https://www.thelocal.ch/20180805/up-to- ... witzerland

Not completely up to date, but a comprehensive read with interesting details.

"The plane turned 180 degrees to the south and fell to the ground like a stone."

It's not a "WW2 plane" it was delivered before.

Just something I picked up on Wookiepedia:

In 1991, a DC-3A crashed near Heidelberg, Germany. 28 of the 32 occupants died. The plane was chartered by a filmmaker and his company; during the flight, they filmed.

Causes of the accident were:
- the pilots mistaking the Neckar river for the Rhine river
- flying into the fog along the Neckar, instead of turning back
- the plane was overloaded
- to avoid glare, the film company patched several cockpit windows with plastic film, obstructing the view...

One of the survivors was the audio technician. He built his equipment in the toilet, and unwittingly built his own crash protection... he didn't really realize the accident!


David

That's not smoke, just part of the mountains (same as what you see under the plane).

The press conference stated there was no pre or post-crash fire.

I still think the most deadly aircraft accident in Europe for some years deserves a more appropriate topic title.

I lived along a major pass in Washington State, two planes having to take a 180 for reasons not entirely known were responsible for two multiple fatality accidents, one a 'club' plane, the other a general aviation business plane. Valleys and 180s are often problematic. I remember as a kid flying through a valley as clouds were a little iffy.

LTenEleven wrote:

That's not smoke, just part of the mountains (same as what you see under the plane.

The curvature of that white line is to clean to be on the mountain in my opinion, I would say it was smoke.

Wes...

Noshow wrote:

It's not a "WW2 plane" it was delivered before.

How do you know the delivery date?

flyingturtle wrote:

There is still no indication about how many passengers were on board. This could well be the most significant air disaster in Switzerland since 1990, when Alitalia flight 404 crashed.



David

17 PAX & 3 crew: all perished, sadly

rlwynn wrote:

Noshow wrote:

It's not a "WW2 plane" it was delivered before.

How do you know the delivery date?

All three Swiss Air Force Ju 52 - the later HB-HOP, -HOS and HOT - were delivered on September 4, 1939. Germany invaded Poland just three days earlier. (The same happened with several Messerschmitt 109 fighters.)

David

The plane was delivered in 1939. Certainly w/in the scope of WW2, especially in Germany

Not to take away anything from the terrible loss of human life. RIP.

This plane played a role in not only one of the greatest war films of all time, but one of the greatest films of all time full stop.

I was flying with a friend in a Cessna 172 from State College, Pennsylvania (a very mountainous area in eastern US) towards Pittsburgh one November (he was the pilot). We were flying VFR and it was a beautiful, clear, sunny day. The route took us along a valley between two mountain ranges. We hadn’t been in the air long before we spotted a sudden snow squall that hadn’t been forecast moving up the valley towards us.

Since we were flying in what was essentially a canyon, we didn’t have enough altitude to fly over either mountain range on our sides, nor was their enough time for us to gain enough altitude to do so. We also knew that we couldn’t keep going straight or we would fly right into the storm. Finally, if we had done a 180 and tried to return to State College, the storm was moving so fast that it would have overtaken us before we could have reached the airport. In other words, we were pretty much trapped.

Fortunately, our route was over farmland and the pilot spotted a farm almost directly below us. He dove almost straight down and landed perfectly and safely on one of the farmer’s fields. The storm hit a few minutes later and since it was nightime after that, we both went to sleep in the plane until someone could come and pick us up.

I’m not suggesting that something similar is what happened to the Junkers (I would think that investigators would know by know if there was any weather in the area at the time) but it does show that scary things can happen really quickly when flying in mountainous areas.

Why does it need international coverage? Oftrn air show crashes are only local news events.
Thoughts and prayers to the families of those lost.

It wasn't an air show. It's Europe's worst air accident in a long time and 20 people are dead. It's a significant event and worldwide coverage is appropriate.

7673mech wrote:

Why does it need international coverage? Oftrn air show crashes are only local news events.
Thoughts and prayers to the families of those lost.

Because 20 people died? It's a major accident. Very sad all around.

What the hell is wrong with you people on this forum? I just find it amazing the level most of you stoop to, to make a point. A plane has crashed and people have died. There is far more bickering about everything but the actual crash itself. Grow up already!

May all who perished in recent air accident RIP and give strength to their family and loved ones.

