A summary of this weeks activity and downloadable files of new reports published by the self-proclaimed, “world’s premier independent agency for accident investigation.”

TOTAL PRESS RELEASES ISSUED THIS WEEK – 2

TOTAL AVIATION SAFETY RECOMMENDATION LETTERS ISSUED THIS WEEK – 0

TOTAL AVIATION MISHAP REPORTS ISSUED THIS WEEK – 32

• New reports released this week – 32
• Revised reports released this week – 0

AVIATION PRELIMINARY REPORTS RELEASED THIS WEEK – 18 – AVERAGE LATENCY 14 DAYS

AVIATION FACTUAL REPORTS RELEASED THIS WEEK – 6

• Field Investigations (NTSB) – 1 (17%) – AVERAGE LATENCY 714 DAYS AFTER EVENT
• Limited Investigations (delegated to FAA) – 0 (0%) – AVERAGE LATENCY NA DAYS AFTER EVENT
• Data collection reports (CA) – 4 (67%) – AVERAGE LATENCY 19 DAYS AFTER EVENT
• Incident report (IA) –  0 (0%)
• Other (public use, foreign, etc.) – 1 (17%)
• Number of factual reports more than one year old issued this week – 1

REPORTS OF PROBABLE CAUSE RELEASED THIS WEEK – 8 NEW – 0 REVISED

SUMMARIES OF NEW REPORTS:

• List of Newly Released Reports
• Air Carrier, Turbine Powered & Large Aircraft Reports
• General Aviation Reports
• Homebuilt, Experimental, or Light Sport Aircraft

REPORTS OF THE WEEK (See the above links for more details)

Perhaps the CFI was showing him what not to do when he turned off the hydraulics.

CEN11FA359 EUROCOPTER AS 350 B2
On May 29, 2011, about 1145 central daylight time, a Eurocopter AS 350 B2 helicopter, N747CH, impacted terrain while on approach to the Fort Worth Alliance Airport (AFW), Fort Worth, Texas. The private rated pilot, flight instructor, and passenger received minor injuries. The helicopter was substantially damaged during the accident and a postcrash fire ensued. The pilot had recently purchased the helicopter. The certified flight instructor (CFI), who was employed by the helicopter’s previous owner, was to help ferry the helicopter from Puerto Rico to Texas, and then provide the new owners with flight instruction in the helicopter.

The CFI reported that he was giving the pilot instruction with normal and emergencies procedures in the helicopter. During the last traffic pattern, the hydraulic system was turned off, to simulate a hydraulic system failure. During the approach, the helicopter slowed and started a left yaw. The CFI stated that he tried to regain control by adding right pedal, looking for forward airspeed, and reducing power. The helicopter did not respond to the CFI control inputs, descended and impacted terrain.

A piece fell off in flight – anyone surprised?

WPR11LA352 EUROCOPTER AS 350 B3
On July 27, 2011, about 1540 Pacific daylight time, a Eurocopter AS 350 B3 helicopter, N808LF, sustained substantial damage after being struck by an object in cruise flight near Troutdale, Oregon.

In a report submitted to the National Transportation Safety Board investigator-in-charge (NTSB IIC), the Air Methods’ Aviation Compliance Manager stated that the aircraft departed from its maintenance facility at UAO to its normal base of operations located at DLS. The manager further stated that about 12 minutes into the flight the pilot reported that he felt something, like a bird strike, and elected to make a precautionary landing at TTD to inspect the helicopter for possible damage. Subsequent to an uneventful landing the pilot performed a walk-around inspection of the helicopter, during which it was discovered that a portion of the tail rotor drive shaft covering was missing. Upon further inspection of the helicopter, it was revealed that a single main rotor blade and two tail rotor blades had been damaged.

Alcohol, quinine and aerobatics.

CEN10LA275 BELLANCA  7GCBC
On May 29, 2010, at 1331 central daylight time, a Bellanca 7GCBC, N88399, piloted by a private pilot, was destroyed during an in-flight collision with terrain within 1/2 mile of the Watertown Regional Airport (ATY), Watertown, South Dakota.

Witnesses at ATY observed the accident airplane in flight. One witness reported that he initially thought the pilot was inbound for landing. However, the airplane proceeded southwest of the airport and began “making erratic banks and turns.” He estimated that the airplane’s bank angles reached “80 to 90 degrees” at times. He stated that right before the accident, the pilot appeared to be “trying a turn like a spray pilot would make.” He noted that the airplane “went up and turned to the right and [it] went straight into the ground.” A second witness at ATY reported the airplane was “making extremely erratic maneuvers” about 300 – 500 feet above ground level (agl).

Toxicology testing of the pilot found alcohol and quinine.

A summary of this weeks activity and downloadable files of new reports published by the self-proclaimed, “world’s premier independent agency for accident investigation.”

