N101MECessna 401A · 1969

On April 12, 2013, about 1055 eastern daylight time an experimental, amateur built, Velocity XL, N101ME, was substantially damaged during landing rollout, following a forced landing, after a complete loss of engine power in cruise flight, near Avon Park, Florida. The certificated private pilot and his pilot rated passenger were not injured. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and no flight plan had been filed for the personal flight conducted under Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 91, that departed Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE), Fort Lauderdale, Florida, destined for Plant City Airport (PCM), Plant City, Florida.

According to the pilot, after receiving weather for the route of flight and conducting a preflight inspection, the pilot and his pilot rated passenger departed FXE at approximately 1000 for PCM, with approximately 50 gallons of fuel on board. After about 35 minutes of flight time, they heard a slight "pop" and both of them looked at each other and said "What was that". They then scanned the instruments and all looked good. A minute or two later they heard a "pop", "pop", and the pilot stated to his passenger "that does not sound good and we had better look at alternate airports". He then began a decent from 4500 feet above mean sea level (msl), to get under the clouds for a "better visual". At approximately 2000 feet msl, he increased the mixture control to full rich, and turned the boost pump "on". He then noticed that "3 cylinders had gone cold" on the exhaust gas temperature (EGT) display. The engine then began losing power and running rough.

At his point, he decided to divert to Bartow Municipal Airport (BOW), Bartow, Florida. As he turned towards BOW, the engine lost all power. The pilot had a choice of either a road or a field. He then looked at the traffic on the road and it seemed like he had sufficient space to land. Since he had little time, he decided to head for the road. He touched down on the road and noticed that he was gaining on a car in front of him, so he headed off the road to the right to avoid the car. The airplane went down the shoulder of the road and the right wing got caught in the grass which caused the airplane to veer right. The airplane then struck a barbed wire fence and came to rest.

The pilot rated passenger also concurred with the pilot's statement regarding the accident advising that, when they were taxing out to the runway at FXE, he checked each fuel tank and they each read 25.3 gallons, giving them a total of 50.6 gallons of fuel. He added that, after the first, then second "pop", or what felt to him like a slight engine hesitation, all of the engine instrument's temperatures, pressures, rpms, and manifold pressure were normal with the oil temperature at 202 degrees Fahrenheit and the fuel pressure steady at 20 pounds per square inch. During the initial descent to get through a "hole" and under the cloud layer below them, he also noticed that the No. 3 and No. 5 cylinders had gone cold on the EGT display, then at about 2000 feet msl, he noticed that three cylinders had gone cold. Shortly after that, only the No. 6 cylinder indicated temperature and very shortly after that, all 6 cylinders went cold. The pilot attempted twice to restart the engine at approximately 1,000 feet above ground level (agl) and approximately 300 feet agl, but the engine would just sputter.

Shortly after that they cleared "wires" that crossed State Road 64, and two cars traveling in the same easterly direction with a gap of at least 500 feet between them, and the next set of cars ahead. With no on-coming traffic for about a half mile, they committed and dove into the gap. After touch down on the road their speed was probably 20 to 30 knots faster than the group of cars ahead of them and even with hard braking, they closed the gap quickly. They then turned off the side of the road on to the shoulder to avoid the car ahead of them, and rolled for a couple of hundred feet on the shoulder of the road, coming alongside the car that had been immediately ahead of them. The embankment then steepened just enough to have their right wingtip make contact with the ground and force them harder to the right, overcoming the brakes for directional control, and forcing them through a farmer's fence.

According to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and pilot records, the pilot held a private pilot certificate with ratings for airplane single-engine land, airplane single-engine sea, airplane multiengine land and rotorcraft-helicopter. His most recent FAA second-class medical certificate was issued on November 28, 2012. He reported that he had accrued 7,500 total hours of flight experience, of which, 5 hours were in the accident airplane make and model.

The accident airplane was an experimental amateur built, 4 seat, canard configured airplane. It was constructed of composite materials, and was equipped with retractable landing gear. It was powered by a fuel injected, horizontally opposed, air cooled, 300 horsepower, Lycoming IO-540-K1H5 engine, mounted in a pusher configuration, driving a 3-bladed, variable pitch MT propeller. It was capable of cruising at speeds in excess of 200 knots true airspeed.

According to FAA and maintenance records, the airplane received its special airworthiness certificate December 19, 2003. The airplane's most recent conditional inspection was completed on March 1, 2013. At the time of the inspection, the airplane had accrued 35 total hours of operation.

The recorded weather at Winter Haven's Gilbert Airport (GIF), Winter Haven, Florida, located approximately 31 nautical miles, north of the accident site, at 1053, included: winds 210 degrees at 13 knots, 10 miles visibility, broken clouds at 1, 800 feet, temperature 26 degrees C, dew point 22 degrees C, and an altimeter setting of 29.93 inches of mercury.

