Pilot kept trying to fly. Plane kept saying “no”.
Luscombe model 8 similar to accident aircraft. (Photo by Fernando Montalvo)
Update: Thanks to Doug Combs for pointing out some corrections to the post, including that I had an incorrect accident location. See the comments section below for additional info.
Most accidents that I initially report about on Velozia Air have recently occurred, but every once in a while, an accident that occurred a few weeks ago is worth mentioning just because of its uniqueness. A May 21st plane crash in Bakersfield, California definitely qualifies as unique. The plane crashed after takeoff from a field/road near Bakersfield. The plane initially departed Riverside Municipal Airport (RAL) in Riverside at 2:00 PM PDT. The pilot, John Dearden,and a passenger were injured when the Luscombe Silvaire Aircraft Co. S-LSA-8C (registration N599LS) crashed after an engine failure. A National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) preliminary report was issued on June 1st.
According to the passenger (Moises Antonio Madrid), the aircraft had recently been completed and they were attempting to fly it to Columbia, California for a Luscombe fly-in. After departing RAL, an apparent malfunction in the fuel selector valve (according to witnesses) forced the pilot to make a precautionary emergency landing in a nearby field. Now, normally… that is enough to get a pilot to haul the plane back to an airport and have it checked and fixed before heading out again (or to get fuel before heading out if fuel exhaustion was the case). However, the accident pilot decided to give it a second try after “adjustments”. When he started the engine after making the adjustments, it quickly stopped running according to witnesses at the airport. However, being the determined man that he appears to be, our accident pilot decided to go ahead with the flight anyway and restarted the engine.
Almost immediately after takeoff, the engine again lost power. The pilot tried to return to the airport, but the aircraft appeared to stall (1) and head straight down into the ground. The pilot and passenger were both reported as having serious injuries. The brand new aircraft was substantially damaged.
At the accident site, a note pad was found with an entry reading: “Mag switch not working properly”. For those of you outside of aviation and not familiar with magneto switches, the switch is equivalent to your car’s ignition, while the magneto system itself is responsible for providing the sparks that keep the engine running. Needless to say, taking off with a problematic magneto switch/system is highly inadvisable… or taking off so soon after an emergency landing, for that matter. It is unknown if the magneto switch problem had anything to do with the accident or if it pointed out a previous problem.
The S-LSA-8C is a replica of the original Luscombe model 8 aircraft. It is manufactured as a light sport aircraft, although a fully certified model will come out soon. The picture above is of an original 1950s Luscombe 8F I photographed at Lakeland’s (FL) Sun ‘n Fun 2010 Fly-in back in April.
(1) For those of you who may not know, a stall in an airplane is often misinterpreted to mean that the engine stalled and stopped running. However, an aerodynamic stall is (roughly defined) as the state at which a plane stops flying either because the speed of the aircraft is not fast enough to generate adequate lift forces or because an abrupt movement has been made resulting in the loss of adequate lift. It’s a very rough definition, but at least you will know it is not engine related.
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Your facts are in error.
Riverside is south east of Los Angeles, some 1.5 HOURS from the crash site north of Bakersfield CA.
The flight departed sometime after 2PM. It suffered an engine failure /fuel exhaustion at approximately 4:25PM and landed on a dirt road. Attempts were made to find fuel in the airplane and play with the fuel selector.
The Pilot declined assistance from a motorist who offered a ride, fuel, and directions to an airport 6 miles distant. (He did a video interview that condemns the following acts)
The pilot attempted a take-off run and the engine began missing on the roll, at that time he climbed to 75 feet where the engine quit again. He attempted a 180 degree turn away from gusty strong winds, the airplane entered a stall / spin, impacting the fuselage and left wingtip, destroying the airplane, and bending up the empenage and other sections of the aircraft.
Both pilot and passenger were hospitalized, Pilot had serious injuries, but was not killed. FAA investigation includes the resolution of several serious violations that will need to be addressed by the pilot, John Dearden, including careless and reckless operation.
Doug,
Thanks for the corrections to the post. Apparently I need to be more careful on my weekend posts. While I have to make 1-2 post corrections a month normally, the last ten days have seen me make three. There normally is some discrepancy between reports and factual data, but this was all me. The above article should be fixed momentarily.
In some points in which the NTSB report differs from your account, I had to leave the NTSB version, but I should point out to readers that the NTSB sometimes bases a lot of information on the pilot’s own Form 6120 report, which does not necessarily account for the true facts. Most of the confusion here will hopefully clear up when the NTSB’s factual report comes out. Regardless, there are definitely some questionable decisions by the pilot here. Again, thanks for the correction.