You may have heard the story. The one about the guy who crashed his airplane seven times in seven days. And you probably figured, yeah, right. It must be some sort of made-up internet thing. You figured that there was no way that it could be true, and you were right. There was no seven crashes in seven days.
It was seven crashes in nine days.
Hey, I don’t blame you for not believing that this really happened. It defies reality.
But it did happen. And not only that, but thanks to a nine-page letter of explanation the pilot wrote to the authorities — more than one page per accident — we have unique insight into his thinking, or lack thereof.
What can we learn from this epic explanation? We’ll get to that, but first, let me take you through the crash-a-thon.
Setting the Stage
It starts as a love story. The pilot of our adventure falls for a pretty face. So, I guess it’s really more of a lust story, than a love story.
But after 20 years out of aviation, with kids now grown and gone, the 60-year-old private pilot decides to sell his now-too-large house, goes airplane shopping, and is reconnected with the lost flame of his youth: A Seawind 3000, a sleek, powerful, composite amphibian experimental.
The seller sends him pictures that showed, in the pilot’s words, “a pristine aircraft including spotless engine.”
The pilot writes a $1,000 deposit check on the spot to hold the airplane until his house sells. But there’s a delay in the house sale. The seller tells the pilot he has “many interested people” and demands another $3,000 to hold it. The pilot writes another check.
But he does not get a pre-buy inspection.
Once the pilot’s house sale closes, he lets the seller know that he’s good to go, but now the seller demands the entire sale amount wired to him as “other parties were clamoring to get it.”
The pilot complies, to the tune of around $100,000, and then buys a one-way ticket from Michigan to California to pick up his new airplane.
The unpleasantness starts when he arrives early in the morning, fresh off of a red-eye commercial flight.
The Seawind, which hasn’t been flown in two years, isn’t in very good shape, after all. One of the two auxiliary fuel pumps is in-operable. The aileron trim isn’t working. The elevator trim and trim indicator are out of sync. There are instrument problems. There are brake problems, including the brake lines that are reversed.
According to the pilot, the seller brushes off these various issues.
Oh. Right. And the logs were lost and the seller “recreated them to the best of his ability.”
The seller — and we only have the pilot’s side of the story here — also tells the pilot that he’s not current, cannot check the pilot out in the airplane, and refuses to go up with him.
Nevertheless, the next day, the pilot takes his new plane to the sky for the first time, and the crash-a-thon begins.
The Accidents
Crash #1
Dateline: June 26, 2021, KPOC, La Verne, California
The new owner’s first flight doesn’t go well. The airplane is squirrelly, wanting to pitch up, requiring significant yoke downforce to stay level. He gets task-saturated and lands his new airplane gear-up having never gone anywhere in it.
Apparently the Seawind has a tough hull, and the plane was jacked up, the gear lowered, and it was able to taxi off the runway.
At this point the seller tells the pilot he has other commitments and disappears.
At 3 p.m., the pilot gets in the airplane and heads east for home. It’s a fast airplane, there’s a tailwind in the forecast, and he thinks he can make it to Taos, New Mexico, for the night.
Crash #2
Dateline: June 26, 2021, KFMN, Farmington, New Mexico
The planned flight to Taos doesn’t go well. The plane’s nose-up pitching is getting worse. The pilot resorts to keeping the yoke pushed forward using his knee, padded with a rag. But he flies on.
As night closes in, he decides Taos isn’t in the cards, and diverts to Farmington.
But now it’s getting dark, and he hasn’t made a night landing in 20 years. The landing light doesn’t work, and suddenly the avionics dim out. He uses his cell phone for illumination. On final, he has the yoke to the firewall to keep the nose level.
Over the threshold the airplane balloons, and with all the other problems, he rejects the idea of a go-around, and ends up stalling high and coming down hard. The airplane exits the runway, takes out two runway lights and a runway sign, then plows through the “weeds and bumpy sage grasses.”
So that’s two crashes in one day.
