----[Please read http://ercoupers.com/disclaimer.htm before following any advice in this forum.]----


 

Fred Fowler wrote:

> The first was about ten years ago. They had a Coupe fly

> in at Lake Havasu AZ and around 20 Coupes attended. I

> was there and spoke to  most of the pilots including a guy

> from Calif who flew in with his father. That was on a Sat

> and the next morning the father and son flew up to

> Kingman for breakfast despite winds 20 to 30mph

> prevailing. While  on final approach at Kingman they hit a

> downdraft and when they bottomed out one wing in the

> wing stub cracked back a few inches and the plane rolled

> over and straight into the ground, both were killed.

> Inspection of the bottom section indicated high corrosion

> through out the stub section, and shortly after the FAA

> mandated the second AD on the wing section, the first

> being the main wing panels, the new one being new

> panels in the bottom of the stub or wing removal every

> three years for inspection.

 

Fred,

 

I had not known that the Kingman crash was due to corrosion.  The second one I referred to was another event in which the owner was flying solo and was thought to do aerobatics in his plane.

 

So, that brings my count to three lost due to structural failure of the wings in the last 26 years.  One that seems to be purely due to corrosion and two due, I think, to aerobatics.

 

There was one other structural failure incident in, I think, Ohio.  In that one, the empennage separated from the aircraft.  In discussing that with the investigator, he told me he thought it was due to elevator flutter resulting from the dual failure of the trim tab cable connection and a weak trim tab spring (the spring is supposed to hold the tab against the limiter in case of cable or connector failure).

 

Ed Burkhead

http://edburkhead.com

ed -at- edburkhead???.com          (change -at- to @ and remove "???")

 

 

==============================================================================
To leave this forum go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm



Reply via email to