There seem to be a number of similarities to another fatal accident that was possibly a very close call for myself.
Steen Skybolt G-BFHM crashed in August 1989, following loss of control, killing a friend of mine. I had spoken to him just before he departed and had helped him pull the aircraft out of the hangar. I owed him a beer and was waiting for him to return to the flying club. I voiced my concern to the CFI that darkness was approaching and there were no airfield lights. Very shortly afterwards the CFI received a phone call from the police....
I had promised to buy him a beer because he’d let me fly my aerobatic sequence in that aircraft on its previous flight. I had flown the aircraft from the (edit) front seat, the seat he died in. The cause was not positively determined but according to the other occupant (his badly injured girlfriend) the aircraft had fallen out of a stall turn she’d attempted and spun. She wasn’t able to recover and had handed over control. The pilot apparently called out that he thought she was obstructing the controls and the aircraft struck the ground still spinning. A pair of sunglasses and an AA battery were found loose in the wreckage and it was thought one of them might have been involved in a control jam.
Having said that, it was only after the report came out that I realised how few hours he had, less than 10% of my own yet he was happy to fly aerobatics from 1,000 feet. My own base height was three times that despite being an RAF QFI and in regular practice in both Aeros and spinning. Although he often flew aerobatics I have always wondered how often he’d practiced spin recoveries.
Last edited by ShyTorque; 23rd Jan 2021 at 14:56.
Reason: correction of s factual error