By the light of day the next morning, he discovers significant damage to the tail and left wing flap from the assorted ground collisions.
He also has a message from the FAA, would he please give them a call? It will be the first of several conversations he’ll be having with the agency over the next week.
He finds a friendly mechanic who loans him space and tools to make repairs.
At this point, I should point out that the pilot had an experimental aircraft builder repairman certificate, but it was issued in 1999, and it only permits him to work on one airplane: A Lancair ES that he had built and sold decades before — not the airplane he had just purchased.
Crash #3
Dateline: On or about June 28, still at KFMN
The pilot reports the repairs from the night landing accident take three days.
Apparently at some point during this period, he makes a test hop and takes out another runway light, again following a hard landing.
He also reports that he finds numerous issues with the plane during these three days, most construction errors relating to the elevator trim controls.
But our hero is not one to give up easily.
Crash #4
Dateline: June 29, 2021, KONL, O’Neill, Nebraska
He leaves New Mexico early to avoid an approaching storm front and manages to “squeak through.”
At first, the airplane behaves and flies well, but about two hours into the five-hour flight, the longitudinal pitch problem returns, and continues to get worse with each passing mile. He soldiers on, using the rag and knee method, to reach O’Neill.
The first landing attempt is a disaster: Skipping, crisscrossing the runway, and off on to the grass. He powers up and goes around. He repeats this process four or five times, before finally coming to a stop with runway lights wrapped around his landing gear.
He spends three more days making repairs, including replacing a trim servo motor that was apparently not the proper one for the airplane.
This installation gives him some trouble, and in the end, he’s faced with two wires — one white and one gray — that he’s not sure how to hook up. He takes a random stab at it, tests the trim, and is convinced that he has it right.
We talked a while back about the problems pilots have in viewing proper trim tab movements. (Human Factors: “Sometimes it’s the little things“)
Oh, and at some point during all of this, he also realizes that as a solo pilot of his weight, the airplane is outside its CG limits after it begins burning off fuel in flight. For compensating ballast, he buys sand at the local hardware store, seals it in one-gallon ziplock bags, and stacks the bags in the nose of the airplane.
Crash #5
Dateline: July 2, 2021, still at KONL
Convinced all is fixed, he heads off for his home in lower Michigan. But… you guessed it. He picked the wrong wire during his illegal repairs. The plane pitches up like crazy when he tries to trim nose-down. He aborts his flight, comes around the pattern, and plants the Seawind on the runway. No runway excursion this time, but he bends the left landing gear leg.
At this point, our anti-hero realizes he wired the trim servo motor backwards so that the indicator was criss-cross from the actual operation.
He states he didn’t ask for any help when he was confused as he “didn’t want to bother anyone for a second opinion.” He swaps the wires, and a local metal shop straightens the gear leg.
One of the local pilots, who helps him tow the crippled Seawind from the runway, suggests that he fly home commercially and leave the Seawind behind as a gate guard for the airport entrance.
Crash #6
Dateline: July 3, 2021, KISQ, Manistique, Michigan
At dawn on Saturday morning, he again departs. The pilot flies across Nebraska, South Dakota, and on over Michigan without crashing, but his losing streak isn’t over yet.
About five miles out from the airport, according to his narrative, he heard a “clunk sound” and realized his left main landing gear had deployed uncommanded.
He checks the hydraulic pressure and finds he has none. Then he realizes he’s not getting fuel from his left tank, and the right is nearly empty. He tries to lower the gear. The right main comes down, but the nose gear doesn’t.
The engine is sputtering from fuel exhaustion and he’s out of options. At least with the airplane in CG, the flare is normal, but with no nose gear, he wracks up his sixth crash.
He has to chat with the FAA again, then he re-fills the hydraulic fluid reservoir and refuels the Seawind. On fueling up, the pilot now discovers the fuel senders on the inboard tanks are flipped. The tank he thought was empty is full, and vice-versa.
He also admits he wasn’t really sure how the fuel system worked.
