Thread: Two CTSW crashes in Europe

Sadly, searching the net I've found that in September and October two CTSW crashed .

The first, in Italy ,on 21 th of September, on a CTSW which has an engine failure , the pilot shot the parachute (Junkers) but the parachute didn't deployed completely, went around the tail and let the airplane fall nose down. The plane was T7-MLK.The two persons on board ( a father and his 5 years daughter ) died unfortunately.
The second, in England , a 41 years old pilot has been killed after the CTSW he was piloting "crashed under unknown circumstances " on 9 th October . The plane was the former G-CFAZ .
I'm really not proud to bring you such news , and also to dig for it, but I try hard to learn as much as possible from any of those circumstances.

Does anyone have stats on the reliability of BRS chutes to deploy properly? I was concerned when it was reported that the Cessna 162 which went in last month or so had a ballistic chute malfunction.

The BRS website lists two successful CTSW deployments, one in flight test at 1200 feet and the other in the pattern at 60 feet. I'm not aware of any unsuccessful BRS deployments.

Originally Posted by liciniu

Sadly, searching the net I've found that in September and October two CTSW crashed .

The first, in Italy ,on 21 th of September, on a CTSW which has an engine failure , the pilot shot the parachute (Junkers) but the parachute didn't deployed completely, went around the tail and let the airplane fall nose down. The plane was T7-MLK.The two persons on board ( a father and his 5 years daughter ) died unfortunately.
The second, in England , a 41 years old pilot has been killed after the CTSW he was piloting "crashed under unknown circumstances " on 9 th October . The plane was the former G-CFAZ .
I'm really not proud to bring you such news , and also to dig for it, but I try hard to learn as much as possible from any of those circumstances.

I intended to inform you all of this accident, but I still haven't come to terms with the loss of my friend and my plane.

I was one of the owners of G-CFAZ and I was on holiday in Thailand when I heard the news that our plane had crashed and a friend was killed

The detail so far.

.......................

G CFAZ

G CFAZ departed Barton at approx 09.45 on Wed 8th Oct to fly to a private strip near RAF Cottersmore.

At about lunchtime a telephone call was received from relatives asking of his whereabouts as he had not arrived.

D&D were informed and they started searching by ringing around several airfields that he may have diverted to.

At about 15.15 emergency services received a phone call from a farmer near Greenfield saying that he had come across an aircraft wreck and that the pilot was deceased.

AAIB were informed who have started an investigation.

The wreckage was removed and taken to Farnborough.

The crash site was approx ¼ of a mile north of the main Greenfield to Holmfirth road and just north of Dovestones Reservoir. The elevation is approx 1500 feet. The aircraft appeared to have come down on an easterly heading and at high speed.
The aircraft was completely destroyed but did not catch fire.

Weather at the time at Barton was more than 10k vis and cloud base of 1600 feet.
From reports of eyewitness there was cloud on the hills that morning.

If I receive any more information I will let you know.

........................................

It would appear that Niall entered cloud and either lost control or tried to descend beneath it and crashed into high ground.

He took off at approximately 9.45am so we presume the accident happened at around 10.00am.

A link to the news report.

G-CFAZ.

I will keep you informed on any updates.

Ray.

(PS) We took delivery of G-CFAZ in January and at the time of the accident G-CFAZ had flown 216 hours.

Niall had 29 hours flight time on type + his conversion hours.

thanks for the report pegasus,

i'm sure i speak for everyone in offering our condolences.

Has there been any information regarding the non deployment of the parachute in one of these accidents. I have not seen anything regarding the Cessna crash where the parachute did not deploy. These events limits one confidence in these systems.
Tom
Idaho

One of the number one reasons chutes aren't use during accidents is they do not pull the safety pin at start up. Pilots want to wait until something bad happens, tooooo late. When everything turns to crap trying to find and remove that pin isn't going to happen. That's just self illusion. They are afraid it may go off with a touch. It takes some doing to pull the handle, it won't happen by accident. We all paid good money for a really good insurance ( a parachute) so we all need to use it as it was intended. If it was easy to pull the safety pin and then the handle then that would have been the way the factory would have written the instructions.
If he was flying really low or hit high ground it was over before he knew what was going on, pin out or not.

I feel bad for this guy, his family and close friends. The aviation community may never be able to really answer all the "WHY" questions when one of us has a life ending incident.

Roger, I think he was referring to the Cessna Skycatcher crash where the chute did not deploy correctly, and the crash in Italy where the chute wrapped around the tail.
I don't know the reason for either of these chute malfunctions, but I have been told if the SB on the chute was done incorrectly that the rocket would be unstable in deploying the chute. The cable needs to be down around the base of the collar, and not over the top of the rocket. Tom

I just heard this weekend and it is only a rumor but is considered from a good source. The FAA is pretty steamed about the Skycatcher's chute because it WASN'T the BRS chute for plane recovery, but a "drag" chute that is attached to the tail of the plane and is deployed at the end of a spin to recover the plane before things get too wild. I've seen it on jets before and looks like a red tripod-shaped group of tubing that clamps onto the tail with a small drag chute at the back end. That would explain why he bailed out of the plane also. It would make more sense from the news clippings that I've read previously. Guess we'll have to wait for the NTSB findings or will they publish that since this plane was a "test" plane?

John

Originally Posted by Roger Lee

One of the number one reasons chutes aren't use during accidents is they do not pull the safety pin at start up. Pilots want to wait until something bad happens, tooooo late. When everything turns to crap trying to find and remove that pin isn't going to happen. That's just self illusion. They are afraid it may go off with a touch. It takes some doing to pull the handle, it won't happen by accident. We all paid good money for a really good insurance ( a parachute) so we all need to use it as it was intended. If it was easy to pull the safety pin and then the handle then that would have been the way the factory would have written the instructions.
If he was flying really low or hit high ground it was over before he knew what was going on, pin out or not.

I feel bad for this guy, his family and close friends. The aviation community may never be able to really answer all the "WHY" questions when one of us has a life ending incident.

Hi Roger,
to avoid leaving the safety pin fixed to the handle, I put the safety pin on to my key ring together with the ignition key. Therefore either start the engine- or leave the handle secured. Simple but it works.