Weight and balance is a key preflight step before you takeoff in an aircraft. When you mess it up, bad things tend to happen.
In this case the pilot scored a double - being both overweight and out of balance.
The Detroit News: Report: Plane over weight limit, attempted multiple takeoffs before crash last July
The aircraft involved is an Icon A5, an amphibian that's getting quite a reputation for accidents. This is due not to any particular fault with the craft itself, but instead due to it's pilot's attitudes when flying it - either beyond its envelope or otherwise in an ill-advised manner.
Thankfully no one was killed in this accident.
4 comments:
My brother-in-law saw and amphibious plane go down. He helped with the recovery. There was at least one fatality.
It was his belief that one of the pontoons had taken on water and when the pilot trimmed out, it surged forward and put the plane into a nose-down that the pilot could not recover from.
There is no way for me to know if this is true, but it is something to consider with float planes. Murphy has one more way to trip you up.
Amphibians. All the fun of maintaining a boat with all the fun of maintaining an airplane.
A hole in the water into which you throw money merged with FAA maintenance schedules.
Hey Aaron;
Poor Airplane, Pretty little plane too, overweight plus CG off, he is lucky the plane got off the water. Planes inherently wanted to fly, I saw the load shift and down he went. With amphibians, you don't have the envelope to play like a regular plane, and this is a light experimental, it has even less "margin for error" than a regular plane.
It was amazing when I fist flew with people in the back seats, how much different the plane flew with a more aft CG.
I had an instructor deliberatley load weights onto the plane's baggage compartment and had me taxi and just barely lift off on the long runway with an too far aft CG. What a great lesson. We never flew, but the handling at rotation speed was way wrong.
I find it hard to believe one could not know something wasn't right.
I fly a 182, so it is hard to get to overweight with just people and fuel.
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