2018 could well surpasses 2017 for total number of air accident at this rate. Let's hope there won't be anymore.

sevenair wrote:

It's Europe's worst air accident in a long time and 20 people are dead.

That’s actually something I didn’t think about when reading about this crash. When was the last crash in Europe with more than 20 victims?

I guess it was Germanwings (pilot suicide) but if we exclude pilot suicide it must have been the Spanair-crash in Madrid, correct?

R.I.P. to all who perished.

xxD328xx wrote:

Ju-Air suspended flights until further notice.
https://www.ju-air.ch/en/

Report now appearing in German media. Including this photo from the rescue operation:


https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/heute/me ... t-100.html

Such a sad accident.

The above picture has me thinking though, the fuselage does not seem completely smashed. As someone commented earlier, it probably flipped over after landing upright.

But all dead? Is this the difference between a modern airliner and an old one... just compare to the recent Aeroméxico E190 accident, for instance. I realise these are different accidents, but 1930s airplanes did not have seats taking 16g or any of the other safety advances.

Although, of course, the loss of life could be the result of the unhappy circumstances that the plane flipped or landed inverted... cabin upper part crushed enough to kill everyone even their seats stayed ok. Something like that could perhaps have happened in E190 or other today's airplanes as well.

Thoughts?

Replying to my own comment, but this article https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/swiss-vintage-plane-dropped-vertically-before-crash-that-killed-all-20-on-board-1.3587051 has a different picture

that tells maybe a different story. From this angle it looks like a nose-down dive, and the tail part of the fuselage simple collapsed to horizontal position.



So high speed nose dive, too much g for anyone to survive?

sevenair wrote:

This is another question. Is this smoke from the plane or part of the mountain? Somebody already commented on this and believed it is not smoke. FWIW, I think it does look like smoke, and shows the aircraft possibly in trouble already at that point, with an engine out of action and in the middle of a path of mountain valleys.

However, lets look at it in more detail. The above picture is taken from https://www.srf.ch/news/regional/graubuenden/traurige-gewissheit-alle-20-insassen-der-ju-52-bei-absturz-ums-leben-gekommen, and appears legit.

The article says that the picture is one of the last of taken of this flight, near the mountain "Chamm" in the canton of Glarus. Sadly there is EXIF data on the picture, so no exact photo coordinates.

If we look at the picture, I think the lighter-coloured area behind the plane extends between two different peaks on a mountain. It is unlikely a mountain feature, because it is hard to imagine it would continue between those two parts of the mountain. So I think it is something in the air -- could be smoke from aircraft, could be a small cloud. But, it ends so abruptly at the plane, so the odds of taking this picture exactly at the right place for the cloud theory to work are very small.

My conclusion: it is smoke from the plane.

There's also a map:



This says the plane crashed north of Flims, near Piz Segnas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piz_Segnas).

However, for the life of me I can't find any information about Chamm in the Internet. It would be interesting to be able to look at pictures from the same location as the last picture was taken, and see if any of them show a similar mark that could be mistaken as smoke.

Anyone know the local mountains and could lead us to pictures?

Secondly, I cannot figure out the route the plane was taking. Piz Segnas is 3099 meters, so how was the plane travelling south from Glarus to Flims? Over the mountain ridge via the Matt-Elm valley or through the Bad Ragaz-Chur-Flims-Laax valley? But if the plane crossed the ridge from Elm somewhere between Piz Segnas and Bündner Vorab, why would it crash right after crossing the ridge? Mystery...

One possible crossing site is around Laaxer Stöckli (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laaxer_St%C3%B6ckli, on Google maps https://www.google.fi/maps/place/Laaxer+St%C3%B6ckli/@46.8831326,9.1866802,14z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x4784d857e2cd8f3b:0x7b2f6433143ad02!8m2!3d46.8831345!4d9.2041898!5m1!1e4) which is 2899 meters, so that's not particularly low crossing point either, even if Laaxer Stöckli of course is a high point in the ridge. The map link shows 2800 meter altitude for the ridge.

Here's one map of the area, with Laaxer Stöckli in the middle and Piz Segnas on the right, and the plane (if it came from from Elm valley) would have come towards the viewer. The crash site is high up between Laaxer Stöckli and Piz Segnas, slightly above ski lifts marked in the picture.



Can anyone look at Flightradar24 or other services for the route of the plane, and its planned altitude?

