Pilot Survives Enormous Crash

[adysmith]

RH engine mixture lever is at cut off, hard to tell what position prop levers are at but throttles do not appear to be both in same position.

[cstorey]

Although I am horribly conscious of the unpleasant nature of armchair accident investigation , what is fascinating to me about NHJ's photo is the mixture controls . That for the port no 1 engine is in the full rich position, but that for the no 2 engine is in the cut-off position. Yet the video quite clearly shows the left engine to be stopped . The nasty suspicion arises that the wrong engine may have been shut down followed by what looks like a well-developed stall. The Golden Eagle was a lovely aeroplane ( I got quite a bit of time as a co-pilot on one in the late 1970s ) but had quite a complicated fuel system and getting it wrong could land you in immediate difficulties - BTW this accident was just after take-off