MUSICK LANCAIR 235 — McMinnville, OR

What happened

While performing practice touch-and-go takeoffs and landings, the pilot made a radio transmission on the UNICOM frequency stating that he was having trouble with the landing gear position indicators; only two of the three landing gear lights were illuminated. The pilot asked a pilot who was in a helicopter hovering at the airport to look at the landing gear's position while he performed a low-level pass over the runway.

The pilot maneuvered the airplane to about 20 to 40 ft above ground level (agl) as he passed over the runway, and the helicopter pilot told him that all of the landing gear appeared to be extended. The pilot stated that the observation was confusing because it conflicted with the landing gear lights, which indicated that the right gear was not in the down-and-locked position. The pilot then stated that he was going to gain some altitude and manually retract and extend the landing gear in an attempt to reset the lights. He departed from the traffic pattern to the northeast and made no further communications; shortly thereafter, several grunts were heard over the radio. Numerous witnesses reported that they observed the airplane flying about 300 ft agl and then enter a loop maneuver and subsequently descend toward a house in a steep nose-low attitude. A postaccident examination of the airplane revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. It is likely that the pilot was attempting to lower the landing gear by intentionally performing unusual maneuvers during which he inadvertently lost control of the airplane.

The pilot had poorly controlled diabetes, but the investigation was unable to determine if this degraded his ability to safely operate the airplane during the intentional maneuver and, therefore, whether his diabetes contributed to the accident.

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