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Lowell Fitt Accident

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foxflyer(at)volcano.net
Guest

Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 8:05 am Post subject: Lowell Fitt Accident

Dear Listers:



I hate to bear bad news, but we (FAA) just got preliminary info on a

crash involving Lowell Fitt and his wife, yesterday morning at 0630.  I

don't have any details.  The local news sources are very limited at this

point.



Evidently they experienced some problem not long after taking off from

Cameron Park (home), and crashed on a street just a few miles to the

northeast.  So far news reports say the two occupants received "moderate

injuries" and had been taken to a local hospital.



I will update when more is know.



Royal Merrill



I am a S-5 builder and have been on the list for several years.  I work

at Northern California TRACON as an ATC instructor, and have been to

Lowell's Fly-in a couple of times.

Guy Buchanan

Joined: 16 Jul 2006
Posts: 1204
Location: Ramona, CA

Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 8:59 am Post subject: Lowell Fitt Accident

At 09:04 AM 8/30/2007, you wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		  I hate to bear bad news, but we (FAA) just got preliminary info on a

crash involving Lowell Fitt and his wife, yesterday morning at 0630.  I

don't have any details.  The local news sources are very limited at this

point.



Evidently they experienced some problem not long after taking off from

Cameron Park (home), and crashed on a street just a few miles to the

northeast.  So far news reports say the two occupants received "moderate

injuries" and had been taken to a local hospital.



I will update when more is know.


	


I certainly hope you are wrong, as I received an email from him at 

4:17 pm yesterday, 8/29. I was virtually unable to find anything on 

the internet either. Please keep us informed.



Thanks,



Guy Buchanan

San Diego, CA

K-IV 1200 / 582-C / Warp / 100% done, thanks mostly to Bob Ducar.

_________________
Guy Buchanan
Deceased K-IV 1200
A glider pilot too.

occom

Joined: 26 Aug 2006
Posts: 404

Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 9:26 am Post subject: Lowell Fitt Accident

Sorry to hear of Lowells crash but I'm much relieved that both will 

survive. Best wishes for a speedy and full recovery Lowell.



Guy Buchanan wrote:



 	  Quote: 	
		   



 At 09:04 AM 8/30/2007, you wrote:



> I hate to bear bad news, but we (FAA) just got preliminary info on a

> crash involving Lowell Fitt and his wife, yesterday morning at 0630.  I

> don't have any details.  The local news sources are very limited at this

> point.

>

GONER752(at)aol.com
Guest

Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 1:18 pm Post subject: Lowell Fitt Accident

Good thoughts and prayers to Lowell and his wife.

  

 Greg G.   

 Macedon,  N.Y.

23NK

n375KL

Mod 2

582



  

  

 do not archive



Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL.com.

  [quote][b]

Lynn Matteson

Joined: 10 Jan 2006
Posts: 2778
Location: Grass Lake, Michigan

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 4:37 am Post subject: Lowell Fitt Accident

Very bad news, but WAY better outcome than most plane crashes..I hope  

Lowell and Kay mend real soon.



Lynn Matteson

Grass Lake, Michigan

Kitfox IV Speedster  w/Jabiru 2200

flying w/395+ hrs

do not archive



On Aug 30, 2007, at 12:04 PM, royall merill wrote:



 	  Quote: 	
		   

 <foxflyer(at)volcano.net>



 Dear Listers:



 I hate to bear bad news, but we (FAA) just got preliminary info on a

 crash involving Lowell Fitt and his wife, yesterday morning at  

 0630.  I

 don't have any details.  The local news sources are very limited at  

 this

 point.



 Evidently they experienced some problem not long after taking off from

 Cameron Park (home), and crashed on a street just a few miles to the

 northeast.  So far news reports say the two occupants received  

 "moderate

 injuries" and had been taken to a local hospital.



 I will update when more is know.



 Royal Merrill



 I am a S-5 builder and have been on the list for several years.  I  

 work

 at Northern California TRACON as an ATC instructor, and have been to

 Lowell's Fly-in a couple of times.

