Captain MacDougall's brother (who has obviously been in contact with his brother) has been active today and is confirming that they did indeed suffer a birdstrike/ingestion incident during the take off.
From further investigating, I've found that "Rich" is a relative "newbie" in terms of CT-114 seat time. He was certainly well trained/briefed in regards to loss of power at takeoff scenarios and he followed the mandated procedure to separate and gain altitude.
My speculative guess is that as he reached the apex of the zoom, he realized that punching out on their current azimuth was going to send his aircraft towards a residential area,
Whether diverting to the left (or calling for the lead to break right) is the fundamental question/decision here, and I'm sure this will be addressed in the DFSO report.
As it (quickly) evolved, he (again speculation) decided to attempt a reciprocal reversal to recover to the airfield. This went very pear-shaped and the aircraft stalled, entering into an uncommanded incipient spin condition.
To his credit, Captain MacDougall recovered the aircraft from the spin and the ejection sequence begins when they are wings level.
Second guessing matters like this are always going to problematical
|