N731PFCessna 421 · 1968

On September 29, 2019, about 1600 eastern daylight time, a Cessna 421, N731PF, was substantially damaged when it impacted trees and terrain near DeLand Municipal Airport (DED), DeLand, Florida. The commercial pilot, pilot-rated passenger, and aft-seated passenger were fatally injured. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident, and no flight plan was filed for the Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight.

The owner of the airplane stated that he purchased the airplane on June 21, 2019, and that planned to make repairs and resell the airplane. The airplane was based at DED at the time of purchase and had not undergone an annual inspection for several years. The owner hired a mechanic to make the necessary repairs and conduct an annual inspection of the airplane. During the inspection, the mechanic informed the owner that the left tachometer generator and the fuel gauges were inoperative and that other items also needed repair or replacement. Once the work was done and the annual inspection was signed off, the mechanic would find a pilot to transport the airplane to Texas, where the owner resided. The mechanic subsequently found a pilot who he thought would be able to fly the airplane to Texas (the pilot-rated passenger).

The mechanic stated that he had not completed the repairs to the airplane or signed off the airplane’s annual inspection at the time of the accident flight. The airplane owner stated that he did not know the pilot or the passengers and that he was not aware that the airplane was being flown at that time.

A witness in the vicinity of the accident site shortly before the accident stated that he heard the airplane fly overhead at an altitude of about 2,000 ft and described the engines as sounding “rough.” About 10 minutes later, he observed the airplane overhead at an altitude of 1,000 ft and heard the engine “sputtering and backfiring.”

According to another witness who was about 1-mile away from the accident site, he heard the accident airplane flying very low overhead. He then observed the airplane banking to the left and said that both engines seemed to be running at “low idle.” As he continued to watch the airplane, he noticed that the flaps and landing gear were retracted. The witness also observed the airplane roll to the left three times before descending below the tree line. As the airplane descended toward the ground, the engines made “two pop” sounds. The witness saw no smoke coming from the airplane during the descent.

The airplane crashed in a heavily wooded area and a post-impact fire ensued.

The pilot, age 27, held a commercial pilot certificate with ratings for single-engine land, multiengine land, and instrument airplane. The pilot also held a flight instructor certificate with an airplane single-engine rating. His Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) first-class medical certificate was issued June 4, 2018. A review of the pilot’s logbook revealed that the last entry was dated May 29, 2019. The total pilot-in-command time entered was 500 hours, including about 40 hours of multiengine airplane flight time. The logbook did not show that the pilot had received any instruction or had logged any previous flight experience in the Cessna 421. While the pilot did have an endorsement in his logbook for the operation of high-performance airplanes, he did not have an endorsement for the operation of complex airplanes.

The pilot-rated passenger, age 32, held a private pilot certificate with a rating for airplane single-engine land. His FAA third-class medical certificate was issued on April 12, 2019. A review of his pilot logbook revealed a total of 155 flight hours, all in single-engine airplanes.

A review of the airplane’s maintenance records revealed that the airplane received its last annual inspection on February 15, 2014, at a Hobbs meter time of 858 hours. The Hobbs meter reading at the time of the 2019 examination was 862 hours.

The main wreckage was located about 4 nautical miles from DED on a 230° magnetic heading. The wreckage path was about 75 ft in length from the first broken tree branch, which was about 75 ft high, to the location where the airplane came to rest at the base of a tree in an upright position. There were freshly broken branches at the wreckage site.

All flight control surfaces were located at the accident site. The cockpit section of the airplane was crushed, and a tree trunk extended from the bottom of the fuselage to the top of the right side of the cockpit. The fuselage exhibited crush damage to the aft pressure bulkhead. The empennage was broken away from the fuselage at the aft pressure bulkhead and remained partially attached by flight control cables. The vertical and horizontal stabilizers remained attached to the empennage. The vertical stabilizer was buckled, and the rudder was attached at the lower attachment points. The rudder was broken in two parts; the lower section containing the rudder trim was buckled, and the upper section was also buckled and partially attached to the remaining rudder assembly.

Examination of both engines and their components revealed no anomalies that would have prevented normal operation or production of the rated horsepower. Examination of both propellers revealed the presence of witness marks that showed contact between the blade counterweights and the propeller hub, which were consistent with the propellers being at a low pitch position (and not feathered) during impact. Additionally, the damage to the propeller hubs and their assemblies, as well as the twisting, bending, and paint scuffing observed on the propeller blades, were all consistent with relatively low rotational energy at impact.

The Office of the Medical Examiner, Daytona Beach, Florida, performed an autopsy on the pilot and pilot-rated passenger. Their cause of death was blunt force trauma.

For the pilot, toxicology testing performed at the FAA Forensic Sciences Laboratory identified in chest cavity blood samples, 6.7 ng/ml of delta-9-tetrahydracannabinol (THC, the active compound in marijuana), 2.6 ng/ml of its active metabolite 11-hydroxy-THC, and 41.3 ng/ml of its inactive metabolite delta-9-carboxy-THC. In addition, 12.5 ng/ml of THC, 390 ng/ml of 11-hydroxy-THC, and 734.5 ng/ml of delta-9-carboxy-THC were found in urine samples. The tests were negative for carbon monoxide and ethanol.

For the pilot-rated passenger, toxicology testing performed at the FAA Forensic Sciences Laboratory was negative for carbon monoxide, ethanol, and drugs.