_________________
Lynn
Kitfox IV-Jabiru 2200
N369LM

MichaelGibbs(at)cox.net
Guest

Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2007 8:13 am Post subject: Lowell Fitt Accident

Lynn sez:



 	  Quote: 	
		  Very bad news, but WAY better outcome than most plane crashes..I 

hope Lowell and Kay mend real soon.


	


I don't have the exact figures in front of me, but not long ago I 

read that 80% of light airplane accidents don't involve any 

fatalities.  That would make Lowell's (and mine!) typical accidents 

rather than unusual ones.  It's airliners that hit the ground hard 

enough to make "no survivors" the norm.



I share your sentiments though, Lynn.  I hope we hear from Lowell soon.



Mike G.

Kitfox List Co-moderator

N728KF

Phoenix, AZ

Michel

Joined: 10 Jan 2006
Posts: 966
Location: Norway

Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2007 9:38 am Post subject: Lowell Fitt Accident

On Sep 1, 2007, at 6:13 PM, Michael Gibbs wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		    It's airliners that hit the ground hard enough to make "no survivors" 

 the norm.


	


I have been wondering about this, Mike. Two planes crashed out of 

Cameron Park that day: A Kitfox and a Cherokee. The latter ended in two 

fatal casualties. Why?

An impact needs to absorb inertia which is: mass multiplied by speed. 

Lesser mass means lesser impact, doesn't it? I read that you have a 

better chance to survive a car accident if you have a heavy car. 

Perhaps, in some circumstances like a front collision. But isn't it 

sometimes an advantage to be light ... very light?

Attending a flight safety conference in Germany, last year, we were 

told that light aircraft should rather try to land on tree tops than 

attempt to make a sharp manoeuvre to reach an open field, at the risk 

of not being able to do it and end in a wall or another hard surface. 

Personally, I think that, if the forest is dense enough, a Kitfox would 

simply land on the top of the trees and rescue would come with a fire 

brigade ladder. I am not sure but I still feel I stand a better chance 

to survive a aircraft crash landing if it is a very light one. After 

all, a 30 feet wide, 900 pounds heavy object moving at 40 MPH shouldn't 

need much to come to a stop.

Incidentally, a Zodiac 601 with a Rotax 912 from our club made an 

emergency landing in a field today. The engine stopped after a slow 

descent from 4,500 to 1,800 feet. Luckily the pilot was over one of 

those few regions of Norway where we have corn fields. After a while on 

the ground, the engine could be restarted and the plane flew back home. 

The suspected cause: carburettor icing.



Cheers,

Michel Verheughe

Norway

Kitfox 3 - Jabiru 2200



Do not archive

_________________
Kitfox 3 - Jabiru 2200

Guy Buchanan

Joined: 16 Jul 2006
Posts: 1204
Location: Ramona, CA

Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2007 1:12 pm Post subject: Lowell Fitt Accident

At 10:35 AM 9/1/2007, you wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		  An impact needs to absorb inertia which is: mass multiplied by 

speed. Lesser mass means lesser impact, doesn't it? I read that you 

have a better chance to survive a car accident if you have a heavy 

car. Perhaps, in some circumstances like a front collision. But 

isn't it sometimes an advantage to be light ... very light?


	


         Almost Michel. An impact absorbs energy, which in the case 

of a moving object is calculated as 1/2 mass times velocity squared. 

Obviously a heavy object has more energy to dissipate than a light 

object. You, being of constant mass, have the same amount of energy 

to dissipate in any crash. The reason heavy cars protect people is 

that in order to dissipate the energy some force must be applied and 

generally speaking that force can be looked at as a constant. (E.g. 

other car, oak tree, road friction, center divide, etc.) Now since 

force is mass times acceleration, if the force is constant and the 

mass is greater then the acceleration, (or in our case deceleration,) 

must be less. Less deceleration usually means less damage to our 

fragile bodies.

