Additional Participating Entity:
Federal Aviation Administration / Flight Standards District Office; Richmond, Virginia
Aviation Accident Preliminary Report - National Transportation Safety Board: https://app.ntsb.gov/pdf
https://registry.faa.gov/N350FT
Location: Fredericksburg, VA
Accident Number: ERA19FA066
Date & Time: 12/14/2018, 0740 EST
Registration: N350FT
Aircraft: Eipper QUICKSILVER
Injuries: 1 Fatal
Flight Conducted Under: Part 91: General Aviation - Personal
On December 14, 2018, at 0740 eastern standard time, an experimental amateur-built Quicksilver MXL II, N350FT, was substantially damaged after it impacted terrain near Shannon Airport (EZF), Fredericksburg, Virginia. The commercial pilot was fatally injured. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and no flight plan was filed for the local flight, which originated around 0738. The personal flight was conducted under the provisions of Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91.
According to witness statements, photographs, and surveillance video on the airport, the pilot had enclosed the open-cockpit of the tube-framed airplane. A frame of PVC tubing was affixed to the aircraft's tubular aluminum structure with zip ties, and sheets of Lexan (plexiglass) were affixed to the PVC tubing which formed the windshield and hinged doors attached on either side of the cockpit area.
In the days prior to the accident flight, the pilot performed multiple "high-speed" taxi runs on the airport, as well as short, low-altitude "crow-hop" flights over the runway surface. On the accident flight, surveillance video depicted the takeoff from runway 24, and a flight path consistent with the upwind, and crosswind legs of the traffic pattern before the airplane flew out of the camera's view.
GPS track data downloaded from two GPS receivers recovered from the accident site depicted a ground track consistent with what was viewed on the video. The track data displayed the initial climb and crosswind leg flown about 50 knots groundspeed. The airplane reached a GPS altitude of 322 feet, at 51 knots, before it began a turn to the left. The track depicted a left crosswind to downwind turn, where the airplane slowed, descended, and the radius of the turn continued to tighten instead of paralleling the runway consistent with the downwind leg. The target descended to 285 feet and slowed to 29 knots groundspeed before the airplanes last GPS position was recorded above the accident site.
According to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) records, the pilot held a commercial pilot certificate with ratings for airplane single-engine land and instrument airplane. Examination of the pilot's logbook revealed the pilot had logged 342.4 total hours of flight experience. The most recent flight logged was 1.1 hours on September 10, 2018 in a Diamond DA-20 airplane. The pilot had not logged any flight experience in the accident airplane.
According to FAA records, the airplane was manufactured from a kit, registered in 2008, and purchased by the pilot in September 2018 from the builder. It was equipped with a Rotax 582, 64-horsepower engine that drove a fixed pitch propeller. The published stall speed was 32 mph (27 knots). A placard affixed to the airplane listed the stall speed at 27 mph (24 knots).
The "digital tach & hourmeter" located in the airplane at the scene indicated 411 aircraft hours.
The maintenance records for the airplane were not recovered. According to the previous owner and builder of the airplane, the most recent conditional inspection was completed in May 2018. At the time of the sale, 407 hours had accrued on the hourmeter.
At 0735, weather recorded at EZF included an overcast ceiling at 7,000 ft, visibility 10 miles, and calm winds. The temperature was 1° C, the dew point was 1° C; and the altimeter setting was 30.42 inches of mercury.
The airplane came to rest in a nose-down attitude on flat terrain, and all major components were accounted for at the scene. The wreckage path from the initial ground scar to the main wreckage was 27ft long, and oriented 115° magnetic. The Ballistic Recovery System (BRS) parachute was deployed and remained attached by a steel cable to the airframe by a bridal loop around the main structural beam (root tube) beneath the engine. The cable was traced from the bridal loop, through multiple wraps around the propeller flange, out to the parachute. The ballistic parachute rocket (expended) and deployment bag were 105 ft northwest of the main wreckage.
The airplane rested on the leading edges of both wings which were uniformly crushed in a chordwise direction. The tail, elevators and rudder were intact and mostly undamaged with the empennage tubing bent forward over the cockpit area. All lifting and flight control surfaces remained attached to the airframe. The airframe tubing displayed bends and fractures consistent with impact and overstress failure.
Flight control continuity was confirmed from the flight controls to all flight control surfaces.
The engine was largely undamaged and retained for further examination. The wooden propeller was shattered about 8 inches outboard of the hub on one blade, and fractured spanwise on the other. Propeller fragments collected around the accident site displayed concave, leading-edge damage consistent with the dimensions of the steel BRS cable.
Aircraft and Owner/Operator Information
Aircraft Make: Eipper
Registration: N350FT
Model/Series: QUICKSILVER MXLII
Aircraft Category: Airplane
Amateur Built: Yes
Operator: On file
Operating Certificate(s) Held: None
Meteorological Information and Flight Plan
Conditions at Accident Site:
Condition of Light:
Observation Facility, Elevation: KEZF, 85 ft msl
Observation Time: 0735 EST
Distance from Accident Site: 0 Nautical Miles
Temperature/Dew Point: 1°C / 1°C
Lowest Cloud Condition:
Wind Speed/Gusts, Direction: Calm / ,
Lowest Ceiling: Overcast / 7000 ft agl
Visibility: 10 Miles
Altimeter Setting: 30.42 inches Hg
Type of Flight Plan Filed: None
Departure Point: Fredericksburg, VA (EZF)
Destination: Fredericksburg, VA (EZF)
Wreckage and Impact Information
Crew Injuries: 1 Fatal
Aircraft Damage: Substantial
Passenger Injuries: N/A
Aircraft Fire: None
Ground Injuries: N/A
Aircraft Explosion: None
Total Injuries: 1 Fatal
Latitude, Longitude: 38.259167, -77.444444 (est)
Those who may have information that might be relevant to the National Transportation Safety Board investigation may contact them by email eyewitnessreport@ntsb.gov, and any friends and family who want to contact investigators about the accident should email assistance@ntsb.gov.
