PBY tanker 85 broken in half during recovery!!!

Chuck Giese · **Posted:** Fri Jul 10, 2015 8:49 am

Man, the negativity and blame-laying....

In that imgur sequence (sequence, not movie) the caption on the 5th picture says that something snapped and the plane dropped back into the water. What broke? Odds are not the lifting equipment, if you assume that they are pros and lives depend on their equipment.

Other randomness:
- Lifting points on PBY-5A rated at 21,000 lbs. (Comment from friend who flew them)
- PBY-5A Empty Weight 20,910 lbs (Wikipedia, may not be accurate)
- This was a Super, so it will weigh more than a PBY-5A (Comment from friend who flew them)
- 70+ year old airframe.
- Recovery equipment, operators and supervision is all on the clock. At what point does the recovery cost more than the current value of the airplane?

This is getting to be as much fun as debunking a Liberty Belle thread :-(

At this point, I'll wait for one of the principles to make a statement (probably not on WIX), or the NTSB report. Granted the blame game is fun, but I'll leave with my favorite quote from the Kee Bird thread.

Matt Gunsch wrote:

I love all these monday morning quarterbacks who were not there, or have no idea what was going on, woulda, shoulda coulda all you want, you were not there, you did not make the call.

Rod Schneider · **Posted:** Fri Jul 10, 2015 9:11 am

Chuck Giese wrote:

Man, the negativity and blame-laying....

In that imgur sequence (sequence, not movie) the caption on the 5th picture says that something snapped and the plane dropped back into the water. What broke? Odds are not the lifting equipment, if you assume that they are pros and lives depend on their equipment.

Other randomness:
- Lifting points on PBY-5A rated at 21,000 lbs. (Comment from friend who flew them)
- PBY-5A Empty Weight 20,910 lbs (Wikipedia, may not be accurate)
- This was a Super, so it will weigh more than a PBY-5A (Comment from friend who flew them)
- 70+ year old airframe.
- Recovery equipment, operators and supervision is all on the clock. At what point does the recovery cost more than the current value of the airplane?

This is getting to be as much fun as debunking a Liberty Belle thread :-(

At this point, I'll wait for one of the principles to make a statement (probably not on WIX), or the NTSB report. Granted the blame game is fun, but I'll leave with my favorite quote from the Kee Bird thread.

Matt Gunsch wrote:

I love all these monday morning quarterbacks who were not there, or have no idea what was going on, woulda, shoulda coulda all you want, you were not there, you did not make the call.

I second that, Chuck!

CoastieJohn · **Joined:** Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:37 pm **Posts:** 1380

On the other side of the coin....if folks did not talk about current aviation events or topics, this would be a pretty boring place. :wink:

Chuck Giese · **Posted:** Sat Jul 11, 2015 8:13 am

Nothing against conversation - most of this thread has been interesting and informative. I'm not happy about how this turned out for the PBY, but without knowing the details, I'm not willing to level blame on the recovery efforts.

I've been on the periphery of the Liberty Belle discussions, and watched the venom come out (firefighters anyone?). Too many judgments are made online with no direct information to back them up. Speculation is fine, I did it myself. I just started with the assumption that the salvors were competent, experienced, and did things right. Sometimes the circumstances give you no good choices, and you're left picking the best of a bunch of bad ones.

CoastieJohn · **Joined:** Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:37 pm **Posts:** 1380

Chuck Giese wrote:

Nothing against conversation - most of this thread has been interesting and informative. I'm not happy about how this turned out for the PBY, but without knowing the details, I'm not willing to level blame on the recovery efforts.

I've been on the periphery of the Liberty Belle discussions, and watched the venom come out (firefighters anyone?). Too many judgments are made online with no direct information to back them up. Speculation is fine, I did it myself. I just started with the assumption that the salvors were competent, experienced, and did things right. Sometimes the circumstances give you no good choices, and you're left picking the best of a bunch of bad ones.

That's often true. I have seen on occasion on different forums I hang out at early facts that evolved into other than facts as more information comes out. I think speculation or personal opinion is fine as long as the writer says so at the beginning of their post. That helps discern fact from opinion or speculation. Sourcing always helps.

RandolphB · **Posted:** Sat Jul 11, 2015 1:59 pm

The simple question this: The lifting points are on top of the wing and attach to the wing spar. The aircraft is designed to hang off of that spar with all it's weight. The landing gear is directly below the spar and the fuselage between the two is strengthen to support the weight from below.....so why would anyone wrap cables/ straps around the fuselage forward and rear of the strongest portions of the aircraft, not attach to the factory lift points and expect to not destroy it? That's what puts fault directly on the people with the cranes. They are the "Pilot in command" at that point and are supposed to know how to properly use their equipment. ....

