Hi Everyone....
I joined this forum about 30 minutes ago and was quite surprised to find a thread about the crash of N9202C.
I was actually on an hours building course with EASA at the time of this crash. The crash of N9202C happened in the morning...but one of the things that struck home was that I had been flying this aircraft the night before and had been doing some circuits on it at night. I think it had only done a couple of hours flight time since I last flew it.
But a couple of days before the crash, a friend of mine flew the aircraft and diagnosed the electric fuel pump as not working, so I placed the aircraft U/S. Naturally, we thought that this had caused the crash.
But apparently, through word of mouth, the FAA investigation found that the left (or right maybe) fuel tank was completely empty and the other tank was completely full up....so it would appear the the pilot/instructor just never changed tanks, and therefore ran one dry.
Before anyone tries to pin blame on me...I ALWAYS filled the aircraft up fully after each flight and the fuel pump was working when I flew it. The instructor however, who's from Sweden, is I believe the most experienced instructor there (except for Bill, the CFI) and he's the one who taught me all of my PPL lessons last year, so I find it hard to understand that he didn't change fuel tanks. The student however, it was his first ever flight and they are both fine now...and they both had good insurance. Whether they did fail to change tanks and therefore bled one dry I do not know, that's just what I heard.
On another note about Insurance....I'm not trying to sell, but in 2010 when I done my PPL I went with traffords for about £130. But when I went for my hours building this year, I went with a company called
JS Insurance (Jade Stanley) who provided better cover, for £75.36.