PPC Fatality

[Bruce Brown]

Powered parachute crashes in southern Ohio

Associated Press

PORTSMOUTH, Ohio - A motorized parachute crash Monday afternoon in southern Ohio killed the pilot and seriously injured his passenger, authorities said.

The aircraft went down around 5:45 in a field of soybeans along U.S. 23 just north of the Ohio River town of Portsmouth, according to the Scioto County Sheriff's Office. A witness told investigators the craft clipped some treetops while taking off and fell about 60 feet.

Fifty-six-year-old James Fyffe of Lucasville was pronounced dead at the Southern Ohio Medical Center in Portsmouth. Fifty-year-old Linda Glass of Lucasville was being treated at a hospital in Huntington, W.Va. She was in fair condition late Monday, a nursing supervisor said.

The accident was the fourth deadly recreational aviation mishap in Ohio over Memorial Day weekend. A Pennsylvania woman making her first skydiving jump slipped through her harness Saturday afternoon near Sterling, about 40 miles south of Cleveland. The pilot of a small plane died in a crash Saturday evening in West Liberty, about 45 miles northwest of Columbus.

The pilot of a small helicopter crashed on a rural highway in northeast Ohio on Sunday, barely missing marchers in a Memorial Day parade.

[Dennis Bowers]

Not knowing all the specifics of the incident, there is a common theme that surrounds most accidents involving PPCs and that is someone has run into something usually involving lack of altitude. If there is one thing to be learned by these accidents it's PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE be sure you can clear your obstructions before taking off and/or give yourself plenty of room for error when flying over trees, water, or buildings. DB

[ZipItyDoDa]

If there is one thing to be learned by these accidents it's PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE be sure you can clear your obstructions before taking off and/or give yourself plenty of room for error when flying over trees, water, or buildings. DB


Actually, you can think you can make an obstacle, but for some reason this time there will be a problem that will not make it possible. Which is why I posted about my 'weird air' experience. I have a brother-in-law in Arkansas that has a field that he flies out of. He crams the throttle and he climbs out over the trees. I have already told him that one of these days he will hit strange air and the machine will NOT make it over the trees. And there's no telling how long it will be before it happens. He could be lulled into a false sense of security before the ax falls.

The answer to this is to have a Plan B. You HAVE to be able to give yourself another option if you can see your not going to make it over an obstacle.

His field is a big square with trees all around. In his case I told him to fly as close to the trees to his right as he could. That way if he sees he's in trouble he can make a left turn and come back around, until he gains more altitude. Or even pull a left and land if he has to. (With a left turn your not fighting the P factor of the prop.) So hopefully he has his Plan B already set in his mind every time he flies.

99% of the fatal incidents in the database are someone hitting something. You just have to make sure you don't. :)
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[Frank Smrdel]

The high temperature that day in the area was 91 degrees and humidity was 93%. The report said he crashed at 5:30pm....still quite warm at that time of day.
I'd guess he didn't take into account density altitude. I was going to fly that day myself, but decided not to based on the conditions. I'd rather not fly, that regret it later...

[ZipItyDoDa]

I'd guess he didn't take into account density altitude. I was going to fly that day myself, but decided not to based on the conditions. I'd rather not fly, that regret it later...


I don't want to make anyone think I'm a wise guy, and don't take this the wrong way, but it really doesn't matter about the conditions. I mean it does to the extent that you don't want to go out when conditions are really bad.

But what I'm trying to say is conditions can SEEM perfect, but won't be. You HAVE to have another option for flying. Your Plan B. You have to have it set in your mind before each takeoff and during the flight.