         The other reason large objects protect us is that the 

deceleration occurs over a longer time, (or distance.) Since 

deceleration is equal to 1/2 the velocity squared divided by the 

distance taken to decelerate, (assuming a constant rate of 

deceleration,) if that distance is larger, the deceleration, and 

therefore damage, is reduced.

         Light is good when you have less force available to 

decelerate. If our bodies can handle 26g's deceleration, then a light 

object can do that with less force than a heavy object. Thus if you 

put a Kitfox in the trees, you might get a nice gentle deceleration, 

whereas putting a P-51 in the trees at the same speed will probably 

hardly slow it before it hits the ground or a trunk. (Though if you 

could KEEP it in the trees, it would decelerate appreciably slower, 

providing a much more gentle ride for your body.) In other words, a 

heavy body is much more LIKELY to keep going until it hits something 

hard. (In the case of airplanes heavier ones are usually going a lot 

faster too, and we've already seen that the deceleration is 

proportional to the velocity squared.)

         If the Bonanza pilot was good, (I know, fat chance,) they 

were at Vx, which for the Bonanza is 77 knots. If I were Lowell I 

would have been landing at about 35 mph. At gross the Bonanza would 

be about 3400 pounds versus 1200 for Lowell. Thus the Bonanza would 

have to dissipate about 18 times the energy. If they stopped in the 

same distance the Bonanza deceleration would be over 6 times that for 

the Kitfox. If the Bonanza saw 26 g's, (since somebody died,) the 

Kitfox would have seen only about 4 g's.



How's that for nonsense?

Guy Buchanan

San Diego, CA

K-IV 1200 / 582-C / Warp / 100% done, thanks mostly to Bob Ducar.



(PS I watched that Bonanza crash video about a dozen times and stayed 

up nearly all night replaying it in my mind. You see, I fly that 

exact aircraft when I want to go somewhere fast. Very unsettling.)

_________________
Guy Buchanan
Deceased K-IV 1200
A glider pilot too.

Michel

Joined: 10 Jan 2006
Posts: 966
Location: Norway

Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2007 2:55 am Post subject: Lowell Fitt Accident

On Sep 1, 2007, at 10:57 PM, Guy Buchanan wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		   How's that for nonsense?


	


I beg to differ, Guy, what you write is everything but nonsense! 

Of course if car meets car, the heaviest wins. But I still feel safer 

in my very light Kitfox ... unless I had an aircraft heavier than ... 

the earth.

And I am sorry I called it a Cherokee, it was, of course, a Bonanza. As 

seen from here, all those Pipers look the same. 



Cheers,

Michel Verheughe

Norway

Kitfox 3 - Jabiru 2200



Do not archive

_________________
Kitfox 3 - Jabiru 2200

Guy Buchanan

Joined: 16 Jul 2006
Posts: 1204
Location: Ramona, CA

Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2007 10:37 am Post subject: Lowell Fitt Accident

At 03:54 AM 9/2/2007, you wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		  And I am sorry I called it a Cherokee, it was, of course, a Bonanza. 

As seen from here, all those Pipers look the same. 


	


THEM'S FIGHTEN' WORDS, BOY! 

Guy Buchanan

San Diego, CA

K-IV 1200 / 582-C / Warp / 100% done, thanks mostly to Bob Ducar.



Do not archive

_________________
Guy Buchanan
Deceased K-IV 1200
A glider pilot too.

kitfoxfugit(at)YAHOO.COM
Guest

Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2007 9:12 pm Post subject: Lowell Fitt Accident

Michel Verheughe wrote:



"...a 30 feet wide, 900 pounds heavy object moving at

40 MPH shouldn't need much to come to a stop."



While a slow deceleration of a light plane is

desirable and survivable, what scares me about

Lowell's accident is that I did not conceive a forced

landing in an open field could be so destructive.  I

thought it would not be difficult to land in an open

field in an emergency, which is what Lowell may have

also thought.  The way his plane balled up, it was

lucky there was no ignition source to set it on fire. 

