Hot ..... High ..... Heavy ...... and taking off with a tailwind.

Not a good combination ...... as the footage shows.

Flaps could very well have made the difference there... but the biggest mistake was taking off with a tail-wind. We don't know his fuel load, so assuming that he was too heavy is wrong (for now).

Flaps would have shortened the take-off roll.. AND steepened the climb a bit.

Couple of classic points to note here. When you push things to the limit, it's risky..  When you push several things to the limit.. it's deadly. With four pasengers, the load was near the limit. That runway was obvioulsy pushing the limit, length-wise... Assuming you can overcome a tailwind (or not paying attention to the wind at all) was the third strike.

It also demonstrates perfectly how ground-effect can be deceiving. You can get a plane off the ground when the wings are more efficient, but if you try to climb out of ground effect, before building airspeed.. you're coming right back down.. WITH momentum    

Interesting.
I was hoping to hear from some of you experience pilots as that could be any GA flyer.
Thanks...

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The more I ponder this, the more it's making me ill...  I hate picking on a pilot who already has to deal with a dead and injured passengers, but ya gotta talk about it.

There are so many "don'ts" and examples of complacency, it make you wanna yell,  "WHY?"

We all have, and will, let things go.. take a chance here and there, and even overlook something.. but this is perfect lesson in why you should not.. and how, even though you think you've calculated your risks individualy, their compound effect is horrid, and what you overlooked brings it all together in a fatality...  

Last July.. I flew in and out of a small, grass field in northern Wisconsin, with four on board. I spent so much time double checking weight, and fuel for the round trip, that one friend joked, as we neared the runaway, "hey, Brett.. why don't you stick the tanks again ?"

Obviously all went well.. but it was interesting. The runway was listed as 2200'... But I'm here to tell you that the trees on the departure end made it about 1800' of useful runway (hot, July day to boot).

We were under MGTW by a good margin, as there was only 8 gallons of fuel on board, for the 20 minute flight back to Sturgeon Bay. I even contemplated taking off with the slight wind at my tail, because there were no trees going that way. ANYWAY.. power came up nicely.. so did the airspeed (for a heavily loaded 172 on grass). I'll have to admit that when I made the decision to continue the takeoff, I'd have run out of runway had I aborted..  but the surrounding field wasn't much worse than the mowed runway.. so no big deal there.  Ten degrees of flaps, 55-60kias and we cleared the trees by a good 20 feet (though my seasoned co-traveler had his head between his legs)..

My point ? ...  Had I got complacent about something (one time I didn't get the magneto switch back to "both" after a runup, on an older plane where the detents were worn) and just one little thing gone Murphy's way (like a 10 knot wind shift/gust right after rotation), I could very well have been in the trees  

Under the same circumstances, I'd do it again.. and just count on keeping complacency at bay  

I found a video of the whole incident here. http://www.placerville.info/two_crashes_from_cameron_park_on_same_day-08-41-08-3...
After watching it several times I'm not sure how you can tell if it was taking off downwind. I've read several reports on this incident & although this was the second accident at the airfield that day the wind is not mentioned as a factor in either. There are unconfirmed suggestions that the second one might have been overloaded & that the high temperature might be a factor. One report says that the pilot "flew B-52s" in the Air Force. It doesn't confirm whether he was a USAF pilot or other aircrew. http://www.edhtelegraph.com/articles/2007/09/12/news/top_stories/04plane.txt

This reminds me of a similar incident at Popham last year, fortunately with happier results. The aircraft was a Piper Tri-Pacer. This is the second link I've posted to the Sun newspaper today. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article58033.ece
This is the official investigation report. http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources/Piper%20PA-22-150,%20G-ARCC%2012-06.pdf

Been doing some research...

That's a 4050 foot runway @ 1300msl.. much more than an A36 at MGTW would need, even on a very hot day..

A36 useful load is about 1100lbs.. Photos of the pilot and wife look to put them at 400lbs between them. At 170lbs each for the passengers..  That leaves 360 for fuel and baggage. Their flight plan would have called for that much fuel, alone.. so any baggage put them over gross.

At some point over MGTW, it doesn't matter how much runway you have, the plane isn't going to climb... and it can be an abrubt line, with high, density altitude.

Interesting too, is that the A36 POH calls for no flaps on takeoff.. ever. Conversely, a C177RG POH calls for 10 degrees no matter what. I know that that's mostly for getting the wheels up quickly and for maintaining a more nose-down climb out, for visibility. I think an A36 "can" take off safely with flaps, but they don't steepen the climb enough to offset the drag. So by the POH (assuming you're not pushing the limits to begin with) it's not called for.. but I still think it would have helped here... if for no other reason than to have let the pilot know that this plane aint gonna climb, in time to abort... or, like my first speculation.. it would have shortened the takeoff roll and steepened the climb.