Additional Participating Entity:
Federal Aviation Administration / Flight Standards District Office: Fresno, California
Aviation Accident Factual Report - National Transportation Safety Board: https://app.ntsb.gov/pdf
Location: Oakdale, CA
Accident Number: WPR17FA077
Date & Time: 03/11/2017, 1030 PST
Registration: N2621T
Aircraft: CHALLENGER II
Aircraft Damage: Substantial
Defining Event: Loss of control on ground
Injuries: 1 Fatal
Flight Conducted Under: Part 91: General Aviation - Personal
On March 11, 2017, about 1030, Pacific standard time, a Challenger II light-sport airplane, N2621T, landed on the runway safety area (RSA) near the approach end of runway 10 and subsequently impacted a vehicle at the Oakdale Municipal Airport (O27), Oakdale, California. The commercial pilot was fatally injured and the airplane sustained substantial damage. The airplane was registered to and operated by the pilot under the provisions of Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 as a personal flight. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed near the airport and no flight plan was filed for the local flight.
According to the airport caretaker, the pilot left his hangar door open, departed from runway 10 and entered the left traffic pattern. He stated that he heard the airplane on the downwind leg and that he did not see the airplane on the final approach or landing but heard an explosion. He subsequently responded to the accident site where a postimpact fire had ensued. A second witness, who was outside her house when she heard the airplane overhead, stated that she is often outside and hears airplanes pass over her house, which is below the downwind leg of the traffic pattern. She said that the accident airplane sounded different, which was what brought it to her attention. She did not witness the accident sequence. A third witness, who was at his residence, where he lived for over 50 years, stated that he heard an airplane performing several takeoffs and landings. During the last landing, he heard the airplane's wheels contact the ground, the engine advanced to full power, and then an explosion. Subsequently, he saw fire at the accident site, about 800 ft south of his location. He said that the engine sounded normal during the flight.
Examination of the accident site revealed that the airplane touched down left of the approach end of the runway in the runway safety area (RSA), and left 200-ft-long tire tracks in the dirt and gravel. The tracks veered left toward the visual approach slope indicator, where the left turn increased. The tracks continued toward the taxiway into a grassy area in front of the pilot's hangar. The two tracks, the right larger than the left, continued 20 ft into low vegetation and then another 30 ft and ended near the pilot's truck. The airplane came to rest along the truck's left side. The airplane and truck sustained impact and fire damage. See figure 1 for an aerial view of the accident site.
Figure 1. Aerial View of the Accident SitePilot Information
Certificate: Flight Instructor; Commercial
Age: 78, Male
Airplane Rating(s): Single-engine Land
Seat Occupied: Front
Other Aircraft Rating(s): None
Restraint Used: Unknown
Instrument Rating(s): None
Second Pilot Present: No
Instructor Rating(s): Airplane Single-engine
Toxicology Performed: Yes
Medical Certification: Class 3 With Waivers/Limitations
Last FAA Medical Exam: 07/01/2013
Occupational Pilot: No
Last Flight Review or Equivalent: 04/27/2012
Flight Time: (Estimated) 1977 hours (Total, all aircraft), 6 hours (Total, this make and model)
The 78-year-old pilot held a commercial pilot and flight instructor certificates, with airplane single-engine land airplane ratings. His most recent Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) second-class airman medical certificate was issued on June 29, 2013, with the limitation that he must wear corrective lenses. Although his medical certificate was expired, it was not required when flying the accident airplane. The pilot reported on the medical certificate application that he had accumulated 1,800 hours of flight time, 8 hours of which were in the last 6 months.
The pilot's last logbook entry, on November 30, 2016 showed that he had accumulated 1,977.2 total hours of flight time. The pilot had his check-out flight in the accident airplane on September 28, 2016, and had three more flights in the accident airplane the following November, which totaled 6 hours.
