Sunday, January 10, 2021

Cessna 421B Golden Eagle II, N421DP: Accident occurred January 10, 2021 near Republic Airport (KFRG), Nassau County, New York

This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. Any errors in this report will be corrected when the final report has been completed.

The National Transportation Safety Board did not travel to the scene of this accident.

Additional Participating Entity:
Federal Aviation Administration / Flight Standards District Office; Farmingdale, New York

850 Atlantic Collision Inc


Location: Old Bethpage, NY
Accident Number: ERA21LA098
Date & Time: January 10, 2021, 13:02 Local
Registration: N421DP
Aircraft: Cessna 421B
Injuries: 1 Serious
Flight Conducted Under: Part 91: General aviation - Personal

On January 10, 2021, about 1302 eastern standard time, a Cessna 412B, N421DP, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Old Bethpage, New York. The pilot was seriously injured. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight.

According to an inspector with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the pilot took off on runway 32 from Republic Airport (FRG), Farmingdale, New York about 1254 on a local flight. Shortly after departure, the pilot reported that he had a loss of power on both engines and was returning to FRG to land on runway 14. The airplane impacted a solid waste disposal facility, about 2.3 nm northwest of FRG. The pilot was met by first responders and taken to a local hospital for treatment. There was no postaccident fire.

Inspectors with the FAA responded to the accident site about one hour after the accident and examined the wreckage. Substantial damage was evident to the fuselage, both wings, and empennage.

The wreckage was retained for further examination.

Aircraft and Owner/Operator Information

Aircraft Make: Cessna
Registration: N421DP
Model/Series: 421B 
Aircraft Category: Airplane
Amateur Built: No
Operator: 
Operating Certificate(s) Held: None
Operator Designator Code:

Meteorological Information and Flight Plan

Conditions at Accident Site: VMC
Condition of Light: Day
Observation Facility, Elevation: KFRG,81 ft msl 
Observation Time: 13:53 Local
Distance from Accident Site: 2 Nautical Miles 
Temperature/Dew Point: 5°C /-7°C
Lowest Cloud Condition: Clear 
Wind Speed/Gusts, Direction: 8 knots / , 330°
Lowest Ceiling: None
Visibility: 10 miles
Altimeter Setting: 30.18 inches Hg 
Type of Flight Plan Filed: None
Departure Point: Farmingdale, NY (FRG)
Destination: Old Bethpage, NY

Wreckage and Impact Information

Crew Injuries: 1 Serious
Aircraft Damage: Substantial
Passenger Injuries: 
Aircraft Fire: None
Ground Injuries: 
Aircraft Explosion: None
Total Injuries: 1 Serious
Latitude, Longitude: 40.7598,-73.4465 (est)


 


The pilot of a Cessna 421B Golden Eagle II that crashed in Old Bethpage Sunday afternoon reported engine trouble moments before the aircraft went down, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Officials said the Cessna C421, a twin-engine turboprop that can seat between six and eight people, crashed just after 1 p.m. on Bethpage-Sweet Hollow Road, about 1.5 miles short of Republic Airport.

The National Transportation Safety Board is in charge of the crash investigation, the FAA said in a statement.

Records show the plane is registered to 850 Atlantic Collision Inc., on Blake Avenue in Brooklyn.

It was not clear Monday whether the pilot, the only person aboard, declared an emergency before the crash.

Officials have not provided the identification of the male pilot, who was taken to Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow. Town of Oyster Bay Supervisor Joseph Saladino said Monday the pilot was in "serious condition." He had just taken off from Republic Airport, Saladino said.

According to the Aviation Safety Network website, the plane was on its way to Connecticut.

In a statement, the FAA said: "A Cessna 421B Golden Eagle II crashed on Bethpage Sweet Hollow Road in Bethpage, New York, approximately 1.5 miles from Republic Airport in East Farmingdale, New York, yesterday [Sunday] at 1:04 p.m. local time. The pilot reported engine problems."

Before the crash, a highway patrol officer "observed a small plane descending" that "appeared to be in distress," Nassau police said in a statement. Afterward, the officer located the wreckage, entered the plane "and found the pilot pinned in the cockpit."

