SHANNON KEVIN RV-8 — Valera, TX, 2008

SHANNON KEVIN RV-8 — Valera, TX

1 fatal

Date	July 6, 2008
Location	Valera, TX
Aircraft	SHANNON KEVIN RV-8 (amateur-built)
Purpose of flight	Personal
Conditions	Day · Visual Meteorological Cond
Phase / occurrence	Prior to flight Miscellaneous/other
Pilot age	38
Pilot total time	635 hrs · Building experience
Time in type	30 hrs
Fatalities	1

Probable cause

The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed during a forced landing, which led to an aerodynamic stall, following a loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's mismanagement of fuel and the low altitude at which the power loss occurred.

NTSB findings

Personnel issues-Task performance-Planning/preparation-Fuel planning-Pilot
Aircraft-Fluids/misc hardware-Fluids-Fuel-Fluid management
Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Airspeed-Not attained/maintained
Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot
Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Altitude-Not specified

What happened

The pilot was performing low passes over a private ranch. The airplane was fueled the day before the accident with 17.4 gallons of fuel and had a 42-gallon fuel capacity. The pilot had commented to his wife prior to the accident that he didn't want a full fuel load for the flyover. After the pilot refueled, he flew the airplane for at least an hour that day and for an undetermined amount of time the day of the flyover. The pilot planned for and flew three low-altitude passes, ending each pass with a pull-up. During the pull-up from the third pass, the airplane was seen to roll to the left followed by a steep dive into a car parking area. The airplane turned approximately 270 degrees from the start of the pull-up until it impacted the ground. An examination of the airplane showed no evidence of aviation fuel at the accident site, in the airplane's fuel tanks, or in the engine fuel lines. The propeller and engine case damage was consistent with that of an engine not developing power at impact. The engine manual states that the engine burn rate is approximately 9.5 gallons per hour in economy cruise flight and 12.3 gallons per hour in performance cruise flight.

An editorial "what led to it / how to avoid it" analysis for this accident is generated separately and will appear here.