Has a NTSB Final been issued for N123SX?

[andrewp]

I have a few things I want to say about this:

1. I flew with Jeremy in the ST and the Xenos up in WI a few years back. There was nothing wrong with his handling of an airplane - he was a much better pilot than I am _now_.
2. When confronted in real time, crap happens. I know he did his best he could with what was confronting him.
3. I always take the full length (much to the anger of controllers in the last class C I went into), but there are plenty of runways around where the full length is the length that he was confronting.
4. Mostly I want to say that I just remember him being happy, wonderfully crazy and a great light to the world. John and Betty (and everyone) I am sure miss him like hell, but to bring someone like that into the world for the 40 years he was alive, man a wonderful thing. It doesn't take away from the sadness, but I personally have nothing but memories of a smiling person making fun of my stupid accent. And that is just insignificant me.

AP

[radfordc]

Given the view out the window when the engine quit (houses/trees ahead....open airport to the left) I fully understand the decision to attempt a turn to the left. Just not enough altitude/airspeed to make the turn.

[N111YX]

I strongly agree with this statement. We are all preached to about this accident scenario from our initial training onward and conclude that only the "bad pilots" would fall into the trap. Then, over time, we may begin to have those who have preached it to us do the same thing (two in my case).

Having a faulty prop governor roll RPM's back on me on takeoff one time gave me a clue to what others have felt. I wanted to turn around...badly! There was not a green, mowed field on front of me to "turn 45 degrees left or right" and save the day. There were zero safe options. Straight ahead was guaranteed personal injury or worse. I was able to limp it around.

I realized that one has to COMMIT to crashing when faced with this first hand and that's a decision that counters basic survival instinct. Perhaps this instinct is stronger than airman decision making in a short (a few seconds) time span to which perhaps a majority(?) of us would act incorrectly. I no longer "think less" of a pilot victim of this kind of accident.

Additionally, I don't think this scenario simulated at altitude is an adequate tool to prep for the event. An interesting demonstration? Certainly. In real life, down low, the ground rush of stalled or nearly stalled airplane is too big of a influencing variable to properly simulate in a real-life situation in my opinion, not to mention the effects of wind, ect. I like to point out the VSI indicating about 900 fpm down to my passengers after a imminent stall as they don't feel like they are descending near that much from the safety of 3000'.

I've always believed that a simulator for this would be an invaluable tool. Crashing RC models in my youth has worked for me so far!

Let us all learn.

Two other reinforcements...


2) The impossible turn is bad juju! It must be a horrible instinct to overcome and way to many pilots far better than me seem to have tried and failed. Take some time to set up a safe test of the turn. It'll help reinforce why it's a bad idea, set a personal limit, and (hopefully) help you fight the urge to turn back to the runway.

[Fastcapy]

Ok, everyone jumps on the full length thing, but in all honesty the remaining runway from the intersection he departed from (was B1 now is B3) is longer than some grass strips a lot of guys fly out of with their Sonex. I will honestly say that when I am light (solo) and don't have a high density altitude I have used that same intersection departure point many times, before and after his accident. I have had conditions that I have departed from that intersection and had a higher altitude over the numbers than some full length ones where I was a heavy or had a higher density altitude. Departing 09 once you are over the departure end you don't have a ton of options no matter what. I really can't fault him for using that departure point. Yes, more runway is better but we are not talking about him taking a departure with 1000ft remaining.

Also, I understand you have to make a choice, I just seem to think if he would have made a right turn instead it may have worked out better for him. More open area, etc. But when it hits the fan you don't always have time to consider all the options and have to make a quick choice and commit to it.

I also think the main focus here needs to be not on Jeremy's choices, or how he handled the situation, but rather why are there so many unexplained power loss events on this motor, including 2 resulting in serious crashes of factory aircraft. That is the big concern.

[lpaaruule]

I tend to agree with Mike on this. We knew that Jeremy only used half the runway within a day after the crash. The discussion about using the whole runway was had back then. I discussed this with a friend at work yesterday. He said that on his way back to Michigan from Oshkosh he stopped at the Marquette airport (SAW) which is over 12,000 feet long. His decided that there was no way in hell he was going to taxi for 2 miles when his plane only needed 1000 feet, so he took off from mid runway. He assessed the risk.

I know of a Sonex that operates out of a 2300 runway surrounded by buildings. It happens to be the same runway that I train on as a student pilot (ID2). To be honest, I decided that I didn't want to use that airport even though it's much closer to my house than the 5000 foot one I will be using.

It's been over a year and a half of silently, and respectfully waiting for the final NTSB report. I seems a lot of effort was put into trying to determine the cause of the crash. So far it seems that that effort was in vain. In general, I don't want to accept "stuff happens" and the pilot should have transformed into Bob Hoover, and landed the plane safely.

On the other hand, service bulletins have been issued for the turbo, it's "clocking", and proper oil. So maybe this won't happen again...IF that was the cause.