The chief executive of 850 Atlantic Collision Inc. is Marc Capus, according to state incorporation records. Capus' wife, Cinzia, said late Sunday afternoon that the family is from Bellmore and her husband, who flies recreationally, was in surgery.

She said she had gotten a call while in church about the crash.

The Cessna 421B Golden Eagle II struck a fence and the pilot narrowly missed an abandoned trash building about 50 yards away from the crash site, Saladino said at a news conference near the crash scene Sunday. The site of the crash is just west of several industrial parks and a half-mile east of Plainview Fire Department Station 3 as well as a densely populated residential area.

The former trash building is on a 135-acre town complex that includes a 40,000-square-foot solid-waste transfer station; a landfill gas collection system; a facility to weigh garbage and recyclables; a treatment facility for water that flows through municipal waste; and a vehicle maintenance garage, as well as offices and two incinerators that are not in use, according to a November article in Newsday.

"Had [the plane] gone 50 yards further," Saladino said, "it would have crashed into that abandoned building, and it most likely would have been a fatality."

Saladino returned to the crash scene Monday and said after rescuers offered to airlift the pilot to a hospital he told them: "Absolutely not. I don't want to go back up in the air."



Plainview Volunteer Fire Department
 
At 1:10 pm on Sunday the Plainview FD was alerted for a small plane crash at the town dump on Spagnoli Road - multiple agencies including Republic Airport Rescue, East Farmingdale, Bethpage and Melville fire departments along with Nassau and Suffolk county police departments responded.

One (1) precautionary line was stretched and foam was flowed to address an active fuel leak.

The pilot was extracted and transported to a local hospital.

All units were up after two (2) hours.

Thank you to all the departments for the mutual aid response.






















OLD BETHPAGE, Long Island (WABC) -- A small aircraft crashed on Long Island on Sunday afternoon and it was captured on the town's security camera.

The Town of Oyster Bay shared the shocking video of the crash on their social media pages.

The incident happened around 1 p.m. Sunday in Old Bethpage about 1.5 miles from Republic Airport in East Farmingdale.

The FAA said the pilot reported engine problems.

Nassau County Police Department officers quickly responded to the scene.

The 57-year-old pilot was the only one on board.

He suffered serious injuries but was conscious when rescuers got to him and is expected to survive.

The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash.


Marc Capus
COURTESY NASSAU COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT

A Bellmore man was arrested and charged with reckless endangerment over the weekend for allegedly flying his plane below the federal minimum safe altitude near a Bellmore-Merrick Central District high school, police said.

According to authorities, Marc Capus, 49, flew his 1972 Cessna at altitudes as low as 200 feet above Kennedy High in Bellmore on June 17, 2012 while also making “sharp banking maneuvers” as he came in low.

Police arrested Capus on August 4, 2012 at 4:50 p.m. He was taken into custody a month and a half after the incident because Nassau officials needed time to work with the Federal Aviation Administration and other agencies to identify the plane, its owner and the airport where it took off.

On Saturday, control tower personnel at Republic Airport in Farmingdale identified Capus to Nassau County Air Bureau police after he landed his plane. Seventh Squad detectives arrested Capus at his home on Judith Drive with assistance from the FAA. He was charged with first-degree reckless endangerment.

Police said that they did not have a motive why Capus allegedly flew so low. Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District officials declined to comment about the incident.

42 comments:

  1. Holy crap he was lucky. I have time in a modified 414 and these things are beasts. Engine out critical operations are the most crucial. One mistake on a delay in managing the dead prop can put you in a serious situation that can cascade quickly. It's a miracle he survived and fortunately nobody else on the ground were injured or worse.

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    1. 400 series Cessnas are not "beasts". They are stable and easy to fly. I have thousands of hours in 414 and 421 Cessnas. Any twin is a handful if an engine is lost close to V1 but the huge vertical tail and the huge rudder make the 400 series aircraft as easy as it gets. I had a Director of Operations blow a piston out of the side of a 414 engine at gross weight right after lift-off and he returned safely. But like in any aircraft, it's all about proficiency.