The accident airplane was an experimental amateur built, 4 seat, canard configured airplane. It was constructed of composite materials, and was equipped with retractable landing gear. It was powered by a fuel injected, horizontally opposed, air cooled, 300 horsepower, Lycoming IO-540-K1H5 engine, mounted in a pusher configuration, driving a 3-bladed, variable pitch MT propeller. It was capable of cruising at speeds in excess of 200 knots true airspeed.

According to FAA and maintenance records, the airplane received its special airworthiness certificate December 19, 2003. The airplane's most recent conditional inspection was completed on March 1, 2013. At the time of the inspection, the airplane had accrued 35 total hours of operation.

Examination of the wreckage by an FAA inspector and personnel from Velocity Aircraft revealed that the airplane had been substantially damaged.

The nose of the airplane was scratched and gouged, the nose landing gear was damaged, and the nose landing gear door displayed impact damage and was separated from its aft pivot point.

The right winglet, right winglet /wing joint had been compromised and an approximately 8 inch long tear existed which had penetrated the skin and internal foam core, and the right rudder displayed impact damage and cracking.

The main gear doors were impact damaged, and the left main landing gear was impact damaged. An approximately 10 inch long crack existed along the longitudinal axis of the left main landing gear leg.

The engine oil cooler scoop was also impact damaged, and all three propeller blades were impact damaged. Two blades were broken near their tips, and one blade was broken about 10 inches in from the tip.

According to the Velocity Owner's Flight Manual for the XL Series, modern aircraft engines are extremely durable and seldom fail catastrophically without plenty of advance warning (lowering oil pressure, excessive mechanical noise, rising oil temperature, etc.).

Pilot induced failures, on the other hand, are far more common (carburetor ice, confusion of mixture and carb heat controls, fuel starvation, fuel management, etc.).

The manual advised that in the event of inflight engine stoppage, check mixture - RICH, boost pump on, magnetos -BOTH, and attempt restart. If the engine began to run rough, to check for induction icing, improper mixture setting, or a bad magneto. If an alternate magneto setting failed to correct the roughness, to make a precautionary landing as soon as possible and troubleshoot.

Lowering or rising oil pressure, rising oil temperature or increasing mechanical noise are good indications of impending failure and flight should be aborted as soon as possible. The manual also advised to not hesitate to declare an emergency to obtain priority clearance, and if stoppage does occur and restart is impossible, to execute an engine-out approach and landing.

The airplane was not equipped with a cockpit voice recorder or flight data recorder, nor was it required to be under the CFRs.

It was however equipped with a J. P. Instruments EDM-700 which is a panel mounted instrument that the pilot can monitor and records up to 24 parameters related to engine operations.

The unit contained non-volatile memory for data storage of the parameters recorded and calculated. The rate at which the data was stored and selected by the operator was from 2 to 500 seconds per sample. The memory could store up to 20 hours of data at a 6 second sample rate.

The EDM recording contained data from 35 power cycles. The event flight was logged as "Flt79" and was the second to last recording available upon download.

Data retrieved from the unit included cylinder head temperature (CHT), and exhaust gas temperature (EGT). The unit had not been set up to record fuel flow.

Review of the data indicated that a drop in CHT and EGT for all of the engines cylinders occurred over an approximate 5 minute period. The drop first occurred on Cylinder No. 5, then No.3, then No. 4, then No.1, then No. 2, and finally on No. 6.

Fuel System

The fuel system consisted of two 33 gallon wing tanks. There was no provision for cross feed as fuel was used from both wing tanks simultaneously.

A 4 gallon fuel sump tank was located behind the rear seat to assure fuel supply to the engine in normal flight attitudes. Each main tank and the sump tank were vented.

A mechanical engine-driven fuel pump transferred fuel from the sump tank to the fuel injection system. An auxiliary electric fuel pump provided backup for the engine-driven pump. Fuel pressure was indicated on a gauge in the cockpit. The electric pump could be turned on if the engine-driven pump failed which would be noted by a loss of fuel pressure. The electric fuel pump would also be used to provide fuel pressure redundancy during low altitude operations, such as takeoff and landing. There is one fuel drain on the airplane, under the sump tank.

Examination of the fuel system by an FAA inspector did not reveal evidence of any preimpact failure or malfunction of the fuel system. Approximately 35 gallons of fuel was discovered in the left wing tank and 5 gallons in the right fuel tank. Fuel drained from the system through the fuel drain located under the sump tank was clean, and did not exhibit evidence of water or sediment being present.

Fuel Injection System

The fuel injection system operated by measuring the airflow through the throttle body of the servo valve regulator controls, and used this measurement to operate the servo valve within the control. The regulated fuel pressure established by the servo valve was then used to control the distributor valve assembly, which then scheduled fuel flow in proportion to the air flow.