Aircraft and Owner/Operator Information
Aircraft Make: CHALLENGER
Registration: N2621T
Model/Series: II
Aircraft Category: Airplane
Year of Manufacture: 1999
Amateur Built: Yes
Airworthiness Certificate:
Serial Number: CH2-0199-CW-1838
Landing Gear Type: Tricycle
Seats: 2
Date/Type of Last Inspection: Unknown
Certified Max Gross Wt.:
Time Since Last Inspection:
Engines: 1 Reciprocating
Airframe Total Time:
Engine Manufacturer: ROTAX
ELT:
Engine Model/Series: 503 DCDI
Registered Owner: Darwin Leon Shaeffer
Rated Power: 50 hp
Operator: On file
Operating Certificate(s) Held: None
The two-seat, high-wing, tricycle-gear airplane, serial number CH2-0199-CW-1838 was manufactured in 1999. It was powered by a 50-horsepower Rotax 582 Model 99 engine. The airplane was also equipped with a three-bladed fixed-pitch propeller.
Meteorological Information and Flight Plan
Conditions at Accident Site: Visual Conditions
Condition of Light: Day
Observation Facility, Elevation: KMOD, 73 ft msl
Distance from Accident Site: 11 Nautical Miles
Observation Time: 1753 UTC
Direction from Accident Site: 221°
Lowest Cloud Condition: Clear
Visibility: 3 Miles
Lowest Ceiling: None
Visibility (RVR):
Wind Speed/Gusts: 4 knots /
Turbulence Type Forecast/Actual: / None
Wind Direction: 90°
Turbulence Severity Forecast/Actual: /
Altimeter Setting: 30.16 inches Hg
Temperature/Dew Point: 17°C / 14°C
Precipitation and Obscuration: Moderate - Haze; No Obscuration; No Precipitation
Departure Point: Oakdale, CA (O27)
Type of Flight Plan Filed: None
Destination: Oakdale, CA (O27)
Type of Clearance: None
Departure Time: 1020 PST
Type of Airspace:
At 0953, Modesto Municipal Airport, Modesto, California, located 11 miles southwest of the accident site, reported wind 90° at 4 knots, visibility hazy, clear sky, temperature 17°C, dew point 14°C, and an altimeter setting 30.16 inches of mercury.
Airport Information
Airport: OAKDALE (O27)
Runway Surface Type: Asphalt
Airport Elevation: 236 ft
Runway Surface Condition: Dry
Runway Used: 10
IFR Approach: None
Runway Length/Width: 3013 ft / 75 ft
VFR Approach/Landing: Traffic Pattern
O27 was located at an elevation of 236 ft mean sea level. It was equipped with a single paved runway, designated 10/28, which was 3,013 by 75 ft. The runway and taxiway was surrounded by a grass covered RSA. The left traffic pattern was recommended for runway 10. O27 was not equipped with an air traffic control tower.
Wreckage and Impact Information
Crew Injuries: 1 Fatal
Aircraft Damage: Substantial
Passenger Injuries: N/A
Aircraft Fire: On-Ground
Ground Injuries: N/A
Aircraft Explosion: On-Ground
Total Injuries: 1 Fatal
Latitude, Longitude: 37.758056, -120.803333
The examination of the wreckage revealed that the wings and cabin area were substantially damaged by postimpact fire. The left wing had separated from the airplane and was mostly consumed by post-impact fire; only the inboard trailing edge structural tubing and inboard section of the flaperon remained. The right wing remained attached to the airplane and exhibited thermal damage.
The empennage remained intact, and flight control continuity was established through an elevator control tube and rudder control cables that were separated near the cabin area.
The fuel tank had separated and was found near the main wreckage partially consumed by fire. The engine was found loose from its mount near the pilot seat and exhibited excessive thermal damage to the cylinder head and attached accessories. The propeller drive belt exhibited thermal damage, and belt remnants remained on both drive gears. Two propeller blades were found about a hundred ft from the main wreckage and propeller strike damage was found near the engine mount. The engine and its components revealed no mechanical anomalies.
Seat belt hardware was found, and the buckles were found unfastened.
Medical And Pathological Information
The Stanislaus County Sheriff's Office, Modesto, California, conducted an autopsy on the pilot. The pilot's cause of death was reported as "flash-fire burn with acute soot and smoke inhalation."