But still, he “blasts off” for home heading out over the chilly water of Lake Michigan.
He leaves the gear down, per his discussion of the hydraulic issues with the FAA.
Crash #7
Dateline: July 4, 2021, Lake Michigan, near the Beaver Islands
The plane has a hard time climbing above 5,500 feet, but he soldiers on. Then, far from shore, the engine starts sputtering and nearly stops. He fusses with the mixture and throttle, but no dice. With one last gasp, the engine stops dead.
Suddenly, he smells something burning. Too low and too far from shore, he prepares for a ditching. The flaps won’t go down, and the gear won’t come up. Once again, there’s no hydraulic pressure.
It’s late afternoon as he glides silently toward the surface of the lake for what will be his first-ever water landing.
He says in the last seconds he was “transfixed by the beauty of the sun over the water,” then he hits the surface. The gear digs in, and the airplane dives like a submarine. Briefly, he’s treated to an underwater panorama through the canopy, then the Seawind pops back to the surface and bobs like a cork.
To his credit, it was probably the best landing of the ferry flight, and that was with gear down on the water, to boot.
He shuts off all his switches, opens the canopy and takes in the view, thinking, “It’s a boat, I’ll float until someone finds me.”
But it’s not to be, as the battered, many-times-crashed Seawind starts taking on water from the back of the cabin. He starts bailing, but he’s quickly outpaced, and the airplane starts going down by the tail. He steps out onto the submerged wing.
Even though it’s an amphibious airplane, he has no life jacket. He looks around and sees “all my stuff floating out over the big body of water. My shoes, hat, the landing light, new headsets,” and he thinks of the Titanic.
As his command sinks, it settles into a nose-low attitude. He climbs atop the engine, and finally takes refuge on the horizontal stab. At this point, the sun is setting, and he realizes that he “might not make it.”
And in what might be his last moments on the planet, he says, he wondered if he’d ever see his kids and grandkids again.
He said, “I thought of the stupid thing I did.” And he admits, “I’m at fault for believing I could fix this and get home.”
But, tellingly, he adds, “I just wanted to go home.”
At that point, having only used up seven of the nine lives that his readily apparent cat DNA granted him, the U.S. Coast Guard shows up to fish him out of the cold water. Moments later, the Seawind rolls belly up and sinks to the bottom of Lake Michigan, never to be seen again.
He ends his day at 1 a.m. sitting outside of a hospital in Charlevoix, in dry paper clothing, waiting for his family to pick him up.
Analysis & Discussion
Wow. Where to even start, now that we’ve used up half the space in the magazine just detailing the facts?
Well, obviously, the airplane was a total piece of junk. It does not appear to have been built correctly nor maintained appropriately. In fact, the NTSB’s remarkably short final report — which only focuses on the ditching — says that, “based on the pilot’s flight, it’s likely the airplane was not airworthy before the pilot’s initial departure.”
But there are two things to consider here.
First, when it comes to airplane purchases, caveat emptor is the ruling principle. That’s true for any airplane but, I’d argue, particularly so with experimental kit builds, where the airplane’s quality is intimately linked to the skill and attention of the builder. So a pre-buy inspection is crucial in an experimental buy.
Of course, there are two challenges to that. One, you’ve got to find a pre-buy mechanic who really knows the type, and with Seawinds few and far between, that’s admittedly a tall order.
Still, paying full asking price, without a pre-buy inspection, and without even seeing the airplane in person? Puleeze.
The second challenge is the hot airplane market, which has made the decades-long standard practice of getting a pre-buy inspection part-and-parcel of airplane sales less common. There are so many more buyers than airplanes coming out of COVID that sellers really don’t have to wait on — or take a sale price-reducing chance on — a pre-buy inspection.
This has broken more than one heart and more than one bank account.
The second thing to consider here is 14 CFR § 91.7, which says it doesn’t matter if the airplane is a piece of junk, as pilot in command it’s your responsibility before taking flight — and taking out numerous runway lights and signs at small airports — to ensure the aircraft is airworthy.
