ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 200593
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Date: | Thursday 14 July 2016 |
Time: | 19:30 |
Type: | Pitts S-1S |
Owner/operator: | Private |
Registration: | N4714H |
MSN: | DS-1 |
Year of manufacture: | 1984 |
Total airframe hrs: | 865 hours |
Engine model: | Lycoming O-360 |
Fatalities: | Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 1 |
Aircraft damage: | Substantial |
Category: | Accident |
Location: | Somerville, TN -
United States of America
|
Phase: | Landing |
Nature: | Private |
Departure airport: | Rossville, TN (54M) |
Destination airport: | Somerville, TN (FYE) |
Investigating agency: | NTSB |
Confidence Rating: | Accident investigation report completed and information captured |
Narrative:The private pilot was conducting a cross-country, personal flight in the experimental, amateur-built, tailwheel-equipped airplane. The pilot reported that, while slowing the airplane after a normal three-point landing in a calm wind, the airplane began swerving. The airplane then departed the right side of the runway and ground looped.
Examination of the wreckage revealed that the left landing gear leg had separated. Metallurgical examination of the fractured landing gear leg surface revealed a small thumbnail-like fatigue region, followed by an overstress region.
A previous owner had assembled the airplane from a kit about 32 years before the accident, and it had accumulated about 875 total hours of operation. The builder did not use the stock bungie landing gear that were included with the kit. Rather, to reduce drag, he designed and constructed his own round, tapered rod landing gear. It is likely that the homemade, custom-built landing gear leg could not support the same loading as the stock bungie landing gear, which resulted in fatigue over a period of time and the gear leg's subsequent failure.
Probable Cause: The failure of the left landing gear leg due to fatigue, which resulted in a ground loop during landing. Contributing to the accident was the airplane builder's installation of a custom-built landing gear rather than the landing gear included with the airplane kit.
Note
The aircraft's builder reported the following to ASN:
"The report that the aircraft was built from a kit is incorrect. This aircraft was scratch-built. There was no landing gear provided in a kit because there was no kit. Subsequent to my selling the airplane one of the future owners allowed a friend to fly it and that pilot nearly ground-looped it and bent the left landing gear leg. The owner contacted me for information on how the landing gear was made and I sent him the original drawing, including material type (6150 steel), dimensions, and heat treating requirements (Rockwell 42-44, C-scale). The landing gear leg that broke was not the original that I had made and installed on the airplane. The landing gear that broke was either not the correct material, was not machined to a smooth finish and bead blasted to remove stress risers, or was not heat treated properly."
Accident investigation:
|
| |
Investigating agency: | NTSB |
Report number: | ERA16LA260 |
Status: | Investigation completed |
Duration: | |
Download report: | Final report |
|
Sources:
NTSB
Location
Revision history:
Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
26-Oct-2017 19:50 |
ASN Update Bot |
Added |
04-May-2024 11:44 |
Anon. |
Updated |
04-May-2024 11:45 |
ASN |
Updated [Narrative] |
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