The FAA's Bioaeronautical Sciences Research Laboratory, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, performed toxicology on specimens from the pilot. The tests were negative for carbon monoxide, cyanide and volatiles. The testing detected 13.6 ug/ml of acetaminophen (also known as Tylenol) in urine, which is a nonimpairing pain reliever.
14 CFR Part 91: General Aviation
Accident occurred Saturday, March 11, 2017 in Oakdale, CA
Aircraft: SELTZER WILLIAM I CHALLENGER II CWS, registration: UNREG
Injuries: 1 Fatal.
This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. Any errors in this report will be corrected when the final report has been completed. NTSB investigators either traveled in support of this investigation or conducted a significant amount of investigative work without any travel, and used data obtained from various sources to prepare this aircraft accident report.
On March 11, 2017, about 1030 Pacific standard time, an unregistered experimental amateur-built Challenger II airplane, collided with a parked vehicle during landing at the Oakdale Municipal Airport (O27), Oakdale, California. The Commercial certificated pilot, sole occupant, was fatally injured and the airplane sustained substantial damage. The airplane was owned and operated by the pilot under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 as a personal local flight. Day visual meteorological conditions prevailed and no flight plan was filed.
The airport caretaker reported that the airplane departed from runway 10 and entered the left traffic pattern. He heard the airplane on downwind and stated that he didn't see the airplane on the final approach or landing, but heard an explosion, and responded to the accident site.
Initial examination of the accident site revealed that the airplane landed in the runway safety area (RSA) leaving tire tracks about 200 feet in length in the dirt and gravel. The tracks veered left towards the visual approach slope indicator (VASI), continued over the taxiway and terminated where the airplane impacted a truck that was parked adjacent to a hangar. A postcrash fire insured.
The airplane was recovered to a secured facility for further examination.
D. Leon Shaeffer
February 1939 ~ March 2017
Leon Shaeffer passed away on March 11, 2017 in a tragic aircraft accident in Oakdale, California. He was an avid pilot and died doing what he loved. Both his parents preceded him in death and he is survived by his wife, Danna Shaeffer, his brother, Dennis Shaeffer, his children, Deb Flewelling and husband Keith, Brian Nelson, Rob Shaeffer and wife Dawn, Bev Liddle and husband Doug, Carol Planchon and husband Andre, Susie Stanfield and husband Mike. He is also survived by 25 grandchildren and 16 great grandchildren with, several more on the way. He was devoted to his wife and family and believed in creating fun memories to last a lifetime. He would make you laugh, make you think, and in his quiet, gentle way, he made you know you were loved.
Leon lived his entire life in California and more than 60 years in the Modesto area. He was a floor covering contractor by trade and spent much of his time managing rental properties. Second only to his love for his family, he loved to fly. He was an experienced and recognized pilot for over 50 years and spent many of his younger years as a flight instructor. In 2013, he received a prestigious FAA award for his involvement in setting pilot certification standards and was recognized for meeting or exceeding the high educational licensing and medical standards established by the FAA. He was the current Vice President for the Experimental Aircraft Association, Chapter 90 of Oakdale, CA. He also volunteered with the Stanislaus County Library Adult Literacy Program since 2013 and was always encouraging his students to not give up on their education. He never hesitated to share a kind word or lend a helping hand and was always busy taking care of someone or something. He was soft spoken but had much to say and shared his love of conversation with many.
He was a kind, gentle and thoughtful man and dearly loved by his family and friends. We know he is now with his Lord and will be missed.
Services will be held at Lakewood Funeral Home – Riverside Chapel, 900 Santa Fe, Hughson, CA on Saturday, March 25th at 3:30pm with a reception following at 5:30pm at The Double Tree Inn – Sonoma Room, 1150 9th Street, Modesto, CA. Free parking at the 9th Street Garage provides a walking bridge to the hotel.
Charitable donations can be made to the Leon Shaeffer Memorial Fund to support early education to introduce children to the joy of flying – Bank of the West, 134 Maag Avenue, Oakdale, CA 95361. Flowers are also welcome.