And speaking of law, we also need to think about the days of illegal repairs he made to the airplane during the flight.
Now, I’m happy looking the other way if a repair-savvy pilot makes a simple field repair to get going, but these were major post-accident repairs. No bueno.
Should the FAA have stopped this before it got to this point? That’s hard to say.
The “rightness” of intervention aside, the FAA is pretty spread out, so it’s not clear they had the whole picture at the time, although they eventually did.
In an FAA inspector’s email to the NTSB investigator assigned to the accident, the FAA inspector said, “I have attached a timeline for this mess.”
And there was certainly some bad piloting. The pilot didn’t understand his systems — granted, a challenge with a new airplane with apparently no manual — but he also didn’t seem in tune with his instruments, which could have warned him of some of his impending troubles.
The Takeaway
In fairness to the pilot, this was an epic feat of flying. He flew a mechanically unairworthy airplane 1,932 statute miles — although, granted, with almost as many crashes as the Vin Fiz Flyer — and lived to tell the tale. So he deserves a trophy for that. But it’s also an epic feat of bad judgment. Well, judgments.
So where does that leave us? Is this more than a simple “can you believe this story?” Is there a useful takeaway for the rest of us?
What can we learn from this, beyond the oft-repeated need for a pre-buy inspection? Beyond a reminder of the importance of weight and balance, especially in a new-to-you airplane? Beyond the reminder to monitor instruments in flight? Beyond the advice to listen to an airplane when it’s talking to you? To get it on the ground right away when it starts flying badly, rather than keep pushing on?
Is it, perhaps, a case study for get-there-itis? A teaching tool for new pilots?
I don’t think so.
Although an impressive demonstration of get-there-itis on steroids, as a case study, I find it to be a bad teaching tool. It’s so exaggerated, so ridiculous, as not to be something the average student pilot could respond to as a risk within their own behavior set.
And while he’s certainly the new poster boy for poor aeronautical decision-making, again, I see no value in it, as it’s such an extreme example of forging ahead against all common sense as to have an almost cartoon-like quality. Wile E. Coyote would hang his head in shame by comparison.
But there is one thing that stands out to me. One new revelation.
In aviation, we often talk about the accident chain. Where a chain of decisions, actions, or events — each a metaphorical link in a chain — leads solidly to an accident. Break one link and the accident would have never happened. But in this case, what we have is a chain of accidents that all come from a single link.
And that’s something to think about.
The Numbers
Want to read more? Download the NTSB’s final report here or view the items on docket here.
What I find to be odd is that on the 21st of July it was spotted flying around Riverside airport.
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/N8UU
Conspiracy theory anyone?
Did you even read the NTSB report?
https://data.ntsb.gov/carol-repgen/api/Aviation/ReportMain/GenerateNewestReport/103484/pdf
Airplane was crashed into lake Michigan and never recovered.
Why does the FAA aircraft registry show N8UU registered in Alaska with the registration expiring in 2027 ?
https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/Search/NNumberInquiry
The story appears to be a ‘tall tail’, which never happened.
Absolutely NO part of this story, the author of the “pilot’s” grammatically challenged written account, nor the utterly incomplete NTSB docket rings true. The registered owner of the “aircraft” (Boltair, LTD.) doesn’t even exist and never has, Lynn Swann was a football player not an aircraft builder, and Flight Aware has N8UU last flying in the pattern at a CA airport in 2022, a year after this series of events supposedly took place. Seriously? What else can I sell you mindless drones?
And, the FAA N-number registry has it currently registered in Kenai, Alaska, expiring in 2027.!
https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/Search/NNumberInquiry
Boltair ltd has an address in Seward AK..!
So, this does sound like a very long made up story.
“Your story is incorrect with regard to the certification to work on an aircraft with an experimental certificate. An experimental aircraft builder repairman certificate is not required. Anyone can work on one, so his maintenance is at least mostly legal. I do wonder given the accident repairs, and a change to a control surface if any of the changes would be major repairs requiring re-entry into Phase I where there would be added limitations.”