My educated guess: plane was flying at a planned 3000 meter altitude or higher. There's a couple of possible theories what happened. First, the plane could have crossed the ridge normally, and then something dramatic happened, causing the plane to nose dive into ground. Second, if the smoke trail is true, the plane could have been losing altitude as it neared Piz Segnas and Laaxer Stöckli... clearing the ridge but only just and damaging something, then falling down immediately after that. Wild theory, of course.

AirlineCritic wrote:

So high speed nose dive, too much g for anyone to survive?

All parts seem to still be connected. Can't have been a high speed crash.
( though the way the Ju's structure is designed would help in "keeping it together".)

Low altitude tight turn, inner wing stalls. plane flips over and down. crash.?

WIederling wrote:

Low altitude tight turn, inner wing stalls. plane flips over and down. crash.?

Pretty much that, I would guess. And the final culprit (apart from turning too tightly, and being too slow and close to the ground in the first place, at least for high alpine flying) might well have been an unexpectedly strong gust of wind that hit the plane from the back at precisely the wrong moment.

I'm a glider pilot myself, and although I mostly fly in the flat country, I have ventured into the Alps on occasion. Suffice it to say that flying there is a totally different cup of tea than flying elsewhere: on windy days, you can encounter totally unexpected and pretty titanic up- and downdrafts at the drop of a hat. The closer you are to the rocks, the stronger these effects can be.

So you always fly quite a bit faster than your stall speed: the closer you get to the geology, the more you add for safety. Which of course does bad things to the glide ratio of your glider, so you try to add as little as possible - a trade-off that can be hard to make, although the rule is to always add speed, when in doubt, and to not think about the glide ratio. I've still seen someone flying near me suddenly doing one whole stall cartwheel in a Ventus 2, after being hit by an unexpected downdraft from behind - and he was not flying without a safety margin at that point (just quite close to a ridge). In his case, all good, as there was still enough air beneath him, and he recovered. But this does not always work: two years ago, a friend of mine died, after stalling his glider, and impacting a snowfield in a flat spin. No reason for him screwing up could ever be determined, as he was flying solo, was quite experienced, and generally cautious: the Tante Ju accident might well end up in the same category.

I'll always remember the briefing I got from the local tower before my first solo alpine flights: I asked lots of questions, and generally got on their nerves a bit (I suppose). They were patient, though, and at the end they told me: "You know, it's not people like you we are worried about. You are new to the Alps, so you will be double and triple careful. Accidents usually happen to the people with 1000+ hours of alpine flying, who think they have seen it all, and who start being careless. But in the Alps you only need a single screw up, and you die." Given the extremely high experience levels of the pilots flying the Tante Ju, this might actually have been a contributing factor.

Would 20 tourists be allowed on a 75 year old vintage aircraft in the UK? I think not. Allowed to fly through a mountain range? Probably not. Accident avoidable. Probably.

uta999 wrote:

Would 20 tourists be allowed on a 75 year old vintage aircraft in the UK? I think not. Allowed to fly through a mountain range? Probably not. Accident avoidable. Probably.

D-AQUI has certainly flown in the UK. I know because I flew on her on a trip over some fairly mountainous territory in Scotland although nothing like the Swiss mountains

uta999 wrote:

Would 20 tourists be allowed on a 75 year old vintage aircraft in the UK? I think not. Allowed to fly through a mountain range? Probably not. Accident avoidable. Probably.

You can avoid accidents by staying home all day. Ok, maybe you die when you are cleaning Windows then.

Apart from that, lets look at the facs:
Those Ju-52s have been in use in this kind of Terrain in Switzerland since 1939. Without accidents. The pilots who died did fly there for many decades. So if someone is knowing the area, these pilots did.

This accident happened, and 20 People seems a bit much (as far as I remember, the LH Ju-52 only has 16 places), but I will leave speculation out and wait to receive the report of the investigators.

LTenEleven wrote:

Some video footage from previous JU-Air Alpine sightseeing flying:
https://youtu.be/aP5j47WoXfg

Not sure whether I am having second thoughts because of the emotional crash, but this video looks pretty dramatic to me... They do indeed like to fly VERY low...well below the peaks... and that tight turn almost directly against the backdrop of a vertical mountain wall is awe inspiring. If not downright scary. Not sure this kind of flying on a Ju would appeal to me. Maybe I'm not ballsy enough, and I'm fine with that really. I've once crossed a short bit of the Alps on a small prop, and whilst the view was breathtaking, the ride was extremely turbulent, with lots of buffeting and sudden drops. I confess I had very sweaty palms for the whole flight. Mountain flying is not for the faint of heart.

