Hey, everyone. Thank you for checking out History X.
My name is Ken Stano and about a week ago I posted a video about the
TBM Avenger; the water landing at Cocoa Beach.
That would have been not last Saturday, but the Saturday before, which I think was April 14th.
And during that video I made a comment that
and actually, let's see here.... This is what I'm referring to.
I made a comment that the pilot of this Avenger made a very skillful water landing.
And that actual water landing, yeah, very skillful.
Did a good job in bringing it into the water.
And after that statement there's been a lot of information that's come to the surface.
I've had some comments from viewers. Did a little bit more research on my own since that time....
and it turns out, I may have been wrong.
I found in addition to this incident two other incidents involving TBM Avengers
that I want to review with you and kind of let you know what's happened in the past.
And then you can draw your own conclusions.
So I want to begin....
and I'm going to back up here. Apologize for this.
So I want to begin....
at, let's see, the Oshkosh air show in...
There we go, okay... So if you've ever been
to the Oshkosh EAA Air Venture air show. It's huge. It's probably the biggest air show,
if not in the country, could possibly be in the world.
Thousands of planes fly-in both domestically and internationally.
It's, it's a mess. It's crazy. I flew-in there once and, you know,
there's a lot of spot landings where you're ordered to land at a specific spot on the runway.
One-way communications where you respond just by waggling your wings.
It's crazy. That's landing. The departing after the show is over. All the display aircraft. All
the people that are attending. It's even crazier.
So this is the first TBM avenger that I want to talk about. It was on display at the air show
And at the conclusion of the air show, on July 30th, the volunteer flag people had waived this TBF Avenger
yeah, TBM Avenger onto the taxiway.
And while that was happening,
this plane... This is an RV-6. An example of... I apologize for the low resolution
but this is a picture of an RV-6. This type of plane was also waved onto the taxiway.
Well, the pilot of that TBM Avenger didn't see it and taxied right into it.
You can see the damage here. So this first incident,
the pilot of that TBM Avenger believed that he had approximately 100 yards in front of him.
Plenty of room to taxi. He didn't see this RV-6.
Unfortunately witnesses also didn't see the pilot of the TBM Avenger do any kind of s-turns,
any kind of 10-degree weaving so that he could see what's in front of him.
And the plane obviously taxied right into this plane in front of him.
Here's another picture of the damage.
When the NTSB investigated, in addition to those witness accounts, you know,
saying that the pilot failed to do any kind of s-turns to see what was in front of him,
the NTSB.... Oh, and there weren't any wing walkers on either side of the plane guiding the plane.
At the Commemorative Air Force where I volunteer,
there's always wing walkers on either side of the plane making sure things are clear.
So there were a couple of different problems happening here.
The NTSB concluded that the Avenger pilot's visual lookout was inadequate and he failed
to maintain clearance from the RV-6. Contributing factors were the Avenger's
restricted visibility, which the pilot failed to remedy by not doing s-turns.
So that was incident number one.
The next incident I want to tell you about
involved this TBM Avenger.
And this is was on March 7th, 2009,
Maintenance was being performed on this Avenger. They installed a rebuilt carburetor
and conducted a series of ground tests, both with and without auxiliary fuel pressure.
All of those ground tests were positive.
So then they decided to take it up for a test flight.
Immediately upon takeoff, noticed that the starboard wing was on fire,
and the pilot attempted to turn around and land on the runway that he had departed from.
Brought the burning aircraft to the ground.
Kept his hands on the controls the whole time to keep it stable during the landing,
and probably saved some homes and businesses nearby because he did get it on the ground.
But by the time he got it on the ground, the plane was totally engulfed in flames.
And his hands and parts of his back had suffered second and third degree burns.
This is the plane burned to the ground. The engine of course fell to the ground.
And upon examination they determined
that after the maintenance, after the carburetor had been installed,
a fuel line to the fuel pressure transmitter had become disconnected,
or was disconnected from its mating fitting on the carburetor.
And the NTSB, the National Transportation and Safety Board, concluded that the probable cause
of this accident was the pilot and mechanic's failure to properly torque the fuel pressure
line b-nut to the carburetor fitting. So there was an error from the maintenance,
or in the maintenance, causing this fuel line to come loose and start the fire.
That was incident number two.
Incident number three, which is
the one that I was posting about last week, and the one that we're talking about,
involved this TBM Avenger.
Pilot brought it in...
We've seen the videos. We've seen the pictures.
This was tail number November 108 Quebec.
And brought it into...
Actually was participating in the Cocoa Beach air show.
Was flying in a loose trail formation with several other vintage aircraft.
Witness accounts stated that they noticed smoke was coming from the engine. Light trails of smoke
were coming from the engine of this plane.
And witnesses then stated that the engine appeared to fail.
The pilot brought it in for a water landing and you know what happens next. No injuries, no fatalities.
He lined-up on Cocoa Beach and performed this gear-up water landing,
which I thought was a great display of skill.
What ties all of these incidents together? These three incidents...
the one at Oshkosh, the one with a disconnected fuel line, and now this water landing.
What ties them all together is this man right here. The pilot, Terry Rush.
He was the pilot involved in all three of those TBM Avenger incidents.
The water landing, this is him leaving the plane holding his headsets,
was the latest. And so you take a look
at some of the comments that I received after posting that video from last week.
Some of the additional information that has come to light.
One comment was made by Alan Whitmire,
I hope I'm pronouncing your name right, Alan Whitmire, he let me know that Terry Rush,
He had basically had an opportunity, or a window of opportunity, of about 20 minutes
to land the plane after he was first informed that there was smoke trailing from the plane.
But yet he conducted two fly-bys after he was told that smoke was emanating from the plane.
Also found out that during the restoration of this plane, which took at least 13 years,
instead of a full rebuild of the radial engine, all they did was remove the jugs, all they did
was remove these cylinders and replace them with new cylinders or possibly rebuilt cylinders.
But they never actually opened up and rebuilt the engine.
A seal was most likely blown and the engine lost all its oil.
When the seal blew and the oil, some kind of fluid was leaking on the engine,
that's what was creating the smoke. After the engine ran out of oil,
the engine stopped. He had to perform this water landing.
So with these pieces of information that've come to light, turns out my statement about
his skillful landing in the water was probably correct. He did a great job.
But his decisions leading up to this point are now coming into question.
And there is another channel on YouTube I strongly recommend you check-out. It's called 'Probable Cause'
operated by Dan Gryder.
And Dan goes in-depth on not only the flight path that Terry Rush took with this TBM Avenger,
but some other people that were involved as well. It's a searing review of this beach water landing
and I strongly recommend you check it out because I learned a lot.
Most importantly I learned I might have been wrong.
So if you found this video helpful in understanding this series of events
with these previous TBM Avengers that this Terry Rush, this pilot, had been involved with.
Or if this video raises more questions about this water landing,
I hope you'll hit the 'Like' button.
I hope you'll subscribe to History X.
There's a lot to be learned here, so I had to post this video and say I might have been wrong.
Keep checking-out what other information is out there and form your own conclusions.
My name is Ken Stano and I want to thank you for checking out History X.