In my weird air post when I was heading toward the field fence dividing the two huge fields, the thought went through my head that I could probably make it over ok. I think I would have retained enough height to clear it.
But look at my situation. I have been flying for around a mile, slowly sinking and losing height. I have no idea what the cause is. And I don't know if that rate of decent will remain steady. Which it didn't when I went to turn away (very softly) from the fence.
So I could have tried to make it, but I have it locked in my mind that I will NEVER take the chance of hitting an object, as long as I have another option. (Incident database!!) :) Bruce should post it as required reading!
Instead I came down with a passenger in a corn field probably thinking the worst of my flying skills. Across the corn rows, instead of along them, bouncing a bit. Dragging my chute in dirt...etc etc. And I have no explanation for him as to why we're there, other than I was losing lift.
I now look like the idiot, that none of us wants to be. BUT then again I'm not spitting out barbed wire either! Heh
I have to give him credit though, we turned the machine, spread the chute back out and he climbed on again!

Also anyone that flew at the last ASC meet at Three Rivers knows how altitude density affects you. I had a passenger get on after two other PPC's had already went down. One in the trees. (We were also taking off with the wind!)
But I wasn't concerned, because I already had my Plan B and my Plan C ready. I had already made up my mind that if climb was a problem I would circle the bean field until I gained enough height. And if I couldn't safely circle the field to get altitude I'd be landing in the beans. (Which one person had done also.)

This isn't to suggest that I am smart. I'm not. But I have been smart enough to go through the incident database more than once...(or twice)....I have tried to learn from posts. And I have STILL been dumb enough to go out and make mistakes of my own, even after all of the help everyone else has tried to provide. :(

The only reason I am pounding away at this particular subject is, like I said 99% of the fatal incidents listed involve hitting something. And I want to try to help people avoid that at all costs.

This is a lot longer than I intended, sorry.
Ed

[Snoopy_One]

Very good advice Zip. Thanks for that gem, I will practice it religiously. (after my lessons and when I am actually solo-ing)

[iflyarascal]

This guy had a 1250 ' runway , I'd think that would have been plenty to get off the ground and clear an obsticle. After such a long take-run he must have known it was no good. Ed is right , we must always have a plan B. I've seen many guys at fly-in's fly in conditions that they wouldn't even attempt if at home. The ADM (aeornautical decision making) calls this Macho . And it kills pilots .Heres the link to the local newspaper.

Dave


http://www.portsmouth-dailytimes.com/articles/2006/05/30/news/local_news/3news_crash.txt

[Bruce Brown]

I've read a ton of speculation on the various lists about this, but there are a number of things that could have gone wrong.

First, the article indicates the trees were 1250 feet from the start of the runway. He could have attempted and aborted a takeoff and started from way down the runway. He could have been doing touch-n-go's, or a number of other things where the length of the runway wasn't really the issue.

A lot has been written about density altitude, but it is also possible that it wasn't a contributing factor. What if he had climbed to a safe altitude only to encounter an engine problem and the glide took him into the trees? What if his throttle cable stuck and he was unable to climb out properly? What if the passenger was at the controls and he took over too late? What if he had a pressure knot in his chute and didn't have good control? What if he couldn't climb due to carb ice? There really are a lot of possibilities.

While I'm not a big fan of speculation, at least it does make others more aware of the various types of things that can happen to anyone at any time.

In the vast majority of cases, these things are ruled pilot error and we really don't ever know what *really* happend. Even in the case of mechanical issues, could they have been caught on preflight therefore making the issue pilot error? And with a PPC, even if it is mechanical, who takes the time to do a proper inspection and determine what the actual cause was?

[iflyarascal]

Your right , probably only a slight chance of a proper after-crash investigation. Many things could have caused this fatality. It will just get chaulked up as " another nut trying to fly an experimental aircraft" . Do you think when sport pilot gets established there will be proper investigations into ultralight accidents ? ? ?
Dave

[kilowatt]

I'm no expert, Dave, but I doubt that future ultralight incidents will be investigated any different than they are today, even after the airworthiness and registration of the two place ultralight trainers is finalized.

For those of us who will be flying registered Sport Pilot aircraft, I believe the NTSB will be required to investigate these incidents, just as they do today with aircraft registered in the experimental and certified classes.

It is my hope that they will continue to not investigate incidents involving non-regulated ultralight vehicles.

Now, what they do when an incident involves an unregistered, Sport Pilot qualifying aircraft is yet to be seen. I can't recall any accidents lately involving an unregistered, certified qualifying or even an unregistered, experimental aircraft to draw an opinion from.