TOTAL PRESS RELEASES ISSUED THIS WEEK – 5

TOTAL AVIATION SAFETY RECOMMENDATION LETTERS ISSUED THIS WEEK – 3

TOTAL AVIATION MISHAP REPORTS ISSUED THIS WEEK – 28

• New reports released this week – 28
• Revised reports released this week – 0

AVIATION PRELIMINARY REPORTS RELEASED THIS WEEK – 28 – AVERAGE LATENCY 27 DAYS

AVIATION FACTUAL REPORTS RELEASED THIS WEEK – 12

• Field Investigations (NTSB) – 1 (8%) – AVERAGE LATENCY 260 DAYS AFTER EVENT
• Limited Investigations (delegated to FAA) – 3 (25%) – AVERAGE LATENCY 189 DAYS AFTER EVENT
• Data collection reports (CA) – 4 (33%) – AVERAGE LATENCY 26 DAYS AFTER EVENT
• Incident report (IA) –  0 (0%)
• Other (public use, foreign, etc.) – 4 (33%)
• Number of factual reports more than one year old issued this week – 0

REPORTS OF PROBABLE CAUSE RELEASED THIS WEEK – 2 NEW – 0 REVISED

SUMMARIES OF NEW REPORTS:

• List of Newly Released Reports
• Air Carrier, Turbine Powered & Large Aircraft Reports
• General Aviation Reports
• Homebuilt, Experimental, or Light Sport Aircraft

Double Hearsay Award nomination (from our friend Erik Rigler)

ERA12LA227  EMERAUDE CP-301-A (Preliminary)

“On March 15, 2012, about 1255 central daylight time, an experimental amateur-built Emeraude CP-301-A, N718PP, was substantially damaged when it impacted trees and terrain while approaching Ruckel Airport (FL17), Niceville, Florida….

According to the responding Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector, one of the pilots, who was also the owner of the airplane, had previously lost his FAA medical certificate due to injuries sustained in an earlier accident, and was about 2 weeks from qualifying for a new one. The pilot/owner, who was not the airplane’s original builder, had intended to fly it to Yellow River Airstrip (FD93), Holt, Florida, to undergo a condition inspection, but needed the other pilot onboard to act as pilot in command.

The inspector also reported that the mechanic who was going to do the condition inspection stated that when the pilot/owner contacted him, he did not express any concerns about the airworthiness of the airplane.

The inspector further noted that according to the pilot/owner’s wife, she was on her way to Holt to pick the pilots up when the pilot/owner called her via cell phone to advise that there was “too much military traffic in the area,” and that they were going to return to FL17; could she return to that airport to pick him up?”

From the NWF Daily News:

Plane crash victim’s wife cites error in report

One of the few things that looked to have been resolved about the March 15 plane crash that killed Donald Marco and Stanley Bloyer is resolved no longer.

Marco’s wife, Susan Marco, denied Tuesday having received a phone call from her husband shortly before the wreck to notify her that “military traffic” was preventing him and Bloyer from completing a planned flight from Niceville to Holt. “You don’t call someone from a light airplane. You can’t even hear yourself talk,” she said. “The whole story is crazy.”

But not crazy enough to have raised red flags as the erroneous information made its way from the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office to a Federal Aviation Administration accident inspector and into a preliminary report filed Monday by the National Transportation Safety Board.

As it turns out, miscommunication about a conversation between Susan and Don Marco began with speculation related by Susan to a sheriff’s deputy. Her comments were relayed from the deputy to an unknown “third party” and from that party to Deputy Bob Grappone, chief investigator on the case. Grappone’s report was used by the FAA inspector to fill out a final report that went to the NTSB.

The report states that an FAA inspector noted “according to the pilot/owner’s wife, she was on her way to Holt to pick the pilots up when the pilot/owner called her via cell phone.” It states the pilot/owner, Marco, had called his wife “to advise her that there was ‘too much military traffic in the area’ and that they were going to return to” Niceville’s Ruckel Airport. It also states that Marco asked Susan Marco if she could come to Ruckel Airport to pick up him and Bloyer. “I wouldn’t have been at Ruckel. Their cars were at Ruckel,” Susan Marco told the Daily News.

Susan Marco said she did travel to Holt to meet her husband and Bloyer. The two were bringing Don Marco’s experimental Emeraude airplane to Yellow River Airstrip, where they were to meet a mechanic who would conduct a “condition inspection.” The inspection was needed prior to Don Marco being medically cleared to fly on his own without an experienced pilot like Bloyer at his side. Marco, a 59-year-old former commercial pilot from Niceville, had lost certification after being severely injured in a 2008 plane crash.

Susan Marco said she waited with the mechanic for hours for her husband’s plane to arrive. The two apparently noticed military air traffic and speculated it could be the traffic holding up Marco and Bloyer.

Marco confirmed she later told a deputy that she thought military traffic might have been the cause for delaying her husband’s flight. That was the information that went from Deputy Shannon Tate to the third party to Grappone. Grappone “assumed she had spoken to her husband,” Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Michele Nicholson said. “The investigator thought there had been a conversation. He put that in his report,” she said. “He thought a conversation was held between the pilot and his wife when actually the wife was telling one of our deputies her speculation as to why he wasn’t there yet.”

Nicholson characterized the mistake as “just a miscommunication.” “The bottom line is it has been corrected,” she said. “It will have no bearing on the investigation of the crash.” NTSB investigator Paul Cox said he hopes to have the mistakes removed from the NTSB’s website in the next couple of days.

But that leaves crash investigators without an explanation as to why Marco and Bloyer, 66, of Fort Walton Beach, aborted their planned flight from Ruckel Airport to Holt.

The two were about a half mile from Ruckel, in a position conceivably to be preparing for landing, when their plane went down in a wooded area of Eglin Air Force Base’s reservation. The two men, both members of the Crestview-based Experimental Aircraft Association, were pronounced dead on the scene.

The Medical Examiner’s Office has not yet determined a cause and manner of death, according to officials there.

The NTSB investigation is continuing.

Read more: http://www.nwfdailynews.com/articles/crash-48826-plane-.html#ixzz1rl3C9210