Without a fire, his accident proves that a forced

landing in a Kitfox IV should be survivable even in a

rapid deceleration situation.  Most of the fatal

accidents in Kitfoxes seem to have been stall-spins,

boring in nearly straight down to a sudden stop.



I think my IV Speedster stalls at around 50 MPH when

landing fully loaded at 1200 lbs, not sure about the

IV with longer wings.  Your III model would have a

better chance in a forced landing.



Michel Verheughe also wrote:



"Incidentally, a Zodiac 601 with a Rotax 912 from our

club made an 

emergency landing in a field today. The engine stopped

after a slow 

descent from 4,500 to 1,800 feet. Luckily the pilot

was over one of 

those few regions of Norway where we have corn fields.

After a while on the ground, the engine could be

restarted and the plane flew back home.  The suspected

cause: carburettor icing."



As to the Zodiac forced landing, the idea of carb ice

is scary because I don't have the box on mine.  My

experience with carb ice is that the Bing carb shakes

it loose from time to time and the 912 ingests it,

stumbling briefly, then running at a little higher RPM

than before.  I have heard that it can make the 912

quit at certain low temperatures. 



Kitfox IV's supposedly have a risk of the engine

quitting on long shallow descents due to fuel flow

problems at shallow glide angles (whereby the flow to

the header tank is not sloped down enough).  I break

up long descents by nosing up every so often.  Could

the Zodiac have a similar design issue with the fuel flow?

       

Take the Internet to Go: Yahoo!Go puts the Internet in your pocket: mail, news, photos & more. 

http://mobile.yahoo.com/go?refer=1GNXIC

Michel

Joined: 10 Jan 2006
Posts: 966
Location: Norway

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 9:50 am Post subject: Lowell Fitt Accident

On Sep 3, 2007, at 7:08 AM, John Allen wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		   what scares me about Lowell's accident is that I did not conceive a 

 forced

 landing in an open field could be so destructive.


	


I am sure we will hear all the details from Lowell, John. But I often 

drive my car, looking at fields along the road and thinking: Hum, from 

above this would look like a nice place to land but look at that 

shallow trench or that obstacle. Here in Norway, many such fields are 

on hill sides and quite steep ones. From above, it all looks flat and 

friendly.



 	  Quote: 	
		   Could the Zodiac have a similar design issue with the fuel flow?


	


It could very well be, John. Since the engine started again without 

problem on the field, we will never know for sure what was the cause 

but carburettor icing was the prime suspect from what I hear. I don't 

know if that plane has a header tank or not but I am glad I have one.



Cheers,

Michel Verheughe

Norway

Kitfox 3 - Jabiru 2200



Do not archive

_________________
Kitfox 3 - Jabiru 2200

kitfoxmike

Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Posts: 373

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 12:49 pm Post subject: Re: Lowell Fitt Accident

50mph stall when landing a speedster at full gross.  NO WAY.  I can say that, I have the same airplane.  All I can say is I went to the fly in this weekend and I was very supprised at how fast everybody was landing.  I think everybody needs to learn how to SLOOOOW down when they land.  Way too many sqeekies.  If you don't think it's necessary, think about when you need to land off field some day, lets slow these babies down.  After all they are a kitfox.

lcfitt(at)sbcglobal.net
Guest

Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2007 4:16 pm Post subject: Lowell Fitt Accident

Interesting poing on the second crash.  Apparently the television video crew 

was there to do some background video on Cameron Park regarding our crash. 

And was there to record the entirety of this tragic event.  When we took off 

the temps were in the low 70s F with an inversion layer to the mid 80s at 

about 1000 ft agl. The plane in question had four people on board.  As I 

have been told, full ice chests on board, two scuba tanks and likely weight 

belts.  A neighbor said that the temps immediately above the runway at their 

noon departure was 112°.  It was the rear passengers that both perished.  I 

have always been very concerned while flying, about the potential missles in 

the baggage comartment and have loaded accordingly.