This guy is correct. The only thing the repairman certificate does for an experimental aircraft is allow the holder to perform the condition inspection for that specific aircraft. Experimental amateur built(EAB) aircraft are not given “annual” inspections as you would with your Cessna 150, but given condition inspections which can be performed by an A&P or the holder of the repairman certificate. It does not require an IA. The inspection must be accomplished in within the previous 12 calendar months before flight.
The fact that this gentleman held a repair certificate for a previous built EAB means he had previous knowledge of these things. How familiar is subjective and unknown.
Respectfully submitted.
His NTSB report will make a great movie or teaching/learning video. Sell the rights, and maybe get your money back. His decision making is the epitome of the definition of a “bad pilot”.
If only Peter Sellers was still with us…
I’ll just say that the guy’s Guardian Angels must have been working overtime, both when he crashed, and keeping the plane in the air as long as possible.
He should never buy another lottery ticket as he’s already used up all of his luck.
Total bad decision making on the buyers part, you can’t tell me that the buyer not once thought about what he was doing and trying to achieve. He knew exactly what he was doing all along, he knew he had stepped in a pile of crap and no matter what he did, it would not come off, he made a horrible decision and did not want to admit that he had done that. For reasons only he knew !!! Total ideate !!!
Knowing when to stop is one one the great secrets of life.
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse…
He shoulda taken an A&P along with him on the trip. I seriously doubt any competent A&P woulda let him embark on that flight without some serious consideration to the airworthiness of the aircraft to begin with…
Did the aircraft have a valid condition inspection? Or did the FAA issue a valid ferry permit?
I know someone else who bought an airplane without a pre-buy and wound up regretting it (but won’t admit it). Fast LSA, paint falling off, full of wasp nests, alternator not working (the seller had a Harbor Freight solar panel in the cockpit to charge the battery, flew around for fifteen to twenty minutes and came back as soon as the battery got low), lots of rusted hardware (tied down near the ocean), you name it. New owner has been “too busy” to fly it or get transition training (two years so far), which is probably just as well.
I hate to say it, but learning from the mistakes of others is much less expensive and/or painful than making those mistakes yourself, and there is SO much teaching material out there . ..
What an amazing story! Just shows how a loving God protects us idiots in our endeavors. I wonder if the seller should be partly liable? Yes, I believe in caveat emptor in aircraft sales, but the least the seller could have said was “it hasn’t flown in two years and my aircraft building skills are no better than average.”
The buyer had ample warnings with this seller to back out of the sale. Not to mention, that he never saw the airplane before paying for it. A foolish mistake to be sure. Also, there are dirt balls misrepresenting aircraft they are selling with no concern that the buyer might be injured or killed in the piece of garbage they are trying to sell. Buyer be ware !
If you want to read the rambling letter the “pilot” wrote. Take a look here. He almost killed his entire family it seems some 20 years before. Probably should have limited himself to being a passenger soon after his initial Private Pilot training.
https://data.ntsb.gov/Docket?ProjectID=103484
I remember reading about this back in 2021. It is so crazy, it hardly seems possible. A single article about it seems to short, as it seems it needs a book written to cover it all.
I know nothing about a Seawind 3000, but it must be a pretty tough plane to put up with this abuse.
Is the pilot still flying? Does he have a license? How can I avoid being near him?
You have raised a serious question for second owners of experimental aircraft.
The aircraft in the story presumably did not have a condition inspection? Therefore the whole flight was illegal. But still the question remains- what repairs can the second owner make? Without a condition inspection any repairs made by anyone do not make the aircraft airworthy.
Why were the repairs made by the second owner illegal? My understanding is that he was free to make the repairs but that didn’t allow him to fly the plane.
We need clarification of a difficult issue.
