Flying Between a Rock and a Hard Place

A deteriorating situation in the air can quickly become an emergency for a pilot.

Peter Garrison

Monday, March 17, 2025 at 09:17 AM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Kimberly Johnson

Highways may seem like a viable option for an emergency landing, but that often is not the reality. [Adobe Stock]

Key Takeaways:

A kit-built experimental aircraft crashed during flight testing due to a partial engine power loss, resulting in one fatality and one serious injury.
The NTSB attributed the engine issue (damaged spark plugs from preignition/detonation) to the owner/builder's use of lower-than-required 87 octane auto fuel and improper long-term storage.
A contributing factor was the pilots' decision to continue flying at low altitude with partial engine power instead of executing an immediate precautionary landing, leading to an unrecoverable situation near obstacles.
The NTSB highlighted the inherent difficulty pilots face in making timely decisions during a partial engine power loss, where the ambiguity of the threat can cause hesitation compared to a complete engine failure.

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I will call the three participants in this narrative Andy, Barry, and Chuck—not their real names. The airplane was a kitbuilt, all-metal two-seater powered by a commercially available 110 hp converted auto engine.

Andy, 83, had built the airplane with help from his friend Barry, 38, a commercial SMEL pilot with a little less than 1,000 hours. The airplane was completed in 2021, and Andy logged some of the 40 hours of “Phase 1” flight testing required for the airplane to be licensed as an experimental. He then moved to another state, leaving the airplane behind. In 2023, having lost his medical and desiring to sell the airplane, he arranged with Barry to complete the Phase 1 flying. Barry was joined by Chuck, 52, also a commercial SMEL pilot with 1,355 hours, who would take on some of the flying.