Unknown circumstances in April 28th Texas plane crash.
A Bellanca Viking similar to the accident aircraft. (Photo by Craig Kinzer under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License)
On April 28th, a single-engine Bellanca 17-30A Super Viking (registration N14787) crashed into trees in Friendswood, Texas killing the pilot (and only person aboard), James “Jimmy” Myron Willprecht. There were very few details concerning the circumstances behind the accident when I posted the initial report. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released its preliminary report on the investigation on May 14th, but it reveals few new details.
According to the report, Mr. Willprecht departed Pearland Regional Airport (LVJ) near Houston (and close to the accident site) for a local flight. The airplane crashed at a high speed into the ground and then into trees before catching fire. The flight path of the aircraft at the time of impact was towards LVJ. Witnesses who heard the plane described the engine/propeller as making a high-pitch, full power sound. A witness who saw the plane before the crash stated that the engine sounded like the pilot was giving it all the gas it had and the plane was travelling at a high speed towards the airport.
45 feet after impacting the ground, the plane slammed into a line of trees and continued for 120 feet after that.
Obviously, it seems from the witnesses that we can rule out an engine failure as the cause of crash. It also appears the plane was either going all out towards the airport or in a shallow descent with a very aggressive power setting. However, figuring out why this was so is the difficult part. Was the pilot in some way incapacitated? Was he heading to the airport at a high speed, got distracted for a second, and slammed into the ground? Did the controls fail somehow? Was there smoke or fire inside the cockpit requiring the pilot to bolt towards LVJ? Right now, there are simply too many possibilities as to what could have occurred. The NTSB factual report may provide a bit more information.
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