Plane Crash

Wow,

A couple days ago the Ken Borek folks had the Basler Turbine DC-3 made what we heard was a hard landing. From what I gather Im not sure if they lost engine power shortly after take off or if the skis got stuck on the ice. Either way the plane is severly damaged but none of the passengers and crew where hurt beyond some cuts and bruises. Here is a link from one of the passengers blogs with good pictures. http://mitchell-antarctica.blogspot.com/

They are saying that they will try to fix the airplane and fly it back but I don't know. Back when I worked in the maintainence shop at centennial we fixed an airplane that had been in a similar wreck. It took us a long time with the airplane on jacks just to get it flyable. Not to mention the weeks of work after that to get it back into looking good again. Just from the pictures I can see there is a couple months worth of work to do, and they don't have a hangar to work in or a good place to jack the airplane. Since both engines hit with the power on they are going to need new engines and props, the landing gear was torn out so that means major structural work, as well as skin damage which means more major strucural work. The engines on that plane run for about a million each, plus new five blade props, landing gear etc. This particular plane was made in 1942 so there might not be an abundance of parts. I think the airplane is going to be left where it is.