TheSonntag wrote:

This accident happened, and 20 People seems a bit much (as far as I remember, the LH Ju-52 only has 16 places), but I will leave speculation out and wait to receive the report of the investigators.

3 crew, 17 "nonworkers", all club members.

We flew HB-HOT back in August 2017 from the air show in Bensheim on an hour-long sight-seeing flight over the Odenwald, Heidelberg and Mannheim, a birthday gift for my son's 19th birthday. It was a fantastic experience from the outset. The crew were excellent and as we were leaving the aircraft one of them insisted on giving my son a new safety card as a souvenir. It is very sad and "chilling" to read about what happened on Saturday. I feel for everybody involved and affected, both the victims, their surviving family members and friends and the extremely dedicated JU-Air crews.

AirlineCritic wrote:

Secondly, I cannot figure out the route the plane was taking. Piz Segnas is 3099 meters, so how was the plane travelling south from Glarus to Flims? Over the mountain ridge via the Matt-Elm valley or through the Bad Ragaz-Chur-Flims-Laax valley? But if the plane crossed the ridge from Elm somewhere between Piz Segnas and Bündner Vorab, why would it crash right after crossing the ridge? Mystery...

The Ju 52 didn't fly southward, it was heading north, coming from Locarno (I assume it had taken off at LUG or ZJI (LSZL) and bound for Dübendorf (LSMD) near ZRH. So it hadn't crossed the Piz Segnas yet and eyewitnesses are cited by the media that it had made a 180° turn back to south just before the crash.

So it seems to me, the pilots realized, they couldn't gain enough altitude to get clear of the mountain top (either due to weather conditions - wind coming from north down the mountain ridge, very hot temperatures or due to an engine failure - if the trail visible on the photo is smoke and not a part of the mountain) and tried to turn back in a tight turn.

That's why "Wiederling" had posted his thesis:

WIederling wrote:

AirlineCritic wrote:

So high speed nose dive, too much g for anyone to survive?

All parts seem to still be connected. Can't have been a high speed crash.
( though the way the Ju's structure is designed would help in "keeping it together".)

Low altitude tight turn, inner wing stalls. plane flips over and down. crash.?

uta999 wrote:

Would 20 tourists be allowed on a 75 year old vintage aircraft in the UK? I think not. Allowed to fly through a mountain range? Probably not. Accident avoidable. Probably.

You know, ALL aviation accidents would be avoidable, if we would just ban people from flying on airplanes all together! Also it were 17 pax and the aircraft was 79 years old, get your facts straight.

Thanks, FW200.

Yeah, a too tight emergency turn away from the ridge is a good theory.

I also checked FR24, and it shows the last flight as "ZRH to n/a" on Aug 3. The track for that flight is partial, perhaps due to lack of coverage. There is no record of accident day (Aug 4) flight.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20180804-0 reports accident flight as going from Locarno Air Base (LSMO) to Dübendorf Air Base (LSMD).

The SRF article speculated on hot day perhaps reducing aircraft capability. It had presumably full load, 17+2 is the per-wikipedia advertised capacity, but she had 17+3. But presumably not full tanks or any luggage/cargo...

AirlineCritic wrote:

Thanks, FW200.

Yeah, a too tight emergency turn away from the ridge is a good theory.

I also checked FR24, and it shows the last flight as "ZRH to n/a" on Aug 3. The track for that flight is partial, perhaps due to lack of coverage. There is no record of accident day (Aug 4) flight.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20180804-0 reports accident flight as going from Locarno Air Base (LSMO) to Dübendorf Air Base (LSMD).

The SRF article speculated on hot day perhaps reducing aircraft capability. It had presumably full load, 17+2 is the per-wikipedia advertised capacity, but she had 17+3. But presumably not full tanks or any luggage/cargo...

Maybe because it was a longer flight the pax who might overnight either at Locarno or Zurich and had cargo with them. Also everyone was 42-84 years old and maybe heavier than a typical crowd which include kids and young people. Of course we have to wait but my guts feelings think; slightly heavy aircraft couldn't climb enough in unusual hot weather, pilots took a too steep turn and/or were surprised with a downdraft (hot afternoons in the mountains can be bumpy).

