Gelasi AIRCAMPER N7172B

Summary

On 3 September 2001 at about 19:48 local time, a Gelasi AIRCAMPER registered N7172B was involved in an accident near Bloomfield, Wisconsin, United States. 2 people were on board and 2 were seriously injured. The aircraft was substantially damaged. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

3 September 2001 at 19:48

Classification

Accident

Location

Bloomfield, Wisconsin, United States

Nearest airport

Vincent Airport (64C)

Coordinates

Not recorded

Aircraft

Gelasi AIRCAMPER

Registration

N7172B

Category

Airplane

Engines

1

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Personal

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Bloomfield → Palmyra

Aircraft damage

Substantial

Weather

VMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

CHI01LA313

2 people were seriously injured.

Aircraft control not possible due to the inadvertent control interference by the front seat passenger. Factors to the accident were the restricted control stick movement and the encountered stall.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

During the initial climb after takeoff the airplane began to sink rapidly and the pilot lowered the nose of the airplane in order gain some additional airspeed. The pilot reported that he cleared two groupings of trees and, "...knew enough to keep the plane from banking or yawing to eliminate the chance of a stall, however at this point I think my passenger in the front seat decided to turn around & see what I was doing. I think his [right] leg pushed the stick over & the plane went into a left bank. All my efforts to right the stick would not do it [and] being too close to the ground I could not recover control before we struck the ground... ." The pilot stated that witnesses to the accident saw the airplane clear the second row of trees, yaw to the left, and then bank to the left. The pilot reported that when the airplane banked to the left, "... caused us to lose what lift we had." A written request for a passenger statement was made, and as of the date of this report no response was received.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.