05 August 2012

Not Good

The crash of a light aircraft is never a good thing, but some crashes are worse than others and this one seems to be in that category.

On 4 August 2012 Neil Herland tweeted about the crash of a Zenair CH601XL near Carp Airport and provided some pictures:

The 601 looks pretty badly damaged, but the good news is that reportedly the pilot survived, although there is no information provided about injuries. The crash looks serious enough that injuries would have been likely.

The bad news is that the aircraft was unregistered and thus also presumably uninsured.

Herland reports the aircraft carried the US registration N59PA and a check of Airliners.net confirms that this is the same plane. Airliners.net also notes that the aircraft was imported to Canada in 2011.

A quick check of the FAA aircraft registry shows that the Zenair was stricken from the US registry on 27 July 2011, more than a year before the accident. Running the serial number through the Canadian Civil Aircraft Register shows it wasn't registered here, of course, since it still had its US registration numbers painted on it.

So since it was in Canada over a year there are lots more questions that hopefully Transport Canada and the Transportation Safety Board will ask, such as whether it had a current annual inspection? Hopefully it will be investigated, as it wasn't listed in the CADORS.

Why do people do this sort of thing?

4 comments:

Adam Hunt said...

CBC has now added an article on the crash. It seems the TSB is investigating.

Pilot walks away from plane crash in west-end Ottawa

Adam Hunt said...

Ottawa Citizen article

Globe and Mail article

Adam Hunt said...

The accident is now on ASN

Adam Hunt said...

The accident is now on CADORS and says:

The amateur-built Zenair Zodiac 601 XL aircraft (formerly American-registered as N59PA and exported to Canada on 2011/07/27, with no record of re-registration under Canadian aviation marks) was departing on a VFR flight from Ottawa (Carp) Airport (CYRP) to [destination not reported by NAV CANADA]. NAV CANADA staff at Ottawa control tower were advised by the Ontario Provincial Police (O.P.P.) that an aircraft bearing the registrations marks N59PA had crashed in trees near Ottawa (Carp) Airport (CYRP) but not on airport property. Ottawa Police Services attended the scene. No further details at this time.

and

UPDATE Supplemental information received from T.S.B. Daily Notification [#A12O0121]: The Zodiac 601 aircraft (registered as N59PA) was departing from Ottawa (Carp) Airport (CYRP) on a local pleasure flight. Shortly after take-off, the engine (Jabiru) began to surge and lose power. The pilot switched fuel tanks and applied carb heat but the engine power was not restored. The aircraft was substantially damaged when it was force-landed into trees. The pilot received minor injuries. Temperature at the time was approximately 35ºC with the dew point about 21ºC.