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    2. There is no V1 for a 400 series Cessna

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    3. all airplanes have a speed at which above they cannot stop on the remaining runway...thats V1

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  2. None of the 400 series Cessnas should ever have been certified. Horrible safety record.

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    1. They are totally fine in the hands of a competent problem. The problem is they are (or were when sold new) a major step up for doctors and businessmen looking to go faster and higher with pressurization than their Barons and Senecas which themselves have long had the notorious doctor killer label. Does that make those aircraft dangerous too? Don't be absurd. And as I posted above having time in a 414, they are very unforgiving to lack of attention and more like a jet in operation attention needs. Stop spreading FUD.

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    2. Did you mean competent pilot?

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    3. That's silly and just isn't true. Just like the famed V-tailed doctor killer, it was never about a bad aircraft but about people with more airplane than they were proficient to handle. It's all about training and continuing proficiency ..

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    4. No Cert, big experimental placard. I worked on one daily.

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    5. No one that thinks the 400 series is dangerous should be granted an A&P certificate.

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  3. 425 and 441’s have sufficient power and perform well enough on one engine ... although they are getting old and parts hard to find and expensive when you do find them.

    All of the other 400 series Cessnas are just as old or older and all the second engine does is get you to the site of the accident. The 411’s would get you to the site of the accident the quickest.

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    1. Are you serious?? I've over 1000 hours in two different 411's and more time in 421's. In one of the 411's I had an engine failure at night, at 300 ft, at close to max gross weigh in 30 degrees C (almost 90 deg F) and there's NO ISSUES flying this aircraft if you are anything better than a completely and utterly useless pilot. I also had to shut down an engine in IMC due to a failed oil fitting and flew the mighty 411A for 45 minutes to the closest airfield in central Australia. Again, 'piss easy' and so much so that I spent time taking photos of the stationary prop and called a friend on the phone when I got some coverage closer to destination to relieve the boredom of flying at 125 kts on the remaining engine. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG with ANY 400 series Cessna in mildly competent hands. Geez I read a lot of crap from 'armchair pilots' about these fine machines!! People just need to learn to fly PROPERLY!!!

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    2. 100%. I have just over 250 hours in the "notorious" 411 and found it to be a fast and nice flying airplane. The early iterations of the GTSIO-520C had some reliability issues, but those were resolved and properly maintained and properly flown airplanes presented no elevated levels of risk in terms of engine out handling. They had their idiosyncrasies. The guy who checked me out suggested that I - as a tall pilot - should keep the seat against the aft stop because the rudder forces were relatively high with an engine out and if you gave it a "leg full" - the seat adjustment might give way and cause the seat to slide aft unexpectedly. The other issue was the large cowl flaps. They created a LOT of drag and were electrically actuated and relatively slow to move. Once the airplane was under control following an engine failure, if you could close the cowl flap of the failed engine, there was a noticeable increase in performance. But it was an overall nice flying and predictable airplane.

      I have over 3000 hours in the 421 - all but 62 of it in the same airplane - and found it to be an utterly magnificent airplane. If you couldn't afford a top quality, name brand overhaul PLUS good training PLUS the financial ability to fly it about 200 hours a year - then you simply couldn't afford to own a 421. But engines with a good quality overhaul and operated properly would last all the way to TBO with minimal drama. In 3000+ hours, we changed 3 cylinders, 3 alternators, and a pressurized mag. There was literally ZERO other unscheduled maintenance on the engines and they all made TBO.

      We won't know what caused this accident until the NTSB publishes their conclusions, but I suspect that a dual engine failure was caused by misfueling - putting Jet A in a recip. Twin Cessna pilots would be wise to ALWAYS supervise the refueling of their airplanes. But in any case, all this babble about the dangers of the 400-series Cessnas is likely the byproduct of those who don't know how to fly them properly or those who have never tried.

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  4. 425 and 441's are turbo prop. Yep, a different plane with a lot more power, like you say. Still a hand full on one engine. Those engines are hanging so far out on the wing. Tons of adverse yaw with one gone.

