... was the highly-modified P-51D that crashed at the Reno Air Races in 2011,
killing the pilot and 10 spectators, and
injuring many others. I just finished reading a 'Plane & Pilot' article
summarizing the NTSB's determination of the
cause of the crash: six small screws holding the elevator trim tabs to their
hinges had come loose, two had broken
allowing one of the tabs to separate causing loss of control with extreme
G-loading causing pilot incapacitation. The
NTSB determined that that screws had come loose in their locknuts, which had
some sort of insert (usually, these are the
locknuts with metal inserts, but I've seen the 'nylock' type used as well).
The plane had extensive and, presumably,
expensive speed mods including a 'boil-off' cooling system that let the
alcohol/water coolant boil and vaporize in order
to cool the engine.
Bottom line: the plane, with probably hundreds of thousands if not millions of
dollars worth of mods, was brought down
by a few bucks' worth of screws and locknuts (and, though it was unsaid in the
article, it can be assumed sloppy or
inattentive maintenance).
Healey content? Next time you're bolting (or screwing) something up on your
Healey give some thought to the
appropriateness and condition of the fasteners you're using and their proper
installation.
Bob
--
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Bob Spidell San Jose, CA bspidell@comcast.net
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