Leonardo Ospina Villada
FEBRUARY 2, 1984 – DECEMBER 14, 2018
Obituary of Leonardo Ospina Villada
Leonardo (Leo) Ospina Villada, was mi amor, daddy, husband, son, brother, uncle, prankster, friend, the best part of my life, the hero of his extended family, a hilarious friend, and a bright and memorable person to anyone he met. He moved to the US from Colombia when he was 18 years old and spoke no English.
During his first job as a mechanic, when someone would ask him for a hammer, he would bring the whole toolkit because he didn’t know what they were asking for. Through immense dedication and drive, Leo went on to not only learn English enough to impress me and make me fall in love with him, but also to achieve his dream of becoming an Engineer as so many others in his family had. Engineering, understanding how things work, and building things were central aspects of his personality. He always had to have a “project” going whether that was building enhancements for his airplanes or designing an ingenious solution to corral our dogs. Flying was another central part of him, not just as a hobby or general interest, but something that went to his core. While I would be reading novels, Leo would literally be reading a manual for one of his airplanes to better understand how it worked, and he would sometimes burst out “ahhh this is amazing!” as he understood how some aspect of how it fit together.
How we met is a meet/cute story that all our friends and family will remember. I was teaching English as a second language and Leo’s mother, Stella, was one of my students. She would always tell me how “I must meet her son” while also telling Leo “you must meet my teacher.” Leo later told me that he thought I was an old lady by the way his mom described me. One day he came to our class and when I saw an attractive Latino man walk past the window, I figured he must be a student, so I went out to greet him, saying slowly “ARE YOU HERE FOR THE ENGLISH CLASS?” He responded in perfect English “No I’m here for my mom” before proceeding to ask for my number. From that moment on we rarely spent a day apart. From taking me merengue dancing to dropping everything to help me move out of an 11th story apartment with no power to helping nurse me through an unexpected illness to supporting me in school, he made me fall in love with him completely.
We got married in August 2016 and were thrilled last summer to discover we’d be expecting a baby together. We welcomed our baby boy, Oliver, in April 2018 and Leo dove right into daddy-hood. From swim lessons to bath time to getting up with him in the mornings for daddy time, Leo was so excited for all of it. He would sometimes look over to me while Oliver was sleeping and say “how can I love him SOOO much! If I had known this before we would have had babies years ago!”
Leo’s arrival in my life was like a beautiful and unexpected lightning bolt, bringing me mi amor, my beautiful baby boy, and our wonderful life together and his departure from it leaves me with a huge hole in my heart. I know if he were here now, he would be working on a plan to help me fix it and amor I’m going to keep looking for signs from you to help me do just that, both for myself and our beautiful boy.
~Catherine Villada
“Leonardo “Leo” Ospina Villada. Ingeniero de sistemas y piloto, soñador incansable. Leo llego a Estados Unidos de 15 años buscando alcanzar sus sueños de volar e inventar, siempre desde su nines era un soñador, un ingeniero queriendo alcanzar nuevas alturas.
El camino no fue fácil pero nos enseñaste a todos que con sacrificio y empeño todo es posible. Siempre estabas para tu familia y todas las personas a tu alrededor en cualquier momento y a cualquier hora. Siempre había una sonrisa y unas ganas de ayudar a los demás. En esta corta vida en la tierra alcanzaste la felicidad rodeado de tu familia.En estos últimos meses nos demostraste lo que un verdadero padre debe ser.
Te extrañaremos por siempre tu familia que te adora y extrañará siempre nuestro ángel soñador“
~Mauricio Ospina-Villada
https://www.dignitymemorial.com
State police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said Leonardo Ospina Villada was transported to Mary Washington Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries Friday. He was the lone occupant of the private, ultralight aircraft, she said.
The crash occurred at 7:40 a.m. Friday just outside the airport off Tidewater Trail in Spotsylvania County. In a news release Saturday, Geller said the fixed-wing, single-engine aircraft had just taken off from the airport.
"It banked to the left and was caught by the wind, which forced the plane to crash into the ground," the release said.
The Spotsylvania Sheriff’s Office and Fire and Rescue were at the scene when state troopers arrived.
Geller said state police, the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash.
Joe Leffel, who works at Zentech next to the airport, said he was watching the ultralight before he went into work Friday morning.
“The pilot was taking off and going a hundred feet or so down the runway, then landing again,” Leffel wrote in an email to The Free Lance–Star. “I assume he was practicing his takeoff and landing at short distances to get the feel of the plane. I watched him from 7:20 to 7:30 a.m. He was still doing what I just mentioned when I went into work.
“My prayers go out to the pilot and family,” he said.
Original article can be found here ➤ https://www.fredericksburg.com
FREDERICKSBURG — Virginia State Police responded to a plane crash Friday morning just outside Shannon Airport.
A private, ultralight craft crashed on federal land just outside the airport, near Slaughter Pen Farm Historic Site, at about 7:45 a.m.
One person, the pilot, received treatment at the scene and was taken to Mary Washington Hospital with serious injuries, state police said. There was no one else on board.
Joe Leffel, who works at Zentech next to the airport, said he was watching the ultralight before he went into work that morning.
“The pilot was taking off and going a hundred feet or so down the runway, then landing again,” Leffel wrote in an email to the Free Lance–Star. “I assume he was practicing his takeoff and landing at short distances to get the feel of the plane.”
Original article can be found here ➤ https://www.richmond.com
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