ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 229301
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| Date: | Sunday 13 December 2015 |
| Time: | 11:53 |
| Type: |  Dyn'Aéro MCR01 ULC |
| Owner/operator: | Gruppo Volo a Vela Ticino |
| Registration: | HB-WAR |
| MSN: | 349 |
| Year of manufacture: | 2007 |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 1 |
| Aircraft damage: | Substantial |
| Category: | Accident |
| Location: | Locarno Airport (LSZL) -
 Switzerland
|
| Phase: | Take off |
| Nature: | Unknown |
| Departure airport: | LSZL |
| LSZL | |
| Investigating agency: | STSB |
| Confidence Rating: |  Accident investigation report completed and information captured |
At 09:58, HB-WAR made its first take-off from grass runway 26L with a glider in tow. Another seven tow flights followed, during each of which the glider released the tow rope at an altitude of about 500 m AMSL, the tow pilot retracted the tow rope during descent using the integrated electrical winch and the towplane returned to land on runway 26L. On the ground, the tow pilot left the engine of HBWAR running between flights each time, until the glider had landed and was prepared to take off once more with another trainee pilot.
For the last flight, the towplane and glider lined up on runway 26L as normal and the pilot taxied the towplane forwards slowly until the tow rope to the glider became taut. The flaps of HB-WAR were set for take-off and the additional electric fuel pump (fuel pump 2) was switched on. After setting take-off power at 11:53, the towplane and glider accelerated as normal.
A few seconds after the towplane and glider took off, the towplane pilot noticed that the aircraft’s engine began to run erratically at approximately 70 m above ground and then cut out immediately after that. At the same time, he established that the circuit breakers (CBs) for the radio equipment and the socket for the cigarette lighter on the instrument panel had tripped. The pilot pressed the two CBs in, but
they tripped again.
The flight instructor in the glider noticed the reduction in the rate of climb and decided to release the tow rope immediately and to make an emergency landing on mown grassland within the airport boundaries, situated to the right of the departure route and approximately 100 m after the end of grass runway 26C. The glider remained undamaged.
With a slight turn to the right, the tow pilot initiated an emergency landing and landed on grassland approximately 310 m after the end of runway 26L. After a landing run of 55 m, the aircraft collided at low speed with the bank of a slightly elevated farm track which runs perpendicular to the runway extension. In the process, the nose landing gear broke off, the two propeller blades at the bottom were bent and the wing tips were damaged. The tow pilot was able to leave the wreckage unhurt. Fire did not break out and there was no damage to the ground.
Causes
The accident can be attributed to an emergency landing following engine failure due to an interruption in the fuel supply because the non-redundant power supply to both electrical fuel pumps cut out. It is highly likely that the power cut was caused by an interruption in the ground connection at the regulator.
The lack of a warning light for monitoring the rectifier regulator contributed to the accident.
Within the context of the investigation, the following factors were not identified as causal or contributory, but nevertheless as systemic risk factors:
- The lack of a procedure for checking the charge state of the battery before the flight;
- The fact that there is no description of the effects a partially charged battery could have during flight operations;
- The fact that regular maintenance work does not make any provision for a systematic check for any instances in which the operational limits were exceeded.
Accident investigation:
 |
|
Sources:
STSB
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 25-Sep-2019 08:11 | harro | Added |
| 25-Sep-2019 08:12 | harro | Updated [Aircraft type, Narrative] |
Corrections or additions? ... Edit this accident description
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