Although he had no night or instrument flight experience, the sport pilot and his passenger departed in a non-instrument-certificated light sport airplane at night with an overcast ceiling and thunderstorms in the area.
Radar data showed that the Zenith CH701SP proceeded on course for about nine minutes and then entered a right descending turn that continued to hitting the ground near Laddonia, Missouri. This was consistent with the pilot attempting to return to the departure airport and not paying attention to his altitude.
Examination of the accident site revealed that the plane struck open level farm land in a right wing-low, nose-low attitude.
It is likely that the pilot continued visual flight into an area of instrument meteorological conditions, which resulted in the him experiencing a loss of visual reference and subsequent spatial disorientation.
The pilot had a history of chronic insomnia treated with temazepam, a sedating benzodiazepine, and was regularly prescribed hydrocodone, an opioid analgesic. Toxicology testing detected these drugs and their metabolites in the pilot’s system.
He was likely impaired by effects from his use of temazepam, and the impairing effects of temazepam were likely enhanced by his use of hydrocodone. It is likely that his decision-making was degraded due to his combined use of temazepam and hydrocodone.
Probable cause: The pilot’s decision to take off at night and continue visual flight into instrument meteorological conditions. which resulted in the pilot becoming spatially disoriented and losing control of the airplane. Contributing to the accident were the pilot’s degraded decision-making due to his use of a combination of impairing prescription drugs, and the pilot’s lack of instrument and night flight experience.
NTSB Identification: CEN17FA288
This July 2017 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.
Flying at night in almost IMC in a VLA is very close to suicide. That will not be prosecuted.
But killing somebody is murder!
From the NTSB Medical Report;
…..’ He had never applied for an aviation medical certificate and was legally allowed to operate his light sport aircraft as long as he maintained a valid driver’s license.’
It might be a good idea to require a BasicMed medical for all pilots, as a minimum.
I have over 23,000 hours with an ATP. I could not be doped enough or drunk enough to commit such an atrocity especially with a passenger. I just don’t get it.
Same here. 26,000 hours and no way would I try to fly at night in weather. I had enough of that in 30 years of airline flying.
if no medical is required for sport license at least periodically or random drug screenings should be. with all the opioids being prescribed these days and their availability wouldn’t it be within reason to require this? and i understand the FAA is trying to keep its distance from this area but surely they should have some input into this subject. this surely isn’t the first accident attributed to these types of drugs or combinations of drugs. screening could have possibly save these two individuals lives. just seems to me we are taking it for granted whomever climbs into a cockpit and assumes P.I.C. is clean and sober . maybe its time we discard these assumptions.
The early model Cessna 150 and 172’s have an emergency procedure for flight into IMC.
Turn loose of the control wheel and referencing the turn and bank with rudder establish a standard rate turn for one minute, level wings and fly out of conditions.
Works for vfr night if losing outside references, adding thrust will climb to attain lost visual or turn around.
They let pilots “out to lunch” fly too? Wow.
It would be nice if you showed accident picture to drive home the importance of your messages
What message? A drugged up junior pilot kills self and an innocent person…it’s not even a newsmaker.
Photos are usually available;
click on the NTSB report, copy the number, from the ‘investigations’ tab- select ‘accident dockets’, click ‘search’ , paste the ntsb number , click ‘find’…
https://dms.ntsb.gov/pubdms/search/document.cfm?docID=466813&docketID=61601&mkey=95688
The aircraft broke into multiple pieces, which make me think the structure is much weaker than a Cessna 172, with the empty weight about 1/2.! Is this typical of experimentals ?
Not typical, JimH.