Examination of the fuel injection system revealed no evidence of any preimpact failure or malfunction, and airflow tests of the fuel servo did not reveal any anomalies. Internal examination of the fuel servo also revealed that it was in new condition, and no contamination was present. It was later overhauled, recalibrated, and airflow tested a second time for return to service.

Ignition Booster System

The engine was equipped with dual magnetos and a SlickSTART ignition booster system which integrated solid state electronics with the engine's conventional ignition hardware.

Examination of the SlickSTART ignition booster revealed that the unit's housing and mounting bracket were clean and undamaged and the exposed encapsulation compound was complete with no voids, cracks, or separation from the terminals or enclosure.

Further examination revealed that, terminals No. 2 and No. 3 were capped with insulated slip-on terminals. The wire wells of the mated terminals were not deformed, indicating that no conductors had ever been crimped in place. Terminal No. 3 which was supposed to be connected to the retard breaker contacts in the left magneto was not connected to them, indicating that the retard breaker in the left magneto was inactive during engine starting.

Slick Service Bulletin SB1-06A, required that terminal No. 2 be removed from the SlickSTART ignition booster, and that a notation be made on the unit's identification label indicating that the unit was in compliance with SB1-06A. Examination of the identification label revealed that the notation was missing. Terminal No. 2 being capped by an insulated slip-on terminal indicated however that even though no notation had been made on the identification label and terminal No. 2 had not been removed from the SlickSTART ignition booster, that Terminal No. 2 was insulated and not being used.

Testing of the SlickSTART unit was also performed, in accordance with Champion Aerospace's new part acceptance test procedures. During the testing the unit operated properly, and passed all tests.

Left Magneto

Examination of the left Magneto revealed that there was no inspection lacquer on the cover screws indicating that the magneto had been internally inspected or serviced at some time subsequent to being manufactured. The magneto exterior was clean and undamaged. The distributor towers were clean, with no evidence of contamination or arcing. There was minimal evidence of star lock washer deformation under the retard breaker connection nut, which was also indicative that terminal No. 3 of the SlickSTART ignition booster had not been connected to the retard breaker contacts. A small amount of crusty-oily residue was observed on the rotor shaft between the drive taper and oil seal. The vent bushing in the lower housing adjacent to the rotor was not installed being previously removed when the magneto had a tachometer pickup installed in this location when the magneto was in the airplane. There was evidence of slight contact by the tachometer pickup with the rotor pole-pieces where there was an approximately ¼ inch wide area of rotational polishing on each of the two pole pieces, closest to the distributer end of the magneto. There was no measurable depth to the polished areas and no evidence of contamination visible through the vent hole. The rotor shaft rotated normally. Internal examination revealed that the inside of the magneto looked factory-new. Both sets of points would open and close and the contacts were clean. The main breaker contacts displayed a frosty gray color on the edges which was indicative of normal operation. The cam was in good condition. The carbon brush appeared new, and there was no indication of carbon dust or other contamination inside the magneto.

Testing of the left magneto on a motorized production test stand per Champion Aerospace part acceptance test requirements did not reveal any anomalies. The left magneto operated properly, and passed all tests.

Right Magneto

Examination of the right magneto revealed that there was no inspection lacquer on the cover screws indicating that the magneto had been internally inspected or serviced at some time subsequent to being manufactured. The magneto exterior was clean and undamaged. The distributor towers were clean, with no evidence of contamination or arcing. A moderate amount of crusty-oily residue was observed on the rotor shaft between the drive taper and oil seal. The rotor shaft rotated normally. Internal examination revealed that the inside of the magneto looked factory-new. The breaker points would open and close and the contacts were very clean and exhibited a frosty gray color on the edges which was indicative of normal operation. The cam was in good condition. The carbon brush appeared new, and there was no indication of carbon dust or other contamination inside the magneto.

Testing of the right magneto on a motorized production test stand per Champion Aerospace part acceptance test requirements did not reveal any anomalies. The right magneto operated properly, and passed all tests.

Engine

Examination of the engine also did not reveal any evidence of any preimpact failures or malfunctions. Continuity of the drive train was confirmed, there was oil in the galleries and sump, and compression was confirmed on all cylinders. All cylinders were borescoped and no anomalies were noted.

After replacing the crankshaft gear bolt, the crankshaft flange was dialed out, checked for cracks, and was found to be serviceable. New magnetos were installed, the fuel servo was reinstalled, and then the engine was reinstalled on the airplane along with a replacement propeller. The oil filter was replaced and 10 quarts of oil were added. The engine was then started and an operational check (engine run) was conducted. No anomalies were noted during the engine run.