered aircraft, Avgas is the gasoline meant for reciprocating piston engine aircraft such as the one that crashed into the Gowdanapalya lake, said Civil Aviation Ministry sources.
It was not immediately clear how the colourless ATF was mistaken for blue-dyed Avgas.
The investigating team inspected the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) records at the HAL Airport on Monday, the sources said. IOC supplies aviation fuel to the airport.
Avgas fuelling nozzles for over-wing dispensing are painted red. To help prevent the possibility of jet fuel being supplied to a piston engine aircraft, the nozzle of an Avgas fueller is limited to a maximum diameter of (internationally) 40 mm (49 mm in U.S.A) and the aperture on an aircraft Avgas tank to a maximum of 60 mm diameter.
Avgas 100LL and Avgas 100 are two major grades of this fuel currently in use internationally. For easy identification, Avgas 100LL is dyed blue, while Avgas 100 is coloured green.

If its fuel mix up then its very very serious

Will DGCA make their findings public? Would love to know what happened.

It's a disaster if they fueled it with ATF instead of 100LL !!
Seems a disaster but, it's quite a possibility. People who dispense fuel are trained...but I have seen unqualified ...and sometimes even cleaners/technicians fuelling A/c. Most of these guys avoid disasters cause they just do what they've been told or how they've been showed to do, by the experts.
Maybe the person dispensing fuel mistook the P68 to be a turboprop....and it's not surprising. I've seen a group of young wannabes standing in front of an old/disused Dakota, arguing if those are turboprops or pistons..

What troubles me is how it escaped the pilot doing the pre-flight...If it indeed was the wrong fuel there were 2 opportunities to catch it.
1. fuel quantity chk with a dipstick...ATF has a distinct smell that not just lingers in the air but can also be smelt immidiately when you open the filler.
2. the fuel quality chk for water/contaminants...again the colour and smell of the fuel should have been indicators.

I just hope it wasn't the fuel...though seems very much like it since both engines seized. In most of these cases the investigation authorities conveniently and shamelessly put the blame on those who've passed on...

Yeah…since both engines seized, wrong / contaminated fuel or fuel line problem looks like the obvious cause. However, as kite mentioned there is a very little chance that it is missed in the pre-flight inspection/walk around, so a bit strange there. Jet A1 (which is a form of kerosene) definitely has a distinct smell and is heavier than the 100LL or the 100Green. So if it was mixed, the ATF will sink at the bottom off the tank and should be quite easy to detect when the fuel is drained... sad……..really….

how can anyone mix up the fuel?? werent the pre flight checks able to notice it??

Quote :

how can anyone mix up the fuel?? werent the pre flight checks able to notice it??

Guess we have to wait for the official report from DGCA.

anyways in the absence of CVRs and FDRs its impossible to find out what happened in the cockpit seconds before the crash.All the findings are going to be circumstantial evidence.

lomcevak wrote:

Yeah…since both engines seized, wrong / contaminated fuel or fuel line problem looks like the obvious cause. However, as kite mentioned there is a very little chance that it is missed in the pre-flight inspection/walk around, so a bit strange there. Jet A1 (which is a form of kerosene) definitely has a distinct smell and is heavier than the 100LL or the 100Green. So if it was mixed, the ATF will sink at the bottom off the tank and should be quite easy to detect when the fuel is drained... sad……..really….

exactly ... ATF is of higher density/colourless/smells like kerosene, than AVGAS 100LL (light blue) and 100 (green) ... you can spot the difference ... all you have to do it sump the fuel and look at the fuel tester.