When Brad, across the street, had his airworthiness inspecton it was by an 

FAA examiner who spent nearly his entire career as an accident investigator 

in alaska.  He commented to Brad on the numerous cases of impact from behind 

that rendered an otherwise survivable accident a fatality.  One extreme 

example - impaled by a fishing rod.



Fly safe folks and thanks for the numerous comments of support.  I plan on 

answering every one personally, but at my pace it will take some time - only 

261 messages in the inbox.



Lowell



---

marwynne(at)verizon.net
Guest

Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 4:38 am Post subject: Lowell Fitt Accident

Just a  few comments about landing in the tree tops.  I had an engine out 

earlier this year and was forced to land in the trees.    I got real lucky 

and didn't get injured.  I landed in the top of several pine trees and the 

plane then nose dived straight down when the treetops broke.  My main gear 

wedged between to trees and slowed the descent dramatically.   The wings 

also absorbed the falling energy when they broke other tree limbs.    My 

engine came with in 6 inches of the ground.  The plane never made contact 

with ground.



I agree about having a light aircraft vs. a 172 or such.  I don't know if I 

would have been so lucky.   Damage to the plane was two bent spars , 

covering on the wings and several places on the fuselage.    I am glad I was 

in my Kitfox rather than my Cessna 175.   I don't believe that I would have 

survived the fall in that much heavier a plane.

Just a few comments about the cause of the accident.  The engine was a 912UL 

with   300 hours.   The rubber boot that holds the carbs failed.   I had 

changed the boot the previous annual and inspected it  within the last month 

before the accident.   The rubber boot had approx 80 hours on it. The rubber 

boot  split  about 2/3 the way around .  The engine lost vacuum and 

sputtered and stopped..       There is a solution to the problem , I wrote 

Rotax and there is another company making these parts. I never got a 

response from Rotax and the other manufacture showed no interest.



The solution for the problem is to have a KEVLAR ring inserted into the mold 

when the rubber is injected.



Here is the reason this KEVLAR  band would work.



The rubber boot cracks and separates ,   the engine starts running rough , 

but would continue to run.

You have high vibration at this time making the crack worse causing the 

engine to  run rougher.    The KEVLAR would prevent the complete separation 

of the rubber boot.  Hope fully this would buy you enough time to return to 

the airport safely.



I hope the above made since to you.    I wish that I could make the 

manufactures realize that the cost to insert the ring would be a safety 

measure that would prevent a complete separation of the rubber boot.   It 

would really not make the part last longer , just prevent it from completely 

failing like mine did.



Your comments would be appreciated.  If it makes since ,you might want to 

write ROTAX and see if more than one person complaint would entice them into 

making this part safer.



 	  Quote: 	
		   think that, if the forest is dense enough, a Kitfox would simply land on 

 the top of the trees and rescue would come with a fire brigade ladder. I 

 am not sure but I still feel I stand a better chance to survive a aircraft 

 crash landing if it is a very light one. After all, a 30 feet wide, 900 

 pounds heavy object moving at 40 MPH shouldn't need much to come to a 

 stop.

JimmieBlackwell(at)austin
Guest

Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 5:40 am Post subject: Lowell Fitt Accident

Great report and excellent idea on the boots.  I am going to write Rotax.



Jimmie



---

clemwehner(at)sbcglobal.n
Guest

Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 7:56 am Post subject: Lowell Fitt Accident

I have an idea. Why couldn't a rubber cover be put over the boot, like

piece of rubber inner tube? It could be sealed on the carb side with

silicone sealant or something, pulled over the carb boot, then sealed on

the engine side. A safety wire wrap or zip ties might could be used to

secure it on the ends and ensure a tight fit into the sealant. That way

if the boot split, the cover would keep air from leaking in. 



Just a thought,



Clem Wehner

Lawton, OK

KFIV-912



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