Chuck Giese · **Posted:** Sat Jul 11, 2015 5:32 pm

A more complex question is: how do you lift a 22,000 lb. airplane (plus the weight of fuel, oil, and whatever sand washed in) with attach points rated at 21,000 lbs. Lifting a 70 year old airplane, you would probably want a 5 -10% margin, so your main lift cable is kept to 19,000 lbs. How do you lift the remaining weight? Again, I'm assuming that the salvors read, understood and implemented the hoisting procedures from the manual. My assumption is that the straps were lifting the remaining 4,000 or 5,000 lbs in a coordinated lift with the main lifting points.

shrike · **Posted:** Sat Jul 11, 2015 8:11 pm

Chuck Giese wrote:

A more complex question is: how do you lift a 22,000 lb. airplane (plus the weight of fuel, oil, and whatever sand washed in) with attach points rated at 21,000 lbs. Lifting a 70 year old airplane, you would probably want a 5 -10% margin, so your main lift cable is kept to 19,000 lbs. How do you lift the remaining weight? Again, I'm assuming that the salvors read, understood and implemented the hoisting procedures from the manual. My assumption is that the straps were lifting the remaining 4,000 or 5,000 lbs in a coordinated lift with the main lifting points.

I think it's just as likely that the original attach points were designed with just such a margin of error from the beginning. The wing spars have to be able to carry several times the weight of the airplane.

mjanovec · **Posted:** Sat Jul 11, 2015 9:38 pm

One thing that must be considered was the weight of the airplane that was partially full of water. The water inside the fuselage could have easily been too much for the airframe if there was an attempt to lift it without first emptying out all of the water...or lifting too fast without allowing time for the water to naturally drain out.

Chuck Giese · **Posted:** Sun Jul 12, 2015 10:59 am

shrike wrote:

Chuck Giese wrote:

A more complex question is: how do you lift a 22,000 lb. airplane (plus the weight of fuel, oil, and whatever sand washed in) with attach points rated at 21,000 lbs. Lifting a 70 year old airplane, you would probably want a 5 -10% margin, so your main lift cable is kept to 19,000 lbs. How do you lift the remaining weight? Again, I'm assuming that the salvors read, understood and implemented the hoisting procedures from the manual. My assumption is that the straps were lifting the remaining 4,000 or 5,000 lbs in a coordinated lift with the main lifting points.

I think it's just as likely that the original attach points were designed with just such a margin of error from the beginning. The wing spars have to be able to carry several times the weight of the airplane.

Possibly, but would you be willing to bet your company's reputation on it? By gawd man, if anything went wrong you would be crucified on WIX.

dirtysidedown430 · **Joined:** Sat Apr 11, 2015 12:36 pm **Posts:** 336

There's one factor that has not been brought up. I call it the Tree Huggers effect, someone might have looked the PBY spec's. On my there's 100 gals of 60w eng oil and x amount fuel and who knows what else. So there was some pressure from others I'm sure to get it off their beach.

CAPFlyer · **Posted:** Sun Jul 12, 2015 3:39 pm

mjanovec wrote:

One thing that must be considered was the weight of the airplane that was partially full of water. The water inside the fuselage could have easily been too much for the airframe if there was an attempt to lift it without first emptying out all of the water...or lifting too fast without allowing time for the water to naturally drain out.

The photos show the airplane riding high and dry in the water prior to the lift and it had been free floating for most of the day prior while they were filming, so I suspect most if not all the water had been removed. Sand might be a different issue, but I don't know how much would've been in it to not cause it to float nose-low.

Chuck Giese wrote:

Other randomness:
- Lifting points on PBY-5A rated at 21,000 lbs. (Comment from friend who flew them)
- PBY-5A Empty Weight 20,910 lbs (Wikipedia, may not be accurate)
- This was a Super, so it will weigh more than a PBY-5A (Comment from friend who flew them)

My understanding is that when the PBY-6 was developed, many things were strengthened, including the spar and I would suspect the rings as well since the rings were expected to be used in normal service.

Also, the Wikipedia number, if it uses the number most of them do, is the Operating Empty Weight, which includes weight of full oil and other gear normally loaded like armor and guns (but not ammo). Considering that this aircraft had all its armor removed, all its interior removed, and the weight of the tanks not making up fully for the removed equipment, Tanker 85 was probably as light or lighter than a standard PBY-5A, which is why they were so desired by the firefighting companies since they had all the extra power and performance.

CAPFlyer · **Posted:** Sun Jul 12, 2015 3:45 pm

Chuck, per http://pbycatalina.com/pby-6a/ -

Empty weight - 21,480 (combat loadout), 21,150 (ferry configuration)
MTOW - 36,400 (combat loadout), 35,160 (ferry configuration)

Chuck Giese · **Posted:** Sun Jul 12, 2015 5:27 pm

CAPFlyer wrote:

Chuck, per http://pbycatalina.com/pby-6a/ -

Empty weight - 21,480 (combat loadout), 21,150 (ferry configuration)
MTOW - 36,400 (combat loadout), 35,160 (ferry configuration)

Cool, thanks. Quite interesting. I'd not seen that before.

Empty weight for a PBY-6 is 21,480 with 1830-92's. That jives with the 22,200 I got from a friend who flew Supers BITD (post-war civilian usage).

K5DH · **Posted:** Mon Jul 13, 2015 8:29 am

Chuck Giese wrote:

if anything went wrong you would be crucified on WIX.

Nah. That'd never happen. :lol:

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PBY tanker 85 broken in half during recovery!!!

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