Originally Posted by
StickWithTheTruth
In one of their videos the demo pilot raves on about the ability of the aircraft to get out of a boxed canyon by performing a max performance 180 degree turn and then that is exactly what happened to the aircrafts lead designer when he died with passenger.
Sadly, in the earlier Icon A5 crash it appears the escape maneuver wasn't enough after taking the wrong canyon:
It appears that Karkow, a highly experienced engineer and pilot who had been working with Icon from its inception, made a wrong turn into a narrow cove from which he was unable to escape. The NTSB report stated that a witness saw the airplane flying slowly at about 30 feet above the water as it entered Little Portuguese Canyon, which is surrounded by terrain several hundred feet tall and gets narrower the farther into it you go.
The witness reported hearing the engine “rev up and accelerate hard,” seeing the airplane start a left turn in an apparent attempt to reverse course out of the cove, and hearing the impact after losing sight of the airplane.
“It is likely that the pilot mistakenly thought the canyon that he entered was a different canyon that led to the larger, open portion of the lake,” the report stated. “Additionally, it is likely that, once the pilot realized there was no exit from the canyon, he attempted to perform a 180-degree left turn to exit in the direction from which he entered.”
With no mechanical flaws found with respect to the airplane and a clean toxicology report for the pilot, the NTSB found that the probable cause of the accident was “the pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from terrain while maneuvering at a low altitude. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s mistaken entry into a canyon surrounded by steep rising terrain while at a low altitude for reasons that could not be determined.”
https://www.flyingmag.com/ntsb-relea...on-a5-accident