Kilowatt

[OBKB]

Giving my two cents, 1250' may sound and look like a lot of ground but on a hot sticky day it is not, I fly in Ohio from many 1200' strips and have learned that on days like that not to even think of taking a passenger, I will just barely clear the trees, not enough safety margin for me.

Zip, could your "weird air" have been a cold inversion? I encountered this once (with a passenger) very scary, kept loosing alt. even with full throttle, you could feel the temp. change when this happened, thankfully we flew out of it before it became a real concern. One of the scariest things I experienced because I didnt know what was happening at the time.

[ZipItyDoDa]

Zip, could your "weird air" have been a cold inversion? I encountered this once (with a passenger) very scary, kept loosing alt. even with full throttle, you could feel the temp. change when this happened, thankfully we flew out of it before it became a real concern. One of the scariest things I experienced because I didnt know what was happening at the time.

With 600+ hours I was stumped too! I had never run into conditions like these before.
I expect to run into conditions that I may not have experienced when I fly around in different areas, like out of state. But I didn't expect it in an area that I had flown for a big portion of my flying time. (Which is why pilots get in trouble in the first place, I guess! Heh)
But lucky for me I had no big obstacles to try to get over right away. Just a 3 or 4 foot fence and I had plenty of time to avoid it before it became a danger.
As for what it was, about all I can do is guess. And I'd have to say some kind of air layer difference, like kilowatt had suggested. I don't remember any air temp changes, but there might have been some.
The PPC is fine, I went out and flew a couple guys last night. I'm not getting any lighter and one of them was pretty good size. We were probably pushing the limit on the single carb 503 and we flew just fine. Back to normal. Thank goodness it seems to be a very rare set of conditions that cause that particular problem.

Ed

[BUBBLES]

Hey Everybody
James Fyffe was a member of the KY Ragwing Flyers, in Ashland, where he was genuinely liked by all that knew him, and what happened was not at all a matter of whether he thought he could make it or not. Mr. Fyffe attempted to take off with his sister-in-law out of a runway of I believe around 800 feet. The last communication the passenger had with Mr. Fyffe was right before takeoff when he asked "Are you ready?" and she said "Yes" and he proceeded to take off. Approximately 50 feet off the ground, Mr. Fyffe had a heart attack and died while airborne in the cockpit. His aircraft continued to fly upward into the trees where his plane hit and then fell about 50-60 feet onto tree stumps that had recently been cut down, injuring his sister-in-law, requiring hospitalization as well as reconstructive surgery.

I believe there are two major things that make you think about what happened.

1. If the passenger knew about pulling the steering lines just a bit either way, they wouldn't've hit the trees, but how would she have landed it. And...
2. If he hadn't've had the heart attack at that moment, but yet several hundred feet in the air, the passenger, as well as other people on the ground could have lost their lives.

Mr. Fyffe's wife stated that above anything, she was contempt with the fact that her husband passed away doing the thing he loved so much...flying a Powered Parachute.

My condolences go out to Mr. Fyffe's family and friends. He died shortly after I began flying and the entire group of people that fly out of our airfield was deeply saddened by his death. He will be greatly missed and his passing was certainly an awakening to us all to realize the possibilities of what COULD happen given the circumstances.

Please Fly Safely.

[ZipItyDoDa]

Hey Everybody
I believe there are two major things that make you think about what happened.

1. If the passenger knew about pulling the steering lines just a bit either way, they wouldn't've hit the trees, but how would she have landed it. And...
2. If he hadn't've had the heart attack at that moment, but yet several hundred feet in the air, the passenger, as well as other people on the ground could have lost their lives.

We had a dealer up as a passenger during instruction and the student pilot had a heart attack. He had to steer from the back with the lines and manage the rest to get back down.

Your right, it does happen!

[BUBBLES]

I'm sure that's not a good situation to be in, that's what I think is so nice about dual control machines, like some of the Buckeye Breeze LX's. Not something you'd want to fly often from the back, but it's there if you need it.