L-39 Crash

[Timebuilder]

Fox news just reported an L-39 has crashed, clipping a house in Maryland.

One soul on board.

 

[MarineGrunt]

Sad.

Until I plugged into the social pipeline on this board, I never realized how often these fatal accidents happen. It's a real eye opener.

 

[Citationkid]

Was it at MTN. That L-39 was in the James Bond movie.

 

[pilotyip]

not a good record

I think this is the second fatal L-39 crash in last four months, a guy ate some birds on take off in Alabama, and had an unsuccessful ejection. It does not have very good safety record, considering the small population

 

[Brett Hull]

The 1st one

PilotYip,

I know the owner of International Jets, the company that imports many of the L-39's, in Gadsden Alabama where the 1st one crashed. He flies a 35 and a 60 for our sister company.

It crashed when the pilot got in a hurry to beat a thunderstorm out and neglected to latch the nose compartment that contained all of the airplane's logbooks. Guess where they all went when they came flying out. He said his dad watched the whole thing.

He also said the guy survived the ejection (he was in a 90 degree bank when he punched out), but died of shock on the way to the hospital. If he would have put it back on the runway, he would have ran off the end and bent some metal, but probably made it out alive.

 

[Citationkid]

I think I know the guy that just crashed this one. If its the guy I think it is he seemed pretty sharp to me. I remeber he was pretty young too. He gave rides out of MTN, it was in some James Bond movie to.

 

[Vladimir Lenin]

http://www.sunspot.net/news/local/harford/bal-planecrash0824,0,2476780.story?coll=bal-home-headlines


FOREST HILL - A privately owned military training jet clipped a house and crashed in a yard on Sunday, killing the pilot, officials said.

The two-seater Czechoslovakian-made L-39 jet departed from Martin State Airport and crashed about five miles north of the airport in Forest Hill, said Federal Aviation Administration eastern region spokesman Jim Peters.

The jet crashed between two houses on Rock Spring Road in Forest Hill, said Rich Gardiner, a spokesman with the Bel Air Volunteer Fire Department.

"I'm very amazed that the plane was able to go between the two residences, and only did damage to one," said Gardiner.

Peters said there were no reports of injuries on the ground or in the house. He said local police officials would notify the next of kin before releasing a name.

Peter Fellman, 58, and his wife, Louanne, 65, rent the home that was hit by the jet. Relatives and friends helped the couple pack up some belongings Sunday afternoon. The couple, who will be staying at a relative's home, was away at the time of the crash and learned of it from a neighbor, Peter Fellman said.

"We came right home, not knowing if it was our home," he said. "I couldn't believe it."

Fellman said the couple couldn't get into a room where they kept Hershey Foods collectibles and other antiques because of damage from the crash. Part of the home's roof and a wall were caved in.

Morris Carlson, 63, who lives with his wife, Sandra, and son, Christopher, next to the Fellmans, said though the jet was about 30 feet from hitting their home, it did demolish a large dog pen and a small motor boat. It also damaged two sheds in their backyard, he said.

Sandra Carlson said her backyard looked like a war zone. "It's a beautiful day to work in the yard, unless it's our yard," she said, relieved her family wasn't home when the jet crashed.

Gardiner said the debris field in the yard was about 50 by 25 feet. Firefighters got a report of the crash at 11:18 a.m., he said.

"We had a lot of fire," Gardiner said. "We had a lot of aviation fuel."

Witnesses told Harford County spokeswoman Merrie Street the jet exploded after crashing, releasing a massive plume of black smoke.

The jet was registered to Bond Jet, LLC, in Wilmington, Del., and had a registration number of N298RD, Peters said.

Peters said it was too early to tell what happened. The pilot didn't file a flight plan with the FAA, he said, so his intended destination was not known. Peters said the crash will be investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board.

The aircraft is a favorite of North American jet enthusiasts, many of whom travel to Eastern Europe and fly the jets back, Peters said. He said pilots have to be trained and rated in the jets before they can fly them, and the weapons system has to be removed.

Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press

 

[snoopy_1]

Until I plugged into the social pipeline on this board, I never realized how often these fatal accidents happen. It's a real eye opener.

Have a look http://www.faa.gov/avr/aai/iirform.htm
lots of crashes everyday, gotta be careful.

 

[WrightAvia]

Yea...it seems the L-39 has been in a few accidents. I did a search and found 7. Here is one where a Northern Lights aerobatic team pilot crashed with a 15-16 year old passenger in the back seat.

NTSB Identification: FTW01FA063. The docket is stored on NTSB microfiche number DMS.
14 CFR Part 91: General Aviation
Accident occurred Saturday, February 10, 2001 in Pecan Island, LA
Probable Cause Approval Date: 4/29/03
Aircraft: Aero Vodochody L-39C, registration: N901NL
Injuries: 2 Fatal.
The tandem seat experimental jet aircraft impacted terrain while performing low level aerobatics. Witnesses observed the airplane flying inverted over the pilot's hunting camp just prior to ground impact. No anomalies were found with the airframe or engine during examination of the wreckage. Partial disassembly of the engine revealed that it was operating at the time of the accident. According to radar records and a statement provided by an FAA inspector, the pilot had flown "vigorous" aerobatic flight sequences in a different airplane several hours prior to the accident flight. The two types of aircraft flown on the day of the accident had dissimilar flight envelopes, configurations, sight pictures, and relative speeds. An FAA inspector, who had given the pilot aerobatic instruction in the past, stated that the pilot could have been impaired during the accident flight due to "acute fatigue" from the aerobatic flights he flew earlier on the day of the accident.

