GA incident & accident USA - Curt Lewis

 

Aircraft hits powerlines on approach This single-engine Mooney M20K aircraft sustained damage to its propeller and fuselage following a collision with three live power lines Wednesday night at Winchester Municipal Airport. A Nashville pilot was able to avoid a crash landing after colliding with live power lines during a Wednesday night landing at Winchester Municipal Airport. The pilot, who did not immediately identify himself pending an investigation, said he was returning home from a flight to Atlanta, and narrowly averted disaster when his plane collided with three live power lines about 8:15 p.m. on his final approach to the airport’s runway. The pilot, age 50, said that he was decreasing his altitude and had set his airspeed at 85 mph when his single-engine Mooney M20K aircraft suddenly struck three steel electrified power lines located on Diamond Drive where it intersects with Williams Cove Road. Inbound aircraft must fly over the power lines before crossing Cowan Highway to land at Winchester Municipal Airport, and the power lines can be difficult for pilots to visualize at night, the pilot said. “I have landed at the Winchester Municipal Airport once before during daylight hours, and I chose to land here again on this recent flight due to the airport’s cheaper gas prices,” he said. He said he logged 148 flight hours in 2018 with roughly 40 percent of those hours being night-flying hours. The pilot said his experience in the cockpit is probably what saved his life. “I had just decreased altitude and airspeed in preparation for landing when I heard a loud sound and saw a bright flash of light,” he said. “The aircraft’s nose bucked up and to the right, but I was able to maintain control and land the plane.” Though initially worried about damage to his single-engine plane’s landing gear, what he saw after a closer inspection shook the veteran pilot. “Strands of metal, apparently from the steel power lines, were wrapped around the propeller, and I was shocked to see several dime-sized holes burned into the fuselage,” the pilot said. “I’m just grateful that I was able to land and that nobody was injured.”

 

 

NTSB Puzzling Over Bent Rudder On Super Cruiser   The NTSB’s materials lab is now poring over the rudder of a Piper Super Cruiser that bent almost horizontally in flight in Alaska last June. The board recently issued a preliminary report on the incident, which created some challenges for the two pilots on board but worked out safely in the end. A private pilot was getting float flying lessons from an instructor and the two took off from Lake Hood Airport to practice water work on nearby Twin Island Lake last June 8. With the student flying, the aircraft made a normal water landing on the lake and took off again. He was on the crosswind, intending to stay in the pattern for another landing, when the aircraft suddenly yawed to the right. The instructor took control and quickly established that yaw control was all but lost and the aircraft was trying to climb. He pushed forward on the stick and dropped the water rudders to help stabilize the aircraft and headed for the airport rather than attempting another landing on the lake. After the safe landing, they saw the rudder separated from the stabilizer and flopped over to the left. “An initial examination of the rudder revealed that the vertical spar tube separated just above the upper hinge point and the top portion of the rudder folded over the horizontal stabilizer tail brace wires,” the preliminary report said.