[LarryEWaiex121]

I respectfully agree with Kip on the point made of decision making and assessing the best options when you might have 3-5 seconds till impact.
We are taught to assess our options and accept that the best option is normally straight ahead. The reality of many airports we fly out of is, there really is no straight ahead option. Its houses, kids, schools, church's, industrial park roofs, etc. When that becomes the reality, your only choice is to minimize the approach/impact speed. The trade off to that is at minimum speed you have minimum control in both aileron and elevator. I'll still take minimum impact speed to precision. Find the least hard thing you can hit and hit it as slow as the plane will go and keep right side up.
Often times I will accept a certain degree of "other risk" such as not the ideal wind runway but a safer departure path. That's just one example.
I've lost at least 14 friends over the 43 yrs I've flown and in at least 2/3 rds of them, I shook my head and told myself, "no way would so and so do such a stupid thing, but it happened. Over half were flying into IFR conditions unprepared. Well before GPS days and EFIS, syn vision.
Very few of the incidents resulted as the result of a "pure mechanical" failure. A couple started off as mechanicals and spiraled "literally" into a crash.
Years back, vacuum pump failures crashed a lot of Cessna and Beeches in particular. Not the pump, but the lack of instruments after the pump failure. Thankfully, the Gen Av folks are finally getting some benefit of the inexpensive EFIS technology the experimental market has had for over 10 yrs.
When I was in college, I forged a good friendship with a kid from Utah the same age as me. He had just earned his private ticket and built up about a 100 hrs TT. Over Christmas break he went home for the couple week break between semesters. I never saw him again.
He happened to be wandering an airport, snooping at airplanes and came across a guy with an AeroStar. The guy was going out for a quick spin and asked Eric to ride along. I know Eric jumped at the chance for a rightseat jount in a twin. The plane lost power on one engine on takeoff and they rolled inverted into a hanger. Wrong place, wrong time. It happens. No judgement.
I've read about the Aero-Vee turbo failures but can't speak to that specifically. What a can tell you from personal experience is coming out of a normal sized gen-av airport at night in a Cessna Turbo 210 (1978) model and loosing an exhaust valve that promptly sent pieces screaming through the turbo and lunched that thing in a heartbeat. Suddenly it went from 31.5 in. MP to 19 in. MP.
With 400ft AGL, and the gear still cleaning up its a pucker moment. We suddenly were so slow it was a crapshoot as to whether to give up departure flaps for less drag in the hopes of getting positive rate, or ride it in straight ahead? Milking the flaps off turned out to be the correct call. It could just have easily gone the other way. I was right seat and my friend was flying. We both thought it was the "big one".
Nineteen inches of manifold pressure in a 210 will barely keep it moving in a straight line. Had there been any more than the 2 1/2 hrs of fuel and the two of us onboard, or anything other than flat terrain, it would have been a forced landing.
What many don't understand or have never faced, is that, with a turbo failure your not just back to normal atmospheric pressure. The turbo effectively becomes an immovable object impeding the normal flow of air into the intake. Its a bummer times two.
The loss of two fine people is simply a sad outcome. I trust having known Jeremy's commitment to family, his business and customers, he did all he was capable of doing at that precise moment in time and the rest doesn't matter.

Larry
Waiex121YX

[vigilant104]

The >general< questions and observations about the incident are just that--general observations about risk assessment, flying techniques, etc. They are important questions, and much the same type lessons we can learn from any aircraft accident. We are talking about this particular accident here largely because these two guys were such key members of the Sonex world, and known to many of us. This was such a shame, and we all feel it.
But, from strictly objective, Sonex-centric safety perspective, it seems to me that the most important thing this NTSB report could do is tell us why this engine stopped making power. I am surprised and disappointed that the report didn't do that. Knowing the answers to this nonsubjectve, technical question ('what happened to this engine to cause it to stop making enough power to sustain level flight?) could, in a very concrete way, add a lot to the safety of this Sonex community. It is a technical question with a technical answer--and one exists. Does the issuance of a "final" NTSB report mean that the answer is just unknowable? That seems inconsistent with the capabilities, resources, and charter of the NTSB.
I understand that engine failures in EAB aircraft often don't receive the intensive government forensic analysis that failures of certified engines receive. That's largely because each homebuilt aircraft and engine is unique in construction and maintenance, and digging deep often doesn't yield answers applicable to many other aircraft. But this was a "known quantity" exemplar engine built using the standard published procedures in a controlled environment and maintained in a known fashion. It was not a one-off motor cobbled together by an independent builder using his own undocumented techniques and parts of unknown origin. It's clearly worth finding out exactly what happened, for the sake of others (now and in the future) building engines using the same procedures and the same parts. Getting to the bottom of that is the most unique and important silver lining that this tragedy might yet yield. This report gives some clues, but falls well short of what is needed.

[sonex1374]

The NTSB report could have been quite a bit cleaner when describing their investigation of the engine. The note about the turbo problems was particularly misleading. The NTSB spoke with Joe Norris, who described a turbo problem in Red One. The conversation happened shortly before the release of the Factual Report in December 2016, and the turbo incident they talked about happened several months before in approx September 2016. None of this was an issue, or even suspected as an issue at the time of the accident. The NTSB dug into the engine after the crash and determined that 1) the prop wasn't turning at the time of impact, 2) the turbo didn't show any pre-crash anomalies (lot's of crash-related damage though), and 3) the waste gate was fine.

Unfortunately, the NTSB didn't dig any deeper than that, and that's a disservice to all of us.

[kmwoody]

IMHO Sonex was VERY unprofessional for not data recording a low time, test engine. I doubt Continental or Lycoming bench tested the first turbocharged engine they developed and then put it on a flying airframe and didnt monitor it for hundreds of hours before they offered it for service. Everybody that has a turbo would feel more comfortable knowing if it was the engine or not. What did they know that they didn't want the paying customer to know?
Ken W

[rizzz]

I doubt Continental or Lycoming bench tested the first turbocharged engine they developed and then put it on a flying airframe and didnt monitor it for hundreds of hours before they offered it for service.

Correct, no doubt Cont's and Lyc's undergo an enormous amount of testing before ever being released to the market, but that's what makes them certified engines and why they are so much more expensive.

Edit: not saying Sonex does not extensively test their engines either but obviously the requirements are different in an experimental world.