The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows:

the pilot's failure to maintain altitude/clearance from terrain while performing low level aerobatics. A factor was fatigue.

full narative available...

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief2.asp?ev_id=20010220X00467&ntsbno=FTW01FA063&akey=1

 

[Vladimir Lenin]

By Liz F. Kay and Johnathon E. Briggs
Sun Staff
Originally published August 25, 2003



The pilot of a privately owned military training jet died yesterday when it nose-dived into a small Harford County community, clipped the side of a two-story house, crashed into a back yard and exploded into flames.

The two-seat Aero L-39Z0 Albatros took off from Martin State Airport in Middle River shortly after 11 a.m. and crashed about 15 minutes later in Forest Hill, according to Harford County and Federal Aviation Administration officials.

A huge plume of black smoke after the crash attracted scores of spectators as fire officials surveyed the 50-foot debris field in the community of Victorian-style homes.

No one on the ground was injured, but entangled in the wreckage was the body of the pilot, which authorities said was burned beyond recognition.

Authorities said no one else was in the plane.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA were trying to determine the cause of the crash.

Authorities withheld the name of the pilot last night pending confirmation from dental records and blood tests, but neighbors said they believed he was real estate developer J. Robert Martin, an aviator for 30 years and owner of the nearby Forest Hill Industrial Airpark, which is surrounded by homes.

A woman answering the phone at Martin's Forest Hill home declined to comment.

"He was exceptional," said Audrey Warfield, whose husband worked for Martin. She and her husband own the 2 1/2 -story house in the 2300 block of Rockspring Road that was clipped by the Czech-built Albatros. "There was nobody who could be a better pilot than this fellow."

Moments before the crash, "we heard this extremely loud noise, a loud roar directly over our roof," said Don Weber, manager of Hanley's Fitness Center, a gym that is one of several businesses in the Forest Hill Industrial Airpark, about a half-mile from the crash site.

"A couple of people looked out the window, and they saw it suddenly go down," Weber said. "They jumped into their cars and drove to where it crashed and saw just a charred patch of ground and debris scattered all over the place."

The sleek jet, registered to Bond Jet LLC in Wilmington, Del., was flying over the airpark about 11:15 a.m. when it pulled up and fish-tailed before taking a nose dive, witnesses told authorities.

As it descended, the plane hit the trunk of a tree and clipped a corner of the Warfields' home, ripping off a section of roof and wall and exposing a rear bedroom.

Mick Ziehl, who lives next door to the crash site and restores cars and tractors as a hobby, was working on a 1960 Chevy El Camino in his garage when the 7,672-pound plane came down.

"I heard a real loud jet noise and an explosion," Ziehl said. He said he could see only black smoke when he went outside, and at first thought the propane tanks on his neighbors' travel trailer had exploded. He called 911, then searched for a garden hose to battle flames that threatened his antique vehicles.

"I was scrambling," he said.

Crews from the Bel Air Volunteer Fire Department arrived three minutes after the 11:18 a.m. call, quickly extinguishing the flames with foam.

Building inspectors declared the Warfields' house uninhabitable, displacing renters Peter A. and Louanne Fellman. The couple had used the rear bedroom for storage.

"It's just kind of turned our life upside down at the moment," said Peter Fellman, who was planning to rent the house until next year while he and his wife built a home in Jarrettsville next to their son.

In the back yard of Morris and Sandra Carlson's home, next door to the Fellmans, a 14-foot motor boat was melted and warped.

A maple tree in the center of their outdoor dog run was knocked down -- toppling the houses of their dogs Emmy and Misha. Sandra Carlson said she and her dogs probably owe their lives to an errand she ran yesterday.

"I would have been in the back yard with the dogs if I hadn't stopped at Target," she said.

Flames from the explosion also charred the side of the Carlsons' travel trailer, singed the limbs of the trees on their property and warped the siding on neighbor Ziehl's garage.

Jim Peters, Eastern region spokesman for the FAA, said the pilot of the Albatros did not file a flight plan and was operating under visual flight rules, meaning the pilot generally controls the altitude by relying on what can be seen out the window.

Since the end of the Cold War, the Albatros has become a favorite among American jet enthusiasts who have made a hobby of collecting surplus military jets.

The Albatros entered popular culture in 1997 when it was featured in the James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies.

There were 111 registered L-39 Albatros jets in the country by July 2001, according to the FAA.

Lt. Edward Hopkins of the Harford County Sheriff's Office said that the owner of the high-performance jet had purchased it recently.

Under FAA regulations, Albatros pilots have to be certified to fly the jet, and the plane is required to have regular maintenance and FAA inspections. Its weaponry is removed before civilian purchase.

The plane crash was the third in the Forest Hill area in 15 years, said Rich Gardiner, a spokesman for the Bel Air Volunteer Fire Department.

Most recently, in 1990, pilot Raymond S. Chmielewski, 69, of Apopka, Fla., was killed when his Beech Bonanza crashed in the storage yard of the Benfield Electric Co. on Jarrettsville Road. Witnesses said the pilot appeared to be making a second attempt to land at Forest Hill Industrial Airpark when the plane slammed into the ground.

Yesterday, Peter Fellman gazed up at his rented house, where a small statue of an angel sat on the windowsill.

"Obviously she must have been watching out for us," Fellman said.

Sun staff writer Joe Nawrozki and staff researcher Paul McCardell contributed to this article.


http://www.sunspot.net/news/local/harford/bal-te.md.plane25aug25,0,2815986.story?coll=bal-home-headlines