Aviation Safety

At 12:50 CDT, an Air Tractor AT-502 ag plane was damaged following a loss of control on takeoff. The pilot was not injured. The pilot said he attempted to take off from a private dirt airstrip which is also used as an access road. The pilot said the hopper was filled with a load of rice seed to be dispersed on a nearby field. The pilot said that he had begun his takeoff roll and had lifted the tail wheel when he observed a white pickup entering the airstrip/road to observe his flight. The driver of the pickup truck, the farmer whose fields were being seeded, had observed previous takeoffs. On this flight, however, a heavy load required a longer ground roll. As the airplane closed to within a…

At about 10:10 CDT, a Piper Archer crashed near Auburn after apparently running out of fuel as the owner flew the new plane home from the factory. The pilot reported no injuries. The flight had been aloft for more than four hours and was cruising at between 1,500 and 3,000 feet when the airplanes engine lost power. The pilot switched fuel tanks but the engine did not respond. He attempted to land in a field, was fast on the approach, went under some wires that surrounded the field, bounced over a road and struck the ground with the right wing. Investigators found about 8 ounces of fuel in the left wing and no fuel in the right tank….

At about 12:30 EDT, a homebuilt RV-6 crashed while landing at a private unlisted grass strip in Bradford. The pilot, who did not hold a pilot certificate, was not injured. The pilot said that just prior to landing, a gust of wind forced the airplanes nose gear down into the turf runway and the airplane flipped inverted. He reported 75 hours of total flight experience, with seven hours in the make and model of the accident airplane. The pilots last medical certificate was issued in 1977….

At about 13:30 EDT, an Aero Commander 500S crashed while landing at Bradley International Airport. The two pilots were not injured. The owner reported that he was engaged in a local proficiency flight from Westchester County Airport, where he had been shooting approaches. During one approach the nose gear extended but the mains did not. The pilots retracted the landing gear and diverted to BDL due to its better weather. The owner, who had been receiving instruction, let the instructor pilot make the landing. On short final both engines were shut down and both propellers feathered. The airplane touched down hard, with one witness saying it appeared that the airplane dropped in from 50 feet. T…

At about 17:50 EDT, a deplaning passenger in a Piper Arrow struck the propeller and was killed at Wimauma Airport. The pilot and two other passengers were not injured. After landing in the rain on a flight from the Bahamas, the pilot taxied the airplane to the terminal area so the passengers could deplane. The engine was still running when one passenger exited the airplane and went aft on the wing. A second passenger exited the airplane and fell into the propeller….

At 11:03 PDT, a Cessna 182A crashed during initial climb out of Paso Robles Municipal Airport, killing the pilot and two skydivers. Two other skydivers were seriously injured in the crash, one of whom died two days later. Winds were reported from 290 degrees at 11 knots and other aircraft were using either runway 31 or 01, but the accident airplane departed from midfield on runway 19, with 3,200 feet remaining. Some witnesses said the departure appeared normal; others said it was extremely steep. The airplane struck the ground 1,200 feet from the departure end of the runway….

At 14:50 PDT, a Cessna 402A struck two school buses while making a forced landing on a roadway -mile from the Van Nuys airport. The aircraft apparently ran out of fuel while on approach to the airport. The pilot was not injured, and one bus driver and one child suffered minor injuries. The other driver and 45 other children were not injured. The aircraft touched down about 600 feet north of an intersection and rolled south. At the same time, two school buses were approaching the intersection on a cross street, both traveling in opposite directions. As the buses entered the intersection on a green light, the wing tips of the aircraft struck the front of each bus. Both wing tips (main tanks)…

The following briefs were selected from the 89 preliminary reports filed with the NTSB in January 1999. Statments in quotes were taken directly from the NTSB documents. The information is subject to change as the investigations are completed. Click here to view “Accident Totals, January.”

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Jan. 01, Shelbyville, Texas
Cessna 421C Golden Eagle
At 17:05 CST, a Cessna 421C was substantially damaged during a forced landing near Shelbyville. The pilot was not injured but his four passengers sustained minor injuries. The flight was enroute from New Orleans to Omaha, Neb. During cruise flight at 14,000 feet the aircraft en…

Early versions of the first two all-new single engine airplane designs in years crashed within a few months of each other, leaving their test pilots and a passenger dead and leaving many people wondering just what went wrong with the airplanes that personify the resurgence of the industry.

Both were popular and promising FAR 23-certified composite aircraft. Both were factory prototypes that were not in the final conformity (certifiable) configuration. Both so far leave far more questions than answers.

On Jan. 8, a Pacific Aviation Composites LC 40-550FG, a prototype of the Lancair Columbia, was executing the second of two apparently normal instrument approaches to Portland (Ore.) Inter…

It doesnt take new pilots very long to realize the airplanes theyve trained in lack the payload, speed, and range to make serious trips, and they decide they need something bigger and faster.

The unfortunate result is that pilots new to complex, high performance aircraft have a lot of accidents. They may be able to handle things as long as nothing goes wrong, but throw in bad weather, gusty crosswinds at a short strip or a systems malfunction, and they are in over their heads. Some dont fully appreciate the tradeoffs in an airplane with six seats, oodles of baggage space, and six hours fuel capacity. Others find themselves in somebodys airspace before they know its there.

Checki…