It came down in woodland at the end of runway 240 at Sibson airfield.
Pilot is hurt but stable.
By: TonyT - 16th May 2014 at 22:52
Yep I agree, but you quoting it prevents him from pulling it down, so perhaps both of you should delete it until after the AAIB has done their stuff….
As for it breaking up, it’s like a car, it’s designed to do that to absorb the crash, might look like a train wreck, but he walked or limped away from it, so job done aircraft wise in absorbing most if it.
By: Orion - 16th May 2014 at 19:51
Deleted
By: Kye - 9th May 2014 at 11:08
The pilot tried to take off with a low speed tail wind (can’t say how much, but the wind sock only had a slight angle) and collided with the trees. The left wing was torn off as the aircraft hit the tops of the tree. It was witnessed that that aircraft was in a steep climb after rotation. It wasn’t uncommon to see him do it, but I guess he went past the point of no return and tried to get out of his predicament.
The pilot was thrown from the cockpit and suffered a leg injury as mentioned. He’s a bit on the porky side so that may have done him some favours in surviving the fall.
Sadly, the pilot has been witnessed by a large number of people numerous times making a complete hash of taking off. (The airfield is populated by skydivers on the weekend (myself included) so we know a thing or two about wind). He has been seen taking off into high winds in which no one else is flying, and attempting to take off with strong tail winds on both long and short runways. The short runway has a farm house at the end of it….
On one occasion the pilot was told after he gave up trying to fly, that he was trying to take off towards the farm house with a 40 knot tail wind. I kid you not!…
The aircraft was often seen wobbling about and flying and it was often commented on how ropey it looked. You certainly wouldn’t have got me in it.
Nor is this the first crash he has had, but his third. His second was a heavy tail strike on landing in a Piper Pa-28 or something similar that bounced thing down the runway and ripped off the nose wheel.
A bit of a chequered flying history, but he’ll be fine which is the main thing.
By: Moggy C - 9th May 2014 at 10:31
From what I have observed it seems to me that rag and tube offers some of the best occupant protection in light aircraft. Certainly that plastic Grob looks particularly nasty.
Moggy
By: T-21 - 8th May 2014 at 17:25
From the photograph unhappy about the engine cowling ending up in the cockpit presume after hitting a large tree branch. The crash survivability structure does not look good in the front bulkhead area ? Glad that the pilot survived .
By: Kye - 8th May 2014 at 14:43
Where is it now?
It looked like it! I took off offset from it and had a close look from above. Lucky comes to mind.
By: Arabella-Cox - 8th May 2014 at 14:14
It came down in woodland at the end of runway 240 at Sibson airfield.
Pilot is hurt but stable.
The wreckage is now at our airfield on a trailer. Looks nasty.
Regards
Mark
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May 6, 2014 at 10:17 am