Arkansas Crash

[iflyarascal]

Just 2 days after the "ppc in a tree" incident in N.C. There has been another in Flippin,Arkansas.
Jim is a very experienced pilot , a BFI with ASC and earned his Sport Pilot license in October.
Jimmy is in ICU at St John's in Springfield with a broken femur, broken ankle, punctured lung and facial damage including eye damage, all on the left side.
He was caught by a nasty gust while attempting to land . The ppc appeared to hit hard on one side and did not roll.
The wind here miles away was varying from calm to gusty and changing directions.
Dave

[Joe Hines]

Dave,
Does he need anything? I will say a prayer for his and the pilot in the tree’s recovery. But for the grace of God go us all.

[tonyray]

Just 2 days after the "ppc in a tree" incident in N.C. There has been another in Flippin,Arkansas.
Jim is a very experienced pilot , a BFI with ASC and earned his Sport Pilot license in October.
Jimmy is in ICU at St John's in Springfield with a broken femur, broken ankle, punctured lung and facial damage including eye damage, all on the left side.
He was caught by a nasty gust while attempting to land . The ppc appeared to hit hard on one side and did not roll.
The wind here miles away was varying from calm to gusty and changing directions.
Dave
Any further info? How did you find out about the incident? Is there any contact information that he would want made public? I am in Arkansas, three hours from Springfield, and could make a run up if I could be of any help.

[iflyarascal]

Below is an email sent to me , it explains more about what happened. I've posted this info so others may learn from it . I take no pleasure in hearing about the misfortune of crashes. We all must be dilligent in making every flight as safe as possible , by examining incidents maybe we can come to a conclusion of what happened and avoid an accident.
Dave
I visited with Rodney who was flying with Jimmy at the time of the crash. Jimmy was flying in the Buckeye LX with a 310 Thunderbolt. He had flown the Thunderbolt on his Six Chuter previously, but this was the second flight with it on this unit. The winds had been 5-7 when they took off at 3. Rodney was leading toward a landing strip near the White River and felt some turbulence. When he got below the treetops he felt quite a bit of turbulence and was preparing to tell Jimmy to not try landing there. At that moment Jimmy came on and said "it sure is gusty here". Rodney looked back and saw the Buckeye appear to stop in the air, then spin about 3 times in a stalled condition. He had been at about a hundred feet and slowly spun until about 30 feet, then sort of nose dived to the ground. Rodney said he might have encountered Rodney's propwash/wingtip vortices. It is possible that the compound steering of the Buckeye was significantly more sensitive than the Six Chuter and contributed to the circumstances.

Two things really helped Jimmy: 1) he was wearing a helmet and 2) the frontal bars and front structure protected him. The nose gear broke off and some tubing in the seat structure broke and one of the pylon tubes broke.

Rodney believes he was at low power before and during the crash.