Bad message,
today the 45 years old chief testpilot of Grob Aerospace died in the wreckage of the new Grob SPn Executive Jet.
The prototype of the 6 seater "Special Performance; Superior Payload and Single Pilot ability" jet chrashed short after take-off in Thussenhausen/Germany. At the moment no further informations available. The a/c is completely destroyed.

Any news of other crew members? They normally fly with a FTE.

Prayers to all involved.

Chief test pilot Gerard Guillaumaud was the sole occupant aboard the aircraft. Guillaumaud was a former French air force pilot and a graduate of the National Test Pilot School. Gerard was demonstrating the aircraft’s flight performance to a group of invited company guests on the ground.

Gerard was possibly the expert in Europe on Diesel engines for light aircraft, having worked on various projects, including the Diamond aircraft family.
He was a regular attendee at the SETP European Symposia of the past few years.
Condolences to his loved ones.
RIP.

What happened? I had the pleasure to work with Gerard on a new aircraft project. I know him as an excellent TP.
I guess something must have really gone wrong, without leaving him a chance to handle the situation in time.

Is there any information - eye witnesses - videos - pictures - that might help to analyse what happened?

I will really miss him -

Is that a parachute in the foreground? Anti - spin I wonder? Must be a reason it's deployed.

Time to say good bye:


Monday December 4th, 15:00 hrs

Grob Aerospace

Mattsies-Tussenhausen

Hello flying friends,
We are organizing Gerard's funerals in Lyon next thursday.

I'am still looking for former military colleagues of his, as we were very close friends on the civilian side. If you know of anybody who should know the following, please forward:

Thursday december 7 at 11.00 am a service will be held at Ste Foy Les Lyons church. Then, we'll go to the cemetery.

At 2 pm, we organize a gathering of pilots and friends. It should be either at the Lyon Corbas airfield where Gerard learnt glider flying or at Villefranche sur Saone airport, depending on available rooms.

Nearest airport is Lyon Bron for private aircrafts if ceremony takes place in Corbas (restricted airfield) or directly on Villefranche airport (30 minutes taxi ride to the church) and St Exupery for commercial flights.
TGV railway station of choice is Perrache.

I'am still looking for pictures of Gerard and airplanes he flew to enrich a slideshow which should be shown during the event : if you have any, please forward to [email protected]

I just spent 3 days at Grob with Gerard's friend Heidi and his family, and I must underline the real care the company is providing around everybody. No wonder, aside the fantastic SPn program, that Gerard loved to work there.

All the best
Pierre

Flying friends,

Regarding the causes of the crash, I saw enough at GROB this week end to be convinced of several points.
I won't leak anything here as the official inquiry will go on, but suffice to say that Gerard could not do anything, is not responsable for what happened and from incident to crash, I assume that less than 3 seconds elapsed.
Gerard impacted at around 300kts in a dive from 300/500 ft after the standard turn back to the airfield for hi speed pass. He had done this demo dozen of times and was always using same accurate pattern.
He was very right not to overfly any village...
Best regards,
Pierre

Grob Aerospace statement (in German and English)

Sounds ominus. A structural problem??

Most useful parts found. Not with main wreckage.

I believe at the moment we should not speculate about the accident reasons.
Gerards death is a great loss. That's the most important point today.

you are right. Excuse my overreaction due to a comment about weather on another forum.

Gerard's funerals will be held tomorrow at 11.00 at Ste Foy Les Lyons church.
We'll then meet at Villefranche Tarare airfield at 2.00pm
Regards,
Pierre

Judging by what Flight has to say about the separation of the elevators and
one side of the stabiliser I am reminded of Theodore von Karman's words

"Some fear flutter because they do not understand it, others because they do."

I remembered many years ago flying with Gerard in FAF squadrons...
He reached the end of his path in a job he loved, and for which he had committed himself a lot (NTPS and so)
He will be living in his former colleagues memories, and I wish he is peacefully watching all of us from above.

It was announced today at the SETP European Symposium in Linkoping that an award is being funded by Grob Aerospace, in honour of Gerard Guillaumaud, and with the blessing of the SETP. It will be awarded annually at the European flight test symposium (the first of which will be this October in London, I'll post details in another thread) for the paper which makes the best contribution to flight test safety.


There was also a presentation (partly given by his fiance, Heidi) about the impressive life and achievements of Gerard, and about the accident. The basic facts are that the aircraft, which was a low-hours system test/demonstrator vehicle, broke up at about 250 knots during the start of a flypast. It appears to have been within Vmo, there was no evidence of manufacturing flaws or foreign object impact, and all flight data was unfortunately destroyed in the accident. Whilst they are continuing to investigate, it is likely that the cause of the accident may never be known.

G

Interesting - and not entirely in line with the company statement last December.