Home-built aircraft are dangerous. Special guest Miles O’Brien joins Todd Curtis and John Goglia to discuss an August 2023 crash of a Kit Fox Model 3 aircraft that seriously injured the pilot.

The FAA’s approach to home-built aircraft allows owners to build their aircraft with little or no direct oversight. The accident rate is more than two times higher than general aviation aircraft.

The pilot did not have a current FAA medical certification or a current endorsement to operate an aircraft as a single pilot. According to the maintenance documentation, in the eight years prior to the accident, the pilot had fewer than three hours of flight time.

Home-built aircraft have advantages such as lower cost of ownership. Kit built aircraft have grown in popularity as more manufacturers enter the market. There are even high schools that build kit aircraft for resale as part of their educational programs.
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The safety risks are high. Kit aircraft are certified as experimental aircraft by the FAA. Some have modifications that would not be allowed on other kinds of general aviation aircraft. Little more than a driver’s license is needed to pilot one of these aircraft.

An experienced flight instructor and student were killed when stall and spin practice in a Cessna 172 went horribly wrong. Flight data recorded by the aircraft and other evidence shows that the aircraft entered a very steep spiral turn nearly 6,000 above the ground and did not recover.

“They set themselves up for the right conditions. This accident just doesn’t make sense,” John Goglia says.

Todd Curtis and John dig into the November 11, 2021 fatal plane crash. The flight instructor had nearly 15,000 hours of experience in the Cessna 172 and the student pilot had nearly 370 hours in the same make and model. No mechanical fault was found with the plane involved.

Based on information in the student’s logbook and the Cessna 172 operating handbook, the student pilot and instructor may have been performing a maneuver associated with obtaining a commercial pilot certificate. Todd, who is also considering the same certification, discusses the requirement that the pilot be familiar with spiral turns.
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Students pursuing a private pilot certificate are not required to perform a spin maneuver, but it is still often part of flight instruction. They advise aspiring pilots to decline optional maneuvers that they think are too risky.

More than 50 people were injured on March 11 when a Boeing 787 flying from Australia to New Zealand experienced a precipitous drop. John Goglia shares inside information that indicates one of the pilot seats was accidentally moved forward, jamming the pilot up against the control column and causing the sudden drop.

Special guest Miles O’Brien joins Todd Curtis and John Goglia to discuss this and another aviation incident from early March 2024. The second incident occurred on March 7, when a planespotter recorded a video of a wheel falling off of a 777 shortly after takeoff from San Francisco.

The location of the cockpit seat switch in the 787 airplane is examined in detail. John shares first-hand experiences that demonstrate why the information about the March 11 flight is plausible. The event investigation by the Chilean authorities is expected to provide full details.

Todd shares his experiences as a Boeing engineer working on the 777 development program. He and his colleagues identified design changes to deal with potential safety issues, but most of those changes never happened.

John shares his experiences with wheel separation events. He has an informed opinion on how the recent 777 wheel separation event may have happened. The NTSB needs to get to the root cause and provide the public with detailed information about what happened.

The media, including social media, plays a significant role in bringing attention to aviation safety events that were often ignored in the past.
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Are there more aviation safety issues than in years past? John points out issues such as experienced professionals leaving aviation. Todd looks at the impact of increased availability of aviation data.

Todd Curtis, Greg Feith, and John Goglia discuss the crash of a Joby JAS4 eVTOL aircraft to highlight safety concerns and regulatory challenges. Propulsion units used in eVTOLs pose significant safety risks.

The eVTOL in this crash was being remotely flown during a test flight. The aircraft is powered by six electric motors and is designed to take off and land vertically like a helicopter and cruise like an airplane.

John, Greg, and Todd examine how the design of the aircraft, with a unique configuration of six propulsion units, creates several failure modes that don’t exist for currently certified passenger-carrying aircraft. While no one was injured or killed in this crash, Greg, Todd, and John explore risks evident in the accident. They call on the FAA to consider these risks during the certification process.
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Several eVTOL manufacturers, as well as some manufactures of large jet transports, are designing their aircraft for either single pilot or autonomous operation. These designs make it difficult to respond to unforeseen emergencies. Greg and John note the crew responses to several past aviation accidents and how a single pilot or an autonomous system may not be able to deal with those situations.

The jet, which had three crew members and two passengers, was nearing the end of a flight from Columbus, Ohio, when the flight crew declared an emergency to air traffic control. They lost their engines and could not make it to the airport.

Little official information was available at the time of the recording. It was not known whether the aircraft was equipped with a cockpit voice recorder or flight data recorder. The engines appear to be intact, which will help with the investigation.

John and Todd compare this accident to a 1997 Southern Airways DC9 crash in New Hope, Georgia. In that accident the crew was able to land on a road, and the aircraft caught fire after running into obstructions near the road.
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In both accidents there were survivors among the cabin crew and passengers. Todd and John encourage pilots to assess their options for making an emergency landing so they are prepared to take action if an emergency occurs.