The airline transport pilot was conducting a personal flight in his recently-purchased experimental, amateur-built Fisher Celebrity when the plane experienced an in-flight breakup and crashed in a cornfield near Patriot, Indiana. The pilot died in the crash.
There were no witnesses to the accident.
The upper and lower left wings were attached to each other, but were separated from the fuselage. Part of the lower right wing was located with the wreckage, but not attached to the fuselage.
Additional parts of the upper and lower right wings were found scattered throughout an area between 400 yards to 800 yards west of the wreckage, and other parts of the wings were found about 80 yards from the wreckage. However, the majority of the wing structure was not found.
The right wing attachment fittings displayed fractures intersecting the inboard wing spar attachment bolt hole. The fracture features for each attachment fitting were rough and matte gray in appearance, consistent with ductile overstress fracture and with upward bending of the wing at the attachment location.
The outboard end of the attachment fitting piece for the aft spar was also bent aft relative to the inboard end, consistent with the entire upper and lower right wings folding upward and rearward, bending and separating from the airplane.
Because this airplane is a biplane, the upward bending of the lower wing attachment was secondary to a primary failure elsewhere, but that location could not be determined due to the fact that a majority of the wing structure was unrecovered.
Probable cause: An in-flight separation of the right wing due to upward and rearward bending that led to an overstress fracture. The reason for the upward and rearward bending could not be determined based on the available information.
NTSB Identification: CEN18FA282
This July 2018 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.
I agree. My personal-built RV-7A is aircraft grade through and through and maintained the same as a well maintained GA aircraft. I would be leery of buying one not built by a qualified builder with a great reputation. With that said, I’ve seen some older GA aircraft that make me shudder when I see the condition of said aircraft during a good inspection.
R. Steve McKamey, PE conducted the post crash review of the aircraft in the presence of an FAA employee and an NTSB employee. His report is in the accident Docket located on the NTSB website. He wrote:
“The failure of the bracket indicates that the top portion failed in tension and the bottom portion below the attach bolt failed in compression indicating that the wing was experiencing a negative load in excess of its ultimate strength limits. … Image 4 shows one of the other main spar failures representative of them all. It is my opinion that the initial structural failure was in the brackets shown above.
“Another failure that was notable was in the threaded portion of the upper rod end on the left aileron
connecting rod. It appeared to have internal corrosion that may have been antecedent to the accident
and also may have contributed to the cause of the accident.”
Mr. McKamey also noted in his report that the aircraft was “well constructed”.
In an unusual step for the NTSB, there is no medical report included in the Docket, despite this being a fatal accident. Evidently there was some sort of autopsy, since there is a very brief mention of a minimalist examination and toxicology report in the NTSB Final narrative. Why the toxicology report was omitted is open to speculation.
According to Mr. McKamey’s report, the 67 year old pilot held an ATP, was an FAA employee of the Cincinnati FSDO, and was “…a DAR for amateur-built aircraft.” So he clearly knew his way around EAB aircraft.
While the root cause (i.e. “initiating event”) is not clearly known, it does seem clear that the pilot lost control of the aircraft shortly before he crashed.
Started building an RV7A years ago, then quit with the tail section kit. I realized that by the time I would be finished, it would cost North of $60K, years of work. and I would not want the liability of selling it to someone when I have to hang up my wings someday. People are “sue” happy these days and I don’t want any part of a lawsuit. Even a signed agreement by the buyer acknowledging that it is amateur built in the experimental category thus holding the builder harmless would not stop a hotshot attorney from taking the builder to court. So I spent a fraction of the money to buy a nice old Bonanza where I perform the maintenance and owner assisted annual inspections with my IA. As a result, my costs are reasonable and I’m flying a safe, comfortable and fast certified airplane.That being said, the build process was a great learning experience making the RV tail kit purchase very worthwhile.
Better to stay away from kits and experimentals entirely. Sure the ‘lure’ of saving money seems enticing but it’s a myth (you swap time for money, a LOT of time) and you invite what happened to this guy and what happened to singer John Denver who died in an experimental Long-EZ with a flaky fuel selector.
Better to build yourself. So many people these days buying home-built airplanes that someone else built – gives me the creeps. They have no idea what they are looking at. (Yes I’ve built and fly my own airplane.)