Thought this might be of interest. Reminded me of a European Turbo Prop that had props come apart. The old Mohawk airlines had them and retired them in the late 1960s. www.aftenposten.no/webtv/?id=8823 Sorry , can' translate but no words really necessary !

Wow, that is a pretty impressive piece of video. I wonder what happened. Was the wind so strong that it flexed the blade into base or did a blade fail due to other problems?

Interesting.

The generator was an old one and had some known problems.I don't know if this was the case but some of the early designs had fixed pitch which would over rev in high winds.Later models had adjustable pitch to deal with high wind.

quote:

Originally posted by mete:
Thought this might be of interest. Reminded me of a European Turbo Prop that had props come apart. The old Mohawk airlines had them and retired them in the late 1960s. www.aftenposten.no/webtv/?id=8823 Sorry , can' translate but no words really necessary !

I think you're talking about the little Nord 262. That one slung a couple of props. Don't recall if anyone was killed, but the aircraft certainly lost it's lustre after the incidents.

quote:

Originally posted by mete:
Thought this might be of interest. Reminded me of a European Turbo Prop that had props come apart. The old Mohawk airlines had them and retired them in the late 1960s. www.aftenposten.no/webtv/?id=8823 Sorry , can' translate but no words really necessary !

I don't think so - the only turbo prop I can recall that Mohawk ever operated was the Fairchild FH227 - could it have been that one?

This is what it looked like. Mohawk is long gone, absorbed by Allegheny, now likewise gone into what is USAir. And for what it is worth, Mohawk was the first US carrier to hire a black flight attendant.

Followup:
Allegheny Air, the successor to Mohawk Airlines, owned and operated 13 Nord 262, starting in 1968 and ending in 1977. Only crash I can find was due to crew error:
"The plane crashed inverted shortly after lifting off the ground. The captain's decision to take off with snow on the aircraft's wing and empennage surfaces which resulted in a loss of lateral control and a loss of lift as the aircraft ascended out of ground effect."
No mention of prop failure.
Photo is caprioned : "About 1969."

Did some research and I find that there is indeed a "Mohawk Air Service" that is still in operation as far as I can tell and is a Canadian operation, based at Burlington Air Park, Ontario. And they did fly the Nord 262. Live and learn, eh?

It's been a long time but IIRC it happened more than once.The cause was vibration where within very narrow ranges 4 things had to happen , air speed, pitch, rpm and ??. When those things came together there was a large vibration peak and the prop came apart and went into thepassenger compartment !! I worked near Albany then and on fellow I knew refsed to fly Mohawk as he had been in 3 crashes ! Those wonderful small airlines .

Mete, you have a valid point but think about this: It was not so much what they flew but where they flew! I would not wish to fly into some of the airports they routinely flew to under any condition. Bad enough flying into MEM and etc with the vicious thunder boomers running, etc. Same for the pilots that fly for Alaska – I have no small amount of respect for these guys!