Date:	Monday 15 August 2016
Time:	19:45 LT
Type:	Pegasus Quantum 15-912
Owner/operator:	G-MZDH Flying Group
Registration:	G-MZDH
MSN:	7248
Year of manufacture:	1996
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 1
Aircraft damage:	Substantial
Category:	Accident
Location:	Holy Cross Green, between Clent and Belbroughton, Worcestershire -   United Kingdom
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Test
Departure airport:	Otherton Airfield, Micklewood Lane, Penkridge, Staffordshire
Destination airport:	Halfpenny Green Airport (EGBO)
Investigating agency:	AAIB
Confidence Rating:	Accident investigation report completed and information captured

Narrative:
AAIB investigation to Pegasus Quantum 15-912, G-MZDH: Spiralled to the ground near Holy Cross Green, Clent, West Midlands on 15 August 2016. The incident was the subject of an AAIB Formal Investigation, and the following is an excerpt from the AAIB Accident Report

"The pilot had flown from Halfpenny Green to Otherton in order to carry out his annual flight test. The weather was good with visibility in excess of 10 km, high cloud and light winds.

During the flight, he noticed that the ‘Flydata’ instrument indicated an abnormally high value for the engine’s cylinder head temperature (CHT). When he arrived at Otherton, he spoke to the examiner and they tried to establish the cause of the high CHT but were unable to do so. The examiner offered to use his aircraft but the pilot decided to abandon the test and return his aircraft to Halfpenny Green.

Before departure the CHT was normal and the pilot did not recall any abnormal indications during the return flight. The pilot thought that he had climbed to 2,000 or 3,000 feet for his return flight but witnesses who saw the microlight immediately prior to the accident thought it was at about 200 to 500 feet

There were various descriptions by the witnesses of the aircraft’s descent but, generally, it was seen to spiral to the ground. Some witnesses thought the engine noise changed or had stopped and saw smoke with the aircraft believed to be on fire. The change in engine noise may have been the pilot closing and opening the throttle. The most graphic description was from a witness who reported that the pilot:

‘...powered up and climbed steeply. A minute later and the engine cut out. He then seemed to go into a controlled stall. The engine restarted and he climbed again very steeply. It was in the steep climb that I saw the wings fold in half and the microlight went spinning to the ground and disappeared behind some trees.
I did not see any flames or smoke.’

Due to his injuries, the pilot was unable to recall details of the accident flight other than that:
‘...the ‘A’ frame came back abruptly at some point and the aircraft adopted a spinning motion.’

It is not known what caused the accident but it appears that, following an event, the pilot lost control of the aircraft and was unable to recover it to normal flight before impacting the ground. A witness who saw the aircraft in the final moments reported that it had come down on top of a large farm bale which had absorbed a lot of the impact energy.

=Accident site=
The pilot’s injuries, although serious, were not life threatening. The wreckage was removed with the approval of the AAIB but was not viewed by AAIB inspectors and has since been disposed of. The engineer who recovered the wreckage described it as “heavily broken up”.

=AAIB Analysis=
Given the evidence of those who saw the final moments of the aircraft, it appeared that it either entered a whip stall or carried out a rapid turn. After this, the aircraft possibly tumbled or the wings were overstressed in the manoeuvre. Whatever the initiating event, the wings folded and this caused the microlight to adopt a spinning motion akin to a sycamore leaf.

No explanation of the entry manoeuvre was positively identified – and the pilot’s comments suggested that extreme manoeuvring would have been out of character – but, at some point, wing loading was clearly excessive.

=AAIB Conclusion=
The microlight entered an irrecoverable spinning flightpath probably due to some manoeuvre that induced overstressing and failure of the wing structure"

1. AAIB Final Report: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a32406440f0b665d533a7f6/Pegasus_Quantum_15-912_G-MZDH_12-17.pdf
2. http://www.itv.com/news/central/update/2016-08-15/microlight-crashes-in-worcestershire-field/
3. https://wmas.nhs.uk/2016/08/16/man-injured-in-microlight-incident/
4. https://www.bromsgrovestandard.co.uk/news/man-injured-aircraft-forced-make-emergency-landing-field-near-belbroughton/
5. http://www.kidderminstershuttle.co.uk/news/14684957.Pilot_taken_to_hospital_after_microlight_crash_lands_in_Belbroughton_field/
6. https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/pilot-seriously-hurt-microlight-crash-11755727
7. https://www.expressandstar.com/news/local-hubs/dudley/stourbridge/2017/12/18/pilot-spiralled-towards-ground-like-a-falling-sycamore-leaf/
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clent
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belbroughton

Pegasus Quantum 15-912 was built in 1996, and had always been UK-registered. First UK registration was on 12 August 1996, and subsequently passed through the hands of eight owners between 1996 and 2016. The registration G-MZDH was cancelled (and the airframe de-registered) on 29 August 2012 as \"permanently withdrawn from use\"

Note that the incident occurred on 15 August 2016, and not, as per some reports, 2017. The AAIB report confirms the date. (Although the AAIB report was not published until 14 December 2017, which may explain the \"wrong year\").

Other occurrences involving this aircraft

15 August 2017

G-MZDH

Trustee of the G-MZDH Flying Group

0

Holy Cross Green, Clent, West Midlands

w/o

Man in 40s suffers serious leg injury in microlight emergency landing #Worcestershire https://t.co/UQ1YWa69Lr pic.twitter.com/46psdcm8Ka

— WMAS (@OFFICIALWMAS) 16 August 2016

Pegasus Quantum 15-912 G-MZDH at Wolverhampton (Halfpenny Green)

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
16-Aug-2016 11:05	gerard57	Added
16-Aug-2016 14:53	Geno	Updated [Total occupants, Location, Source, Narrative]
16-Aug-2016 15:36	Dr.John Smith	Updated [Location, Source, Embed code, Damage, Narrative]
16-Aug-2016 15:36	Dr.John Smith	Updated [Embed code, Narrative]
16-Aug-2016 20:10	Aerossurance	Updated [Time, Aircraft type, Location, Narrative]
04-Apr-2024 07:19	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Aircraft type, Registration, Cn, Operator, Location, Nature, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Embed code, Narrative, Category]
04-Apr-2024 07:20	ASN	Updated [Accident report]