Pilatus PC-12
The Pilatus PC -12 is a single-engine turboprop multi-purpose aircraft of the Swiss aircraft manufacturer Pilatus Aircraft. It combines a powerful turboprop engine with a spacious cell. It is suitable for a wide range of uses. By 2013, more than 1,200 copies were delivered.
History
The first prototype flew to a short development phase on May 31, 1991, the type certification by the Swiss authorities on 30 March 1994. First development objective was the greatest possible operational capability, so chose to a T-tail to damage during loading via the built-in to avoid rear cargo door. The design allows takeoffs and landings in addition to airfields and unpaved runways or grass surfaces.
Construction
It is a business aircraft with six well-appointed seats, as a combined cargo and passenger aircraft with four to eight removable seats and a cargo space that can accommodate motor bikes of passengers, as a pure cargo aircraft, as commercial aircraft with nine seats, as a special version with specific equipment, for example, used for academic and government purposes or as an ambulance aircraft with room for two patients and three medical caregivers. It has to navigation on a weather radar.
Variants
The PC-12 is currently (as of end of 2006) offered in the following variants:
User
- Russia Russia: 18 Dexter Air Taxi Charter / Airline
- United States United States: 9 Bravo Air Ambulance flights and charter
- Netherlands Netherlands: ASL Private Jet Services Private charter and air ambulance
- Australia: 31 Royal Flying Doctors Australia
- United States United States: 30 posts Esense private charter
- South Africa South Africa: 8 Comair Flight Services Charter
Military user
- Bulgaria: 1 for VIP transport
- Finland Finland: 6 PC - 12NG
- Switzerland Switzerland: one for research and VIP transport
- South Africa South Africa: 1 for VIP transport
- United States United States
Specifications
- 9.34 m³ ( cargo version )
- 5.95 m³ (combi version with four passengers )
Accidents
On March 22, 2009, a PC-12 crashed during landing onto an unscheduled controlled airport in Butte (Montana, USA). All 14 occupants, including seven children, were killed. The NTSB assumes that ice formation led to the accident in the fuel system.
On 16 October 2009 a PC-12 crashed in Weert immediately before an agricultural property and immediately went up in flames. The machine was on the flight from the Dutch Kempen after Frankfurt Both occupants were killed. The investigation is ongoing.
On 25 May 2011 an ambulance aircraft crashed Pilatus PC -12 ( Reg: VT- ACF) on a house in the city of Faridabad, near Delhi. In this case, all seven occupants of the machine and three occupants of the house were killed. Another four were injured.
On the evening of February 18, 2012, a U -28A crashed on a flight for the 319th Special Operations Squadron near the international airport of Djibouti. All four occupants were killed. The U.S. Defense Department said that the people on board had been in use for Operation Enduring Freedom.
On June 8, 2012, a PC-12/47 crashed in Florida, all six occupants were killed. The aircraft was returning from the Bahamas to Kansas and had made shortly before the crash stop in Fort Pierce, Florida. According to the NTSB, the last recorded altitude was about 25,000 feet. Not been definitively explained so far, whether the machine was brought down by a storm.
On August 24, 2012, a PC-12 crashed on the flight from Antwerp to Gstaad ( Switzerland ) in the French Jura region Solemont in a forest. All four occupants were killed. As a cause of the crash is valid according to initial investigations, a structural failure of the right wing, after the pilot had lost control of the aircraft. The investigation mainly on the causes of loss of control at last.