Thanks
Anyone can work on an Experimental aircraft, but only an A&P or the holder of the Repairman Certificate for that particular aircraft can sign off the Condition Inspection. His repairs are legal, but that point is moot if the Seawind hasn’t had a condition inspection in 2 years. It was illegal to fly from the get-go..
Some people are blaming the FAA. The way the story was told I don’t think it would have mattered what the FAA said or did (short of taking the keys and locking the engine somehow) this guy was still going to fly. A lot of things to point out but one major one was get home get home. If you are too busy and have to get home, then don’t fly.
Generally I would have no pity for such a foolish endeavor but this is so absurd it looped all the way past my “he’s insane” meter and came all the way back to “that poor SOB REALLY wanted to fly”. The desperately wanting to fly part is the only bit I can empathize with. I’m sure he missed it so much he just HAD to make it work. And for that desire he handed a sheister his money and got a bucket of flying bolts then proceeded to make aviation lemonade for 2000 miles. Frankly, after the disbelief wears off, you kinda have to be like “good job, Mr. Tenacious.”. Not many can use force of Will to make that many clearly disfunctional systems hold together for 9 days. There needs to be a Mr Scott division of the Darwin awards established just for this guy.
What a wonderful article Mr Dubois. You have us all thinking, as usual. Many lessons here to be learned. Thank goodness no one was hurt.
Excellent story, and the lesson to be learned here is to never fly anything that is not 100% operating correctly, anyone can argue this, that and the other, but when you know something is not right and still commit yourself to something you know that is not safe….it’s on you. After reading his misadventures I thank God that this individual is still among the living.
“Briefly, he’s treated to an underwater panorama through the canopy, then the Seawind pops back to the surface and bobs like a cork”
I spit my coffee laughing at this sentence.
And that is ALL there is to laugh about. Usually not one to criticize another due to the past mistakes I’ve made. But in this case, I’ll make an exception.
What a total moron.
I’m amused by the prior comment he made, “He says in the last seconds he was “transfixed by the beauty of the sun over the water”. What he SHOULD have been “Transfixed” with was landing as safely as possible under the circumstances, not enjoying the sunset!
wow………I am unable to comment with out using words that are appropriate …….without using profanity!!!!!
I think of all those innocents this moron flew over and could have killed if he crashed…
The FAA is at fault and should have shut down this disregard for safety and common sense…
That it!!!!!
Can’t they lift his license?
In my opinion the sinking of this plane was a blessing, as he never reached his final destination and as a result his kids and grand kids will probably live to reach retirement age.
That is truly an amazing story and very mind boggling. Your account of it does, however, lead me to a couple of questions.
In two places, at the beginning of the explanation of crash #5 and again in your “Analysis & Discussion” you refer to “illegal repairs”. What leads you to make that statement?
I’m not arguing that the poor fellow wouldn’t have benefitted greatly from someone more knowledgeable than himself, but there was nothing he did that was :illegal”. Earlier in the piece you point out: “…the pilot had an experimental aircraft builder repairman certificate, but it was issued in 1999…” That really has nothing to do with anything. The only thing that a repairman certificate is needed for on an Experimental Amateur Built (EAB) airplane is the Condition Inspection that has to be performed once a year, similar to an annual inspection on a certificated aircraft. All other repair and modification work on an EAB does not require any certification at all and can be performed by anyone. Again, just because it can be done, doesn’t mean that qualified help shouldn’t be sought when needed.
Lastly, a few times you mention the airplane not being “airworthy”. Technically an EAB airplane is never airworthy as it has no type certificate to be in compliance with. An EAB is supposed to be, as is stated in the signoff for the condition inspection, “in a condition for safe operation”, which this airplane obviously wasn’t.
Your story is incorrect with regard to the certification to work on an aircraft with an experimental certificate. An experimental aircraft builder repairman certificate is not required. Anyone can work on one, so his maintenance is at least mostly legal. I do wonder given the accident repairs, and a change to a control surface if any of the changes would be major repairs requiring re-entry into Phase I where there would be added limitations.