In April 2011, Leon Shaeffer gives flight instructions to passengers Apryl Neal and her children, Chandler and Autumn, prior to taking off at the Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 90’s annual Young Eagles Flight Rally at the Oakdale Airport.Even as he made a career focused on the ground, as a floor-coverings installer, her father’s eyes were on the sky, Deb Flewelling said.
“I know he was in aviation more than 50 years,” she said of Leon Shaeffer, 78, the Modesto pilot killed Saturday morning at the Oakdale Airport in a fiery plane crash after a hard landing. “He loved being in the air. ... There was a freedom he found there.”
He was flying a single-engine Challenger II CWS that he’d purchased in December, Flewelling said. “He owned several planes during his adult life,” she said. “He had a longtime dream to fly the Challenger and came to the point where he realized it was now or never.”
Shaeffer lived in Modesto more than 60 years, had well more than 10,000 flight hours and used to be a flight instructor at the Modesto Airport, Flewelling said.
He was a top-notch pilot who loved introducing youth to aviation, said friend and fellow Experimental Aircraft Association member Kevin Benziger. “He was well into the high hundreds in the number of children he flew through our Young Eagles program,” Oakdale resident Benziger said.
Shaeffer never before had any incidents, Benziger said. “This is a shock to us,” he said of the reaction as fellow members of EEA Chapter 90 in Oakdale learned of his death. “I know it was a pretty devastating day for me Saturday.”
Witnesses told authorities they saw the Challenger heading east toward the airport shortly before 10:30 a.m. Saturday. They said it may have had engine trouble before it landed.
One witness said he saw the plane coming in slow before it landed near the runway’s edge. He said the plane bounced a few times, but then the pilot appeared to regain control. Then the witness heard the plane crash into a pickup parked near a hangar. The truck later was determined also to be Shaeffer’s.
A National Transportation Safety Board spokesman said Monday afternoon that determining cause of the crash could take 12 to 18 months but a preliminary report could be on the NTSB site by next week.
A March 2016 fact sheet by the Federal Aviation Administration said amateur-built and other experimental aircraft accounted for about 5 percent of total general aviation fleet hours over the previous five years but were involved in over 25 percent of fatal general aviation accidents.
“With the help of outreach, updated safety materials developed by the FAA and GAJSC industry participants, and new policies, this segment of the GA industry is showing improvement,” the FAA sheet said. “Loss of control remains the leading cause of fatal accidents involving amateur-built aircraft.”
There are a lot of reasons pilots fly kit-built aircraft, Benziger said. For one, “when you fly a certified aircraft, you cannot do anything to that aircraft. The FAA will not allow to you to alter it or even do maintenance – you have to be a certified technician to work on a certified plane.”
But with an experimental, or kit-built, or amateur-built – they all mean the same, he said – the pilot can make modifications. It’s that love of building, of working with your hands and creating something, that attracts a lot of people to kit-built aircraft, Benziger said.
“My father loved to fly and I don’t think it really mattered to him what he was flying,” Flewelling said, “but he always did have a fascination with experimental planes.”
Benziger said he doesn’t care for the term “experimental” because it sounds as though pilots are throwing together some pieces of wood, covering them with fabric and trying to get them into the air.
“You have to know what you’re doing,” he said. “With kit planes, you follow instructions and you get an FAA inspection along the way to ensure it’s being done correctly.”
And aircraft kits are exhaustively engineered, Benziger said, because no kit company wants to be accused of doing anything wrong.
Another lure of kit-built aircraft is cost, he said. “A lot of times with some of these experimental craft, is you were to buy a similar certified one, it would be 20 times the cost.”
Shaeffer is survived by his wife of 43 years, Danna, six children, 25 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren, Flewelling said.
Read more here: http://www.modbee.com
At about 10:30 a.m., witnesses said they saw the plane traveling east toward the airport.
Battalion Chief Eric DeHart of the Stanislaus Consolidated Fire Protection District said the plane is a Challenger II CWS, which he described as an “experimental plane.” He said it had been flying in the area for about 30 minutes before landing.