AirlineCritic wrote:

Thanks, FW200.

Yeah, a too tight emergency turn away from the ridge is a good theory.

I also checked FR24, and it shows the last flight as "ZRH to n/a" on Aug 3. The track for that flight is partial, perhaps due to lack of coverage. There is no record of accident day (Aug 4) flight.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20180804-0 reports accident flight as going from Locarno Air Base (LSMO) to Dübendorf Air Base (LSMD).

The SRF article speculated on hot day perhaps reducing aircraft capability. It had presumably full load, 17+2 is the per-wikipedia advertised capacity, but she had 17+3. But presumably not full tanks or any luggage/cargo...

Because it was a longer flight the pax and crew have overnighted at Locarno and probably had bags with them. (source: the ju-air website were this overnight roundtrip was advertized). Also everyone was 42-84 years old and maybe heavier than a typical crowd which include kids and young people. Of course we have to wait but my guts feeling is; a slightly heavy aircraft couldn't climb enough in unusual hot weather to clear the mountains ahead of them, the pilots took a too steep turn and/or were surprised with a downdraft (hot afternoons in the mountains can be bumpy).

Here is a tool to generate any view of mountains, given the coordinates of the photographer: https://www.udeuschle.de/panoramas/makepanoramas_en.htm

We need to find out where the smoke trail picture was taken.

I'm around mountains quite a lot, and I'm 95% sure that this must be a smoke or vapour trail. It does not look like a meadow or a snowy slope.

I've read a witness statement by a former military pilot - one who had, seemingly, some Ju 52 knowledge.

He watched HB-HOT flying, and then suddenly the plane rolled briskly to one side, lost altitude, recovered, and then continued.

This reminded him of the training maneuver when they simulate a #1 or #3 engine failure. There's not a chance in hell they would do it on purpose with passengers in the back.


David

This photo really shows the severity of the crash and gives credence to the "impacted at high speed" statements:

AirlineCritic wrote:

If we look at the picture, I think the lighter-coloured area behind the plane extends between two different peaks on a mountain. It is unlikely a mountain feature, because it is hard to imagine it would continue between those two parts of the mountain. So I think it is something in the air -- could be smoke from aircraft, could be a small cloud. But, it ends so abruptly at the plane, so the odds of taking this picture exactly at the right place for the cloud theory to work are very small.

My conclusion: it is smoke from the plane.

I have to disagree - if you look at the video at
https://www.srf.ch/news/regional/graubu ... n-gekommen
you see that photo in a much less enlarged and it looks very much like what appears like smoke in some badly enlarged versions of the image is actually a piece of mountain slope that's exactly the same colour as the larger vegetation-covered patch on the left. Which leads me to the conclusion that it's not smoke, but simply a patch of (presumably) grass-covered mountain slope.

anfromme wrote:

Which leads me to the conclusion that it's not smoke, but simply a patch of (presumably) grass-covered mountain slope.

To me, that's simply not possible. It would be a very peculiar and very bright grass slope that extends into a rather rocky and steep mountain face. It can't be a streak of bright rock, too, for geological reasons. Also, the smoke dissipates with the distance, as real smoke would. Then, on the left side the smoke has a color hue that I don't associate with alpine meadows.

The only troubling thing with that picture is: The Chamm mountain - where the eyewitness Karl Aebi made the picture - is in Glarus, not Grisons where the crash happened. The map.geo.admin.ch website does not give me any other "Chamm" near the crash site.


Here, something I haven't previously seen - it's on AVHerald: "On Aug 6th 2018 a ground witness located at the alpine hut at Segnesspass/Martinsloch reported that the aircraft was tracking north passing Martinsloch, but before overflying the ridge the aircraft entered a left turn and then went down, as if following a plumbline. Initiating the turn until impact lasted less than 15 seconds."




David

anfromme wrote:

AirlineCritic wrote:

If we look at the picture, I think the lighter-coloured area behind the plane extends between two different peaks on a mountain. It is unlikely a mountain feature, because it is hard to imagine it would continue between those two parts of the mountain. So I think it is something in the air -- could be smoke from aircraft, could be a small cloud. But, it ends so abruptly at the plane, so the odds of taking this picture exactly at the right place for the cloud theory to work are very small.

My conclusion: it is smoke from the plane.

