[моё] Analysis of the G200 plane crash in the Dominican Republic

Hello, everyone! I finally got back online. 

And right there is news of yet another aviation incident. As someone made a pilot, baptized by a pilot, raised among pilots, and friends with them, I am certainly not happy about such incidents, but unfortunately, I have to state the fact that bad things happen. 

So, there isn’t much information online, so I had to dig around a bit.

Well then, let’s get to the analysis of the event itself. 

At around 12:10 local time (UTC-4), the aircraft departed San Juan in Puerto Rico, and 37 minutes later made a landing for refueling (apparently to refuel more cheaply; I can’t think of any other explanation — the distance between Austin, Texas, and Luis Muñoz Marín Airport in a straight line is about 3,500 km, while La Romana is only about 300 km away, whereas the practical range of this aircraft (hereafter abbreviated as AC) is over 6,500 km). 

Then, at around 15:30 local time, the aircraft took off again, still from runway 11.

And almost immediately, something goes wrong for them. 

During the climb, there is a drop in speed, which causes the crew to level off the aircraft (the small dip on the graph, 3 minutes after takeoff).

After leveling the plane, they were able to gain a little speed. 

The first sign that there was a problem with the engine.

The crew made their first attempt to land the aircraft 18 minutes later. The graph shows that the altitude dropped to 1,150 feet, but the speed was very high. And it was a right turn. 

And they go around for a second time.

After making several left turns, presumably to burn off fuel in the main tank and carry out fuel transfer (I’m not sure, since I don’t know whether a Gulfstream can do this, but the procedure would make sense) to improve the aircraft’s balance, the crew puts the plane back in for landing. But again, it is a right turn.  

But they are unable to line the aircraft up with the final approach.

Which will later lead to the aircraft overrunning the runway.

In addition to the approach being made at an elevated speed of 195 knots instead of the normal 138, all of this is complicated by the fact that the approach is being made to runway 29 (heading 290), with a southeast crosswind of 5 m/s. Even under normal conditions, such a tailwind component is considered above normal, usually up to 3 m/s. 

Everything written below is only my assumption; the true causes of the crash will be established by the investigation. 

In my opinion, in this case either the left engine malfunctioned, or there was a flight control system failure. 

I am inclined toward the first option, and here is why: a left turn is made when the left engine is malfunctioning — the right one is operating and creating asymmetry. Although on this aircraft, such asymmetry should have been minimal — both engines are located fairly close to the fuselage. Again, landing a freshly refueled aircraft is always a risk, which means a higher-than-normal landing speed, and controlling the aircraft on one engine is more difficult in this case. The third point is the separation of the left engine — the engines should not detach from the pylons, even in an emergency. 

Initially, watching the video, it seemed to me that the main landing gear had not been deployed, but then, after finding another video, I realized there was no problem with them. 

Thank you, I tried)) 

Actually, I’m just used to such expressions... What needs explanation?

1) It seems that, first and foremost, the wheels that could not withstand the speed are to blame — is that true? Could the chassis even withstand such a speed? Or did the chassis come off because of the run-off? I still didn’t understand the sequence of events. But probably, in any case, the very fact of running off because of the speed?

2) The fuel spill happened mostly because of the sliding (i.e., the bottom being punctured — or when the engine broke off). It seems it broke off because of one of the jumps, judging by the second video. I’m curious how the structure is arranged here.

It feels like a lot went wrong here: an emergency landing because of the engine, high speed, running off the runway, the landing gear, unsuccessful jumps, maybe even some bump or stone was involved too.

In short: without an official report, this is still guessing among the wreckage, but based on the sequence of events, the picture is usually like this.

1. Landing gear and speed. The landing gear are not designed to “save the day at any cost” when the landing speed is significantly too high. If the aircraft comes in fast, with a long touchdown, plus possible bounces/hops, plus overload on the struts, then it becomes a lottery with very poor odds. That is: the very fact of the runway overrun/hard roll due to excessive speed could quite plausibly have been the root cause of the landing gear breaking down or detaching. But the reverse can also happen: first comes a hard touchdown/bounce/side load, then the strut fails, and only after that does an uncontrollable runway excursion occur.
2. Fuel spill. Most often, fuel leaks not “on its own because of sliding,” but because of structural damage: wing damage, engine nacelle damage, fuel line rupture, engine separation, puncture of the tanks/lower structure. If the engine really was torn off during one of the impacts or during the runway excursion, that is a very plausible source of a major leak. Sliding could also have finished off the skin and tanks. In short: not one magical cause, but a cascade of damage. Aviation really does not like being landed “by guesswork” — surprise.

As for the sequence, I would cautiously suggest this: unstable approach/excessive speed → hard touchdown or long touchdown → bouncing/overload → landing gear failure or loss of control during the rollout → runway excursion/runoff → engine separation and/or wing damage → fuel spill. But this is only a working hypothesis, not “AI truth.” If you want, I can also separately explain what exactly on video usually indicates landing gear failure, and what indicates a subsequent engine separation.