Thursday, November 17, 2011

Man killed in ultralight aircraft crash: Ducote Airpark (TS65), San Angelo, Texas

The pilot of a Part 103 ultralight aircraft was killed Wednesday afternoon after losing control just after takeoff at the Ducote Air Park on FM 2166 southwest of San Angelo. The aircraft was an experimental model weighing less than 200 pounds.


SAN ANGELO, Texas — A 59-year-old Christoval man died Wednesday afternoon in the crash of an ultralight aircraft at Ducote Air Park on FM 2166 10 miles west of San Angelo, Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Shawn Baxter said.

Emergency vehicles from San Angelo were dispatched to the privately owned airport in response to a 911 call. The crash occurred about 3:15 p.m. Wednesday, Baxter said.

Don Smucker, a pilot who witnessed the crash from the ground, said it was the first flight of the experimental, home-built aircraft. He said the man killed in the crash had designed and built at least half a dozen of his own aircraft.

Smucker, who has lived at the air park about eight years, identified the pilot, but Baxter said next of kin had not yet been notified. Authorities did not confirm notification by press time, and the Standard-Times will not publish the name without that confirmation. J.P. McGuire, Tom Green County Precinct 2 justice of the peace, confirmed the death.

Baxter said the single-seat ultralight was designated Part 103 by the Federal Aviation Administration, which means the aircraft design was unregulated and the FAA will not investigate the crash.

Smucker said he saw the entire flight.

"It taxied a couple of times, was level on takeoff, went to the right, went into a wing stall," Smucker said.

He said stalling the aircraft does not mean the engine quit.

"The wing stops producing lift, loses control, and crunch," he said. "He was 50 or 60 feet high, stalled it, lost control of it."

The ultralight came to Earth about 70 feet off the runway and only a few feet from the back of one of the metal-sided combination residence-airplane hangars dotting the flat, dry terrain along the 3,700-foot asphalt runway.

Authorities taped off the crash area from the rear of the building around the craft, whose orange wings sprawled across the ground, its bright yellow tail upside down. Investigators from the Tom Green County Sheriff's Department and the DPS took photographs, interviewed witnesses and gathered evidence.

"It's one of the risks of flying," Smucker said. "He died doing what he loved doing. I guess when I go, I'd want to go the same way."

Bill Yeates, a 15-year resident of the air park who flies a 1949 Aircoupe, said there had not been any accidents like this before at the air park.

"Most people are pretty safe," he said. "They're flying proven airplanes, where this one was experimental."

Mathis Field at the time of the crash showed clear skies, 72 degrees and winds out of the north at 17 mph.

Ultralight aircraft became popular starting in the mid-1970s, offering an affordable option for aircraft ownership, but the design and operation of the aircraft remain less stringently regulated than other forms of powered flight. A National Institutes of Health study in the late 1990s estimated that ultralight crashes in the U.S. resulted in about 60 deaths a year.

Baxter said the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board had indicated they would not investigate the crash.

No comments:

Post a Comment