The last job you'd want over the next year: President of Hawker Beechcraft

[jmowreader]

The Beechcraft King Air is the most popular turbine-powered business airplane ever built. They've made thousands, and those planes have a very good safety record--especially noteworthy since "flying doctor" services love this plane.

Which is why, in about six months' time, the poor besieged president of Hawker Beechcraft is going to be very hard pressed to come up with an acceptable explanation for the question that will be on the lips of every reporter: why have King Airs containing Republicans connected to the Bush Administration suddenly started crashing right and left?

[greenman3610]

1. like who?

[HCE SuiGeneris]

2. Have any more info?

If there is actually a story here, a link might help.

[jmowreader]

9. Let me explain. This may help.

How many times have we said of someone who spoke ill of the Bush administration, "he should stay out of small planes"?

The government has a LOT of King Airs, and there are a lot of them in civilian service. Sometimes they crash--a King Air crash killed Senator Wellstone, for instance. So, obviously, if they're going to smack someone into the ground at 300mph to keep them quiet, that's the plane they're going to use.

The thing that makes me hesitant about believing airplane crashes would be used to disappear their political liabilities, is that a new King Air 200GT costs, according to Flying magazine's review of the airplane, over $5 million--and it probably costs over $6 million with all the little shit that somehow shows up on any large invoice. Let's say they wanted to disappear Karl Rove. It would be far cheaper, and just as effective, to have him go to the hospital for a routine checkup and "accidentally" give him a shot of heroin or Pavulon rather than wasting a perfectly good $6 million airplane. Or they could save themselves a lot of trouble by just leaving a lot of loaded pistols all over his house.

But yeah, if a bunch of Repukes start dying in one particular model of airplane, the person who runs the company that makes it is going to have some 'splainin' to do, Lucy.

[Wilms]

3. Wait. Wait! Let me guess.

On second thought...

[BlueCollar]

4. You can tell who the old-timers are around here...

:toast:

[Pavulon]

5. Because the guy at the yolk?

flew it into the ground. A search of the ntsb will reveal many accidents involving this air frame.

Even senators..

sometimes a cigar is just a cigar

[MercutioATC]

7. That'll teach them to fly eggs...

:)

[populistdriven]

6. He won't have to explain that is why Bush spends so much federal money on the FAA

Its expensive to run an effective clean-up operation

[TrogL]

8. Ever been in one during an ice storm?

Somebody ping stickdog if he's still on here.

The game is afoot.

[lib2DaBone]

10. Something to think about...

Hadn't heard this.. but always good to know. I agree, I'm a plane nut, and the Beechcraft King Air is the finest all-around business aircraft ever flown. (IMHO) Never been in one in an ice storm? Shouldn't be a problem unless the heated boots malfunction? Was this the claim in the Paul Wellstone Crash? (not sure) Did they claim the leading edge heaters failed?

[jmowreader]

11. I believe it was flying the plane too slow that did it

I've got the NTSB report on this crash on my screen now.

Maximum Takeoff Weight of King Air A100: 10,600 lb (Wikipedia article on King Airs)
Takeoff Weight of Senator Wellstone's plane: 11,052 lb

This plane has a flaps-down stall speed of 77 knots at maximum load, which this plane was above. The pilot flew this approach at 76 knots. NTSB says when they flew the approach in a simulator as it was flown in Wellstone's plane, they crashed just like Wellstone's plane did.

The report also claims the pilots weren't very good, and I found this interesting: the pilot in command, who held an air transport pilot certificate, had his last physical on December 17, 2001. The FAA says a first class medical certificate is only good for six months--and this crash happened October 25, 2002.

So let me see...they were in an overweight airplane being flown too slow by pilots who not only weren't that great, one wasn't even supposed to be flying. Yup, the Republican Party shot that plane down, sure they did.