I have to disagree - if you look at the video at
https://www.srf.ch/news/regional/graubu ... n-gekommen
you see that photo in a much less enlarged and it looks very much like what appears like smoke in some badly enlarged versions of the image is actually a piece of mountain slope that's exactly the same colour as the larger vegetation-covered patch on the left. Which leads me to the conclusion that it's not smoke, but simply a patch of (presumably) grass-covered mountain slope.

Actually, it's neither smoke, nor snow, nor vegetation. It's scree. The image shows the rocky tops of Piz Segnas (to the right) and P 3038 (to the left), which is just northeast of Piz Segnas. It was taken from the north, from the slopes that extend between Fanenstock, Färispitz and Foostöckli. The map shows several places named "Chamm" there.

Here's the panorama generated with udeuschle.de/panoramas.
To the left of Piz Segnas you can see that slope that looks like smoke in the photograph.

The satellite view of the mountains in Google maps.

So the aircraft that we see in the photograph is flying north of the Segnes pass. The image just doesn't tell when it was taken and if it shows the same aircraft that crashed. I'll leave that to the official commission of inquiry.

Here's the Ju52 from the photograph added to the same position of the generated panorama:

The "smoke" is a slope.

Thanks for the background details clarification.
This still leaves us with the high angle of attack. So a very slow flight attitude next to stall speed, no margin. Looks like one would have had to dive towards terrain to bring the nose back down to regain speed and maybe come back from behind the power curve.

OMG. Thank you, noray. The mountain scenery is convincing.

Then I just don't know what the relationship is between that fateful flight and the picture shown on TV.


David

Does any other company offer pleasure flights on the JU-52?

boeing767300 wrote:

Does any other company offer pleasure flights on the JU-52?

Lufthansa does.


Gruß, masi1157

masi1157 wrote:

boeing767300 wrote:

Does any other company offer pleasure flights on the JU-52?

Lufthansa does.


Gruß, masi1157

The Deutsche Lufthansa Berlin-Stiftung offers flights on a Junkers Ju52/3m aircraft, maintained by Lufthansa Technik in Hamburg

Details available from https://www.dlbs.de/en/index.php

FlightMode wrote:

The Deutsche Lufthansa Berlin-Stiftung offers flights on a Junkers Ju52/3m aircraft, maintained by Lufthansa Technik in Hamburg

And those Lufthansa flights are bookable by everybody while those of Ju-Air require you to become a member. The membership is still more or less automatically added when booking and ends after one year.


Gruß, masi1157

There is a Swiss Ju (HB-HOY) flying at Mönchengladbach, Germany, as well. (Paused due to the accident in Switzerland)
https://ju52rundflug.de

masi1157 wrote:

FlightMode wrote:

The Deutsche Lufthansa Berlin-Stiftung offers flights on a Junkers Ju52/3m aircraft, maintained by Lufthansa Technik in Hamburg

And those Lufthansa flights are bookable by everybody while those of Ju-Air require you to become a member. The membership is still more or less automatically added when booking and ends after one year.

The Lufthansa Ju 52 D-AQUI (historic registration) respectively D-CDLH (current real registration) has a full certification as commercial civilian airliner. So Lufthansa can use it for real scheduled commercial flights. I've been on such flight from BWE to HAM and the flight had a real Lufthansa LH... flight number.

AFAIK the certification/registration of the ex Swiss military Ju 52s from Ju-Air is not a full certification as commercial airliner. So they are only allowed to fly their club members.

Together with my wife I had three flights on the Lufthansa Ju 52 (BWE to HAM and two sightseeing round flights) and it was always much fun and impressive. My wife just said, that she never thought about the possibility of a crash during these flights.

About the situation flying historic a/c with tourists in England: Years ago my wife and I flew with Duxford's 1930s De Havilland Dragon Rapide. A canvas covered biplane. They still use it for sightseeing flights today. So no problem to use 80 years old planes for tourist flights in the UK.

Noshow wrote:

Thanks for the background details clarification.
This still leaves us with the high angle of attack. So a very slow flight attitude next to stall speed, no margin. Looks like one would have had to dive towards terrain to bring the nose back down to regain speed and maybe come back from behind the power curve.

If that is considered mountain texture (not smoke), then we have no viual references to angle of attack, actual flight charatcteristics (speed) in relation to opereating envelope, and in particular stall speed.