The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association Air Safety Institute (ASI) has released a new video from its Early Analysis series providing an initial examination of a fatal accident involving a light sport aircraft.
On Sept. 8, 2022, a PiperSport crashed at the Santa Monica Municipal Airport (KSMO) in California. The accident caused the airplane to catch fire. No one on the ground was injured, but a CFI and student pilot died in the accident.
The flight had departed the Santa Monica Municipal airport on what appears to have been a 30-minute discovery flight along the coastline before returning to KSMO.
“In Early Analysis: N126WK, the AOPA Air Safety Institute wants to help pilots understand what is known about the accident as we look at factors that are likely to be a subject of the investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB),” said AOPA’s ASI senior vice president Richard McSpadden.
“Light sport aircraft are highly pitch sensitive and the PiperSport pitched up aggressively before it spiraled into the ground,” he continued. “The accident sequence may have started from the PiperSport encountering disturbed air from a departing Beechcraft King Air.”
“Another possibility is based on ATC audio of the PiperSport’s cockpit communications. From that audio it appears that someone may have panicked and pulled back the stick aggressively during final approach to land,” he said.
You can see the video here.
You can see other Early Analysis videos here.
Click bait is usually associated with some monetary end. Not so here.
Unlikely, but still possible…
What if it was an attempted murder/suicide by the CFI and the “student” was trying to save it? You would need to do voice analysis to determine who’s voice it was on the radio. Was the PTT switch pushed purposely or accidentally?
Early analysis? More like jumping the gun to set out a little more clickbait… AOPA has sunk to some new lows of late… but this is exceptionally objectionable. WAIT till all the facts are in!