rss
mobile
Feeds
That break led to its propeller falling off, he said.
The Lancair IV-P airplane flown by Edward Smith, 62, of Chesapeake, Va., landed near Palmetto Dunes at about 6 p.m. March 15, killing 38-year-old Robert Jones of Woodstock, Ga., as he jogged along the beach.
According to Federal Aviation Administration data and Joe Bartels, owner of Lancair, the Oregon company that sells kit-built planes, Smith installed a used engine from a Piper Malibu in the plane involved in the incident. Kit-built plane builders generally use factory-built engines, as Smith did, Bartels said.
Bartels -- who said he has been in discussions with the FAA about safety and training issues involving Lancair planes -- said a similar crankshaft failure occurred in the same type of engine at least one other time in the past several years. Such a failure is abnormal, he said.
A factory-built Piper was involved in the earlier incident in December 2007, which unfolded like the one on Hilton Head, according to Bartels and National Transportation Safety Board documents. The pilot -- with three passengers aboard -- made an emergency landing in Aspen, Colo., according to the NTSB documents. No fatalities were reported, the documents say.
"I don't know of a reason in the world why either of these crankshafts failed," Bartels said. "... It's so totally unexpected and so far from the norm. It's a freak situation."
A Piper spokesman could not be reached for comment Friday.
With the 70-pound propeller missing, the plane was suddenly unbalanced. Bartels said "it's remarkable (Smith) was able to successfully land the plane."
Smith and his passenger, David Henry, 59, also of Chesapeake, were not injured in the landing that killed Jones, a pharmaceutical sales representative visiting the island on business. Jones had been listening to an iPod while running and probably did not realize the plane was bearing down on him, officials have said.
THE PILOT
Smith said Thursday that building the plane was a retirement project that took him and a friend eight years and a week -- about 14,000 working hours -- to complete. He said he received FAA certification for the plane in January 2009.
Of the inspection process, Smith said, "They don't just let you fly because you want to. ... It's a new airplane. We built a nice airplane. It was structurally sound," he said.
Smith declined to answer specific questions about the incident, following advice from his attorney.
"I'm certainly sorry for it," he said. "You just never know what's going to happen from one minute to the next."
The plane, having rested in salt water until federal officials removed it from the beach the day after the landing, probably is a total loss, he said.
THE LANDING
The plane, which was heading to the Hampton Roads, Va., Executive Airport, experienced engine trouble over the water about 90 minutes after leaving Orlando Executive Airport in Florida, a spokeswoman for the FAA's Atlanta regional office has said. The aircraft was flying at about 13,000 feet when air traffic controllers at the Marine Corps Approach Control Center in Beaufort told Smith to land at Hilton Head Airport.
But the propeller fell off and oil began leaking from the crankshaft and smearing onto the plane's windshield before Smith and Henry reached the island, officials have said.
Bartels said between eight and 12 quarts of oil leaked from the front of the broken crankshaft onto the windshield.
"He would've never seen out of it," Bartels said.
The men decided to make an emergency landing on the beach, though the oil on the windshield blocked their view, officials have said.
The plane touched down north of the Hilton Head Marriott Resort and Spa at Palmetto Dunes, near Armada Street, about three miles from the island's airport. It was traveling at about 120 knots -- or 138.2 mph -- when it touched ground, Bartels said.
Dick Knapinski, spokesman for the Experimental Aircraft Association, an international nonprofit group for aviation enthusiasts, said the beach -- as opposed to the ocean -- probably was the best option for Smith.
"They executed the emergency landing properly," Knapinski said. "Unfortunately a jogger was in the way."
A water landing in a fixed-wheel airplane like Smith's would've been appropriate "only if you have no other options," Knapinski said. If the water catches the wheels -- or any other part of the plane -- the aircraft could flip and sink quickly, he said.
"You might have a bit of time, but you're going to go down real fast," he said.
THE INVESTIGATION
NTSB officials moved the plane to Virginia to investigate the incident, spokesman Keith Holloway said Thursday.
The full investigation could take more than a year, but a preliminary report should be released in the coming weeks, Holloway said. Inspection and certification records are being reviewed as part of that investigation, he said.
The NTSB is not conducting a separate, broader investigation of Lancair planes, he said.
According to data reported to the FAA, there were 51 Lancair amateur-built planes involved in accidents from January 2004 to October 2009 -- the most recent figures available. Those 51 accidents led to 44 fatalities, according to the data.
