Preliminary Reports

At 11:15 PDT, a Bell 206-L4 piloted by actor Harrison Ford landed hard and rolled over in the Lake Piru riverbed near Santa Clarita. The helicopter was substantially damaged but the two occupants were uninjured. The flight instructor reported that he and the trainee were practicing autorotations to a power recovery in the dry riverbed. On the second attempt, the trainee flared about 150 to 200 feet agl and attempted to bring in power to initiate the power recovery, but the power did not come back in time to recover to a hovering position. The helicopter landed hard and slid forward in the loose sand. The left skid struck a log and the helicopter rolled over onto its left side. No pre-acciden…

At 14:40 PDT, a Cessna Cardinal crashed in a box canyon approximately 10 miles southeast of the Boulder City airport. The flight instructor was seriously injured and the pilot was killed. The pilot and his son had just purchased the airplane. The son had taken a familiarization flight with the CFI earlier in the day that included a 360-degree turn in the same box canyon and noted no discrepancies with the airplane. The crew of a police helicopter that responded to the scene reported swirling winds in the box canyon during their approach. The helicopter was flown in what they believed was a similar pattern to the accident airplane and the helicopter completed the turn over the wreckage….

At 12:05 EDT, a Piper PA-28-161 struck a parked truck while attempting an emergency landing on a highway north of Lake Wales. The pilot was not injured. The pilot said that the engine began running rough shortly after takeoff and he attempted to land on the highway, where he struck a parked truck. The engine was started at the site and ran at all power settings. The pilot stated that during the emergency he did not apply carburetor heat. Weather conditions were favorable for the formation of carburetor ice at the time of the flight….

At approximately 11:30 MST, a Cessna 150E and a Cessna TU206F collided in mid-air four miles southwest of Vance Brand Airport. The two occupants of the 150 and the sole occupant of the 206 were uninjured. Both airplanes were approaching to land. The pilot of the 150 saw the 206 at a close distance and tried to avoid it, but the wingtips struck. Both airplanes were able to land safely….

At about 21:20 Hawaiian standard time, a cargo-filled Boeing DC-10-30F sustained substantial damage to both elevators after responding to a TCAS alert five minutes after departure. No one was injured. The captain said the airplane departed runway 08R and he was turning right to a heading of 155 degrees and passing through 1,500 feet when air traffic control instructed him to turn left to 140 degrees for traffic. The traffic was at 10 oclock at 5,000 feet. The captain acknowledged the traffic in sight. The first officer advised the captain to shallow the climb to maintain separation. The other airplane, a Hawaiian Air DC-9, appeared to still be descending at 10 oclock. The TCAS in the DC-10…

At about 09:15 CST, a Piper PA-34-200 had its right main gear collapse on the takeoff portion of a touch and go. The pilot flying the airplane was receiving multi-engine instruction. After touch down, the pilot retracted the flaps and reached for the landing gear instead of the throttles. The CFI yelled no and the student pilot released the handle and added full power. The right main landing gear retracted, the airplane yawed to the right and stopped in the grass….

At 15:37 PDT, a McDonnell Douglas 500N operated by the City of San Jose Police Department crashed in a city street, killing the pilot and passenger. Two days earlier the pilot had made a precautionary landing at Reid-Hillview after the helicopter suffered an uncommanded yaw, which a technician traced to a failed stability augmentation system. After additional checks, and determining that they could legally fly back to San Jose with the SAS system off, the pilot decided to return to San Jose. The pilot performed numerous left and right pedal turns in hover prior to departing. Subsequently, witnesses reported seeing the helicopter descending rapidly while spinning to the left….

At 19:14 MST, a Cessna 152 was destroyed during a forced landing near Buckeye, but neither occupant was injured. The pilot told investigators he had computed the fuel requirement for the flight by using the fuel consumption chart in the pilot operators handbook and believed he had 3 hours 55 minutes of fuel available. At the time the engine quit, the Hobbs meter showed that 3 hours 20 minutes had elapsed. When further asked about his planning, he acknowledged that he had not considered the additional fuel requirements for his initial takeoff and climb, nor seven other landings and takeoffs that he subsequently made during the flight. Aircraft retrieval personnel recovered less than 2 gallon…

At 14:45 CDT, a Cessna 150K was substantially damaged when it collided with a fuel truck that was parked on the aircraft parking ramp at the Kenosha Municipal Airport. The pilot said he was taxiing the airplane to the active runway when the collision occurred. The pilot said he was taxiing the airplane at a normal walk speed with the engine RPM set to about 1,000 RPM. He said he may have been looking in the cockpit when the airplanes left wingtip struck the fuel truck. The airplane pivoted on the left wingtip and the nose of the airplane collided with the trucks passenger side door….

At 19:03 CST, a Douglas DC-9-31 operating as TAESA Flight 725 crashed just after takeoff from UPN. All 18 aboard were killed. Witnesses said the airplane assumed a higher than normal climb attitude as soon as it departed from runway 20. The airplane impacted the ground in a nose low attitude on a heading of 110 degrees in an avocado grove located on the east side of the departure course, 3.3 miles south of the airport….