According to the skydiving pilot’s report, he leveled the Cessna 182 about 11,000 feet and established a speed of 80 mph with 10° of flaps extended.
When the last skydiver exited the airplane, its nose pitched up. The pilot pushed forwarded on the control wheel and added full engine power.
He experienced “difficulties” in pushing the control wheel forward and thought a parachute caused the control issue.
He subsequently used full nose down trim to assist his control of the airplane.
A witness in a chase airplane confirmed the bent right horizontal stabilizer.
The pilot assessed the deteriorating flight control situation. He decided to jump out of the airplane over farmland near Valmeyer, Ill., and use his emergency parachute there.
The pilot observed the airplane spiral down as he descended under his parachute.
A skydiver reported there were no mechanical malfunctions up to the time he exited and the last skydiver confirmed that his reserve canopy had deployed prematurely as he was leaving the step.
The NTSB determined the probable cause as the inadvertent deployment of the skydiver’s drogue chute when he exited the airplane, resulting in it contacting and damaging the horizontal stabilizer.
NTSB Identification: CEN14CA289
This June 2014 accident report is provided by the National Transportation Safety Board. Published as an educational tool, it is intended to help pilots learn from the misfortunes of others.
The elevator must have been damaged greatly to offset the controls, maybe even locking them into a pitch angle where the plane could not be flown back to the field or an emergency landing off field possibility. If you can diagnose the problem quickly better to leave the ship and hit the silk.
Lack of currency is the word to describe this one. Why not stablish a good angle of descent, better control of the airplane and use an emergency checklist and procedure? It looks that this pilot have too little hours on his logbook. 11,000 feet is enough altitude for thinking better and avoid throwing away a very reliable aircraft.
Parachute brings down aircraft………….. poor headline and that type of headline certainly does not contribute to other pilots comprehending the reality of the situation(s)…………. PHYSICS is what brought down this aircraft after the PIC abandoned it…………. it is called GRAVITY !!!!!!!!!!!
What contributed to the aircraft becoming a piece of salvage….. multiple things……… but the parachute was not the force that brought this aircraft to smite the earth, versus a controlled precision landing…
Please, do not use headlines that are not accurate and do not contribute to pilots understanding that they are the PIC of a piece of metal that will always obey the laws of physics…….
I can almost guarantee you that the pilot was not the owner of the plane.
“When the last skydiver exited the airplane, its nose pitched up. The pilot pushed forwarded on the control wheel and added full engine power.”
When the nose pitched up why would he add full power? After bailed out he “watched the airplane spiral down” and crash. Bet he didn’t bail out with it left at full power.
Somebody just threw away a slightly damaged airplane.
I may be an armchair quarterback here, but at11,000 feet, I’d do a bit more investigating of how the plain feels, before bailing out. Just thinking.
He would add full power to help prevent an aerodynamic stall since the pitch up would bleed airspeed off. That is basic piloting !!!
And the plane probably spiraled down in a semi-stalled state, power setting having little to do with that. Aircraft tend to do stuff like that after they are abandoned, just look at the Thunderbirds F-16 that recently made a fairly intact landing after the pilot ejected.
If the pilot elected to bail out he was probably concerned that the aircraft would not be controllable enough to execute a safe landing and did not want to wait until he was too low to do anything. Since he knew there was visible damage he might have also been concerned that the damage could become progressive and start shedding important parts like the elevator. Regardless it is better to write off the aircraft than risk a human life and possibly lives on the ground, this is not some Hollywood thriller with a brave pilot landing against all odds, this is real life.
You might be right. Maybe the pilot did use up 8000 feet of altitude trying to determine if the airplane was controllable or not and maybe he/she guided it away from populated areas before bailing out, if so kudos to him/her. Or maybe the pilot panicked and because he/she was wearing a chute ran for the door. Not enough information here to know. All I know is this airplane was not badly damaged, was probably controllable and the nose will ALWAYS drop if there’s no power or reduced power. THAT’S basic airmanship and the reason the airplane spriraled down on its own.
Really!? Is that how you recover from a power on stall in your world? It works differently in mine. Nose high, power on, reduce power, nose falls, EVERY TIME. Proof is the fact that the airplane spiraled down on its own basically under control, not shedding pieces. The fact that the pilot left the airplane has nothing to do with it’s flying capabliities. This pilot had 8000 feet to determine if the airplane was controllable and there was another aircraft on scene which apparently confirmed the bent stabilizer as the only damage. The report says it crashed because of the damage to the stabilizer, not entirely true. It crashed because the pilot bailed out. That’s all we really know.