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1. 12:45 PM - A very bad day at the airport (Merems)
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| Subject: | A very bad day at the airport |
INNOCENT GLOBAL 0.0000 1.0000 -4.4912
--> RV9-List message posted by: "Merems" <merems@cox.net>
Fellow builders,
I want to share with you a very bad day at the airport.
I was attending a pancake breakfast with our local EAA chapter at La Cholla Airpark
just north of Tucson AZ. A dozen or so aircraft arrived and another two
dozen or so visitors arrived for a wonderful morning of food and airplanes. One
of the aircraft that arrived was a turbine Legend (composite, high performance
aircraft). It announced it's arrival with a high speed flyby and landed.
However when it went to takeoff, something went wrong, very wrong. It appeared
to lift off the runway way too early (about 1/3 what you would have expected)
pitch up and roll sharply to the port side. At about 75-100' it was still
nose high and rolling sharply to its port side. Then the nose pitched down.
The aircraft was now heading towards the ground but my view became obscured by
a house and tree line (yes we do have trees in Arizona). A second later was
impact followed by smoke. Both soles on board died. No houses or people on the
ground were hurt.
Since it was a EAA breakfast fly-in there were pilots all around speculating on
what had happened. What went wrong. Some are speculating it was a high performance
takeoff the pilot lost control due to the torque effect and the 700+ horse
power engine. I don't know if we will ever know. 15 years earlier an RV-4
pilot decided to do a roll on takeoff at this same airport and killed himself
and his passenger.
I hope I never have a day like this again.
Paul
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