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  5. As a former 421 owner, I think the planes are great with lots of power; significantly more than the 414. But you have to be current, and trip to SimCom every year is a must. Hard to say what happened here...fortunate there was no fire.

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  6. heard possibly left farmingdale low fuel to go back to BDR,could explain no fire

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    1. Per fire personnel, they had to address an active fuel leak.

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    2. Fuel leak was most likely coming from fuel lines, gascolator of residual fuel in the tanks. If there was a substantial fuel leak, there would have been foam.

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    3. They did spray foam. You can see it in one of the pictures.

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  7. As stated above the 421 and 441 are not for the weekend warrior looking to upgrade from a Baron or Seneca. These are Cabin class aircraft and must only be operated by current professional pilots.
    These aircraft are beasts that climb hot, fly high (FL 310/410) and fly fast.
    Love em but there outta my league and I respect anyone they can fly them correctly!

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    1. You're a clueless, uninformed idiot. A 421 cannot reach FL 410 and due to certification and RVSM restrictions, won't be found at FL 310 either. Neither aircraft are "beasts" and have very straight forward flying characteristics. The only slightly unique thing about the 421, is the fact it has geared engines, which requires more specific engine management procedures that deal with positive gearbox loading.

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  8. ATC tapes have the pilot reporting this as a DOUBLE engine failure.

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  9. Surprised the pilot survived the G forces of that crash. It doesn't look to me like the left prop was feathered.

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  10. That was a hard landing, can't believe the pilot survived. Looked like it stalled into the ground, came in nearly flat.

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    1. No kidding. It looks like he hit a pile of something that absorbed some energy.

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  11. Replies
    1. One of the most mis fueled AC. My thought exactly. But no post impact fire....

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    2. I'm really thinking it was fueled with Jet. The timing of the crash is right for that. Jet is hard to burn, and just doesn't explode on impact with the ground. There was fuel leaking, and they did use foam as a precaution.

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  12. Google the pilots name and you will have your answer.

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  13. Ran out of fuel; dual engine failure 10 minutes after departure; no fire?

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  14. At least he wasn't buzzing the high school this time..

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  15. Can't believe this guy still had a pilot certificate.

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  16. I have 750 hours in a B model and its a fine airplane that needs to be taken seriously! A yearly visit to SimCom is a must!

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  17. "here in Italy Piston Twins are more dangerous than shotguns ... "

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  18. Glad to hear that Mr. Capus is on the mend. However, shenanigans like this are why I avoid flying at FRG on weekends. #20 in the departure lineup/extended 10+ miles downwind and generally surrounded by oblivious wackadoos who give tower a heart attack.

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  19. appears he had little choice, yet at the last moment those "wings are (were) ready-made energy absorbers and, if it looks as if the landing site is so rough a straight-ahead landing can't help but result in total destruction, the pilot might think about finding something to use in tearing a wing or two off. For instance, the movie stunt of running between two trees is more than a stunt, since it eats up a lot of energy. Another is waiting until the very last second and slipping hard enough to impact on a wing tip when it is in the process of moving forward and letting the impact crush the wing." http://www.airbum.com/articles/ArticleCrashSurvive.html
    "...do everything possible to keep the nose of the airplane from impacting a large immovable object head on. That sounds obvious, but often it doesn't occur to the pilot. They'll be in the flair and a big rock, tree or building suddenly looms ahead. Don't hit it head on! Stuff a wing into the ground. Slip. Turn. Do anything, but get the nose going in another direction so the impact isn't directed right into the cockpit."

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  20. Shows just how well engineered these are to survive a crash like that.

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  21. I think there needs to be a couple thousand more firemen to get this plane moved and probably another two to three hundred vehicles to help, don't you think? Give me one gin pole a bobcat and three of my buddies and we will have it out of there in a few hours and not burden the tax payers with probably a two million dollar recovery! Ridiculous

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  22. Replies
    1. Carb ice? Highly unlikely for both engine to develop carb ice simultaneously. Especially since neither engine is carbureted.

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