Ladd Sanger on “Light Sport Aircraft”
01/27/10Type of Aircraft in Dunbar High Crash Isn’t as Tightly Regulated
By Bob Cox, Ft. Worth Star-Telegram
The Italian-built aircraft involved in a crash Saturday that killed a Dunbar High School student is part of a relatively new type of private aircraft that is not subject to the same safety and regulatory standards as legions of older aircraft used to train pilots.
When the Federal Aviation Administration created a separate regulatory requirement in 2004 for “light sport aircraft,” it based the rules on “consensus standards” agreed upon by the aircraft manufacturers and private pilot groups.
The Tecnam P2002 Sierra that apparently nose-dived into the ground near Waxahachie, killing the student and the instructor pilot, is among the new, relatively low-cost airplanes introduced under the relaxed standards aimed at encouraging more people to take up flying.
But some aviation lawyers and safety experts say these light planes already have a poor safety record and should not be used for training pilots.
“The problem is these aircraft are not nearly as safe” as other planes long used for pilot training that were certified to tougher standards, said Jon Kettles, a Dallas aviation lawyer and pilot. “You’ve got a lower requirement for the airplane and a lower requirement for the design and testing.”
The light-sport-aircraft category essentially gave FAA approval for manufacturers to assemble and market small planes that had previously been sold as kits for home assembly and for experimental aircraft enthusiasts, who are presumably knowledgeable about the risks involved.
The problem, aviation experts say, is that manufacturers of such aircraft are allowed to “self-certify” that they meet FAA airworthiness and safety standards without the oversight and documentation that the agency normally imposes.
Alejandro House, executive director of the C.R.P. Future Pilots School, which operates the Dunbar program, said the Tecnam aircraft was thoroughly researched and chosen for its safety.
“The aircraft is one of the most stable aircraft in the light-sport-aircraft category,” House said. “We did our analysis because safety is the most important priority for our students.”
House said the aircraft was also chosen because students were being trained to earn FAA licenses to fly light sport aircraft, not private pilot licenses, for which the requirements are more demanding.
Records of accidents involving light sport aircraft cannot be easily obtained. The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates accidents, does not have a separate category for the aircraft. One search of the board’s accident database using the words light sport aircraft turned up 29 accidents in the last two years and another search using the same term turned up 41.
The board’s records contain reports on four accidents in the last two years involving the same model Tecnam aircraft, none of which came up in the other searches. None of the four accidents resulted in fatalities or even serious injuries.
John Eakin, who owns Air Data Research in Helotes, said, “From reviewing all the accident reports I read every week, I see more and more involving LSAs.”
In April, the board issued an urgent recommendation to the FAA to ground the Zodiac CH601XL series aircraft, citing six accidents and 10 fatalities, because the aircraft broke up in flight. The FAA did not act until November, by which time another fatal accident occurred.
Beyond such basic issues as structural integrity, airplanes have quirks and characteristics that are often not discovered without extensive flight testing.
Over several decades, Cessna Aircraft Co. has built many if not most of the light planes now used for pilot training, all certified to FAA safety and airworthiness standards.
In 2006, Cessna launched its own light sport aircraft, the model 162 Skycatcher, and has suffered two crashes in flight testing because of the inability to recover from stall-induced spins. The test pilots escaped both crashes without injury, one by parachute and the other after a crash landing, according to aviation news reports.
Cessna, based in Wichita, Kan., received FAA certification last year but recently notified prospective buyers of the aircraft that deliveries would be delayed several months while changes were made to fix issues found in flight testing.
“I think it speaks highly of Cessna that they’re doing more than the minimum,” Eakin said.
Most light sport aircraft come from small operations, many of them foreign manufacturers, said Ladd Sanger, another Dallas aviation lawyer and a longtime pilot. Few have product liability insurance. “That doesn’t seem like the kind of airplane you ought to be putting high school kids in,” Sanger said.
Tecnam is based in Naples, Italy, and says its heritage in manufacturing general aviation aircraft dates to 1948.
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