It was a single-engine plane, according to a news release from the Oakdale Police Department. Witnesses told police there may have been engine trouble prior to landing. The victim’s name is being withheld until officials can notify his family.
Johnny Freitas, a contractor working on a house on nearby Wren Road, said he saw the plane coming in slowly before making a landing he described as “a little hard.” He has been working to get his helicopter pilot’s license and had been watching planes come in and out while doing concrete work at the home over the past week.
“I noticed something odd about that plane … he was coming in slow,” Freitas said. “He landed very close to the edge of the runway when he came in, bounced a few times and then it looked like he had control, so I went back to work. Then I heard a bang, and that’s when we saw some smoke and jumped in the pickup and got over as fast as we could to try to help in any way we could, but it was too late.”
Freitas and another contractor, Cameron Abicht, drove up a dirt road to the airport and hopped a chain-link fence.
“Once we rounded the corner and got on the taxiway, that is when we felt the heat,” Abicht said. The plane and pickup were on fire. “Obviously you have two fuel tanks; stuff was popping and flying up in the air, there were flames everywhere.”
They saw the man moving and tried to get to him but the fire was too intense. A man who’d been working on his plane in the neighboring hangar used a fire extinguisher to no avail.
Firefighters with the Stanislaus Consolidated Fire Protection District arrived quickly on scene and kept the flames from extending into the nearby hangar.
As Freitas and Abicht waited to talk to authorities, they thought mostly about the man’s family and reflected on how his day started “enjoying the fruits of his labor” on a beautiful, sunny Saturday.
“It was something I could have gone without seeing,” Abicht said. “It was very, very sad, very surreal. I just feel bad for his family. That is the hardest part.”
Source: http://www.modbee.com
STANISLAUS COUNTY ( CBS13) — Authorities are investing a fatal crash at the Oakdale Airport in Stanislaus County.
The pilot was trying to land his plane Saturday morning when he crashed, causing the plane to go up in flames. He did not survive.
The coroner has not released the man’a identity. The only description given was he was an experienced pilot who has been using this airport for years.
”Witnesses indicated to police there may have been engine trouble prior to landing,” said Janeen Yates with the Oakdale Police Department.
Upon landing, the Quad City Challenger II CWS crashed into a pickup truck and busted into flames near a hangar on the north end of a runway.
When police arrived, the plane and the truck were engulfed in flames.
“You can see the rubber tires’ traction curve towards his truck, which was parked in front of his hangar,” said Don Gutridge, the caretaker at the Oakdale airport.
Witnesses told police it appeared that the plane’s engine may have malfunctioned and that the pilot was struggling.
“Witnesses heard the engine sputtering,” said Gutridge. “There were parts that were found around, but nothing on the runway. So it seemed like something was wrong mechanically.”
Following their initial investigation, Oakdale police still don’t know if the pilot made contact with the air traffic control.
“That’s unknown. I don’t know if there was any type of correspondence between the pilot and the air traffic controller,” said Yates.
An Investigator with the NTSB came up from Phoenix. He will return Sunday morning with a team from the FAA. They will now take the lead into investigating the cause of the fatal crash.
Story and video: http://sacramento.cbslocal.com
National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration will be conducting the investigation into the cause of a single-engine aircraft crash that claimed the life of the pilot on Saturday morning, March 11.
Oakdale Police received multiple 911 calls regarding an aircraft that had crashed and was on fire at the Oakdale Airport.
Oakdale Police along with Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department, Stanislaus Consolidated Fire and Oak Valley Ambulance responded and arrived on scene at approximately 10:30 a.m. and discovered a small single-engine aircraft was fully engulfed in flames along with the pickup that it had collided with.
The plane crash occurred in front of the western-most hangar on the north side of the runway.
Witnesses indicated to police there may have been engine troubles prior to the crash.
The pilot was pronounced dead at the scene.
The pilot’s identification is pending notification to the immediate family.
The body was released to the Stanislaus County Coroner’s Office.
No comments:
Post a Comment