I hope they recovered the engine for examination. It would be interesting to find out the reason for the failure.
The engine in the Caravan is derated to less than the engine's max power, so it runs cooler and with less stress. It's very unusual for a turboprop to fail suddenly with no warning.
Turboprops are extremely reliable, and rarely fail. But, anything made by man is less than perfect.
What puzzles me is how they can tell she died of an irregular heartbeat without some kind of monitor on her at the time of death. Even if she had a history of arrhythmia, how would they determine it had caused her death?
Sounds suspicious, but would love to hear from any physicians here who can answer my question.......
I’ve been in a small plane when the engine cut out. Kinda scary to say the least. Luckily it restarted and we landed ok. My point is that I have more confidence in a small plane drifting in for a landing than I do a 777. Big planes make me nervous. So was this just a dead engine or total control failure. I don’t remember the story now.
think out of gas
In 30-plus years the NTSB had investigated 2 cases of commercial Cessna 208B’s having catastrophic engine failures (neither of them related to overheating). Then 3 days after Doug Vogt named Loretta Fuddy as a defendant in a criminal complaint there was a Cessna crash. Within 50 days and 25 miles of that crash there was ANOTHER crash - this one the only one of ANY of these Cessna crashes that resulted in a death, and that after Fuddy was already out of the water and bobbing safely in the water in a life jacket, according to witnesses at the time. In the video of the crash, there are about 10 extra people seen in the water in the first minutes after the crash - before the first help arrived about an hour after the crash. And the official reports are fraught with serious discrepancies.
In both of these very recent cases in HI, the NTSB allowed the air company to access the planes after the crash in spite of NTSB requirements that the sites be treated as crime scenes. And when Makani Kai (the company who owned the Fuddy Cessna) finally lifted the Fuddy Cessna from the water a week after the crash, the fuselage was in tatters, with the engine completely pulled away from the rest of the plane. It had been resting on a shelf 60-70 feet underwater, below the action of the waves.
Probably a turbine blade failure.
There have actually been quite a few of them over the years. Like this one
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mk33A-yXa34
Here are several, all Cessna Caravans 208,
Findings
1. COMPRESSOR ASSEMBLY,BLADE - SEPARATION
http://dms.ntsb.gov/aviation/AccidentReports/k141bvqpenseyp55gdquf2451/D06092014120000.pdf
The engine examination revealed a failure of the engine gas generator initiating from a compressor turbine blade separation.
http://dms.ntsb.gov/aviation/AccidentReports/3buwiomwi2xskcnbwhjolj451/C06092014120000.pdf
The engine examination revealed mechanical and thermal damage to the turbine section of the engine.
http://dms.ntsb.gov/aviation/AccidentReports/d2mpws45bbtlil45zymgst451/M06092014120000.pdf
...revealed that a blade on the first stage compressor rotor failed as a result of a fatigue fracture.
http://dms.ntsb.gov/aviation/AccidentReports/mk5qwrrv2qz4h0ymurnt5beg1/J06092014120000.pdf