not a whole lot of information yet here is a link. http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2013/08/25/two-killed-this-morning-taunton-plane-crash/7oNGU0XNdldU3ZNVtoOvXN/story.html

Godspeed to the two gentlemen who perished and Prayers to their family's.

Yes sireeee, one of those dangerous tube and fabric airplanes where you don't have to "sign in" at the airport. Guess they were lucky they weren't flying an experiment type of plane.

I have a friend in MA who saw the wreckage, he is saying the word at the airport is the rudder gust lock not removed. Sad deal

Jim

How would they have even been able to taxi with a gust lock on the rudder?

This is right in my backyard and fly in and out of there often. Big bummer. News organizations suck and give GA such a bad name. Lots of non-aviation folks here yapping about flight plans, the danger of flying etc...

Always tragic.

When I saw this last night, my first thought was how do you manage to ball up a Champ bad enough to result in two fatal? Docile, slow and steel tube fuselage - doesn't get much safer. Post on PoA speculates that low visibility may have been an issue. With a rudder gust lock in place, I guess that you could manage to taxi with braking, but "controls free and correct" should pick that up.

Regardless the cause. Very sad.

Very sad, for the families. "Why" must wait until the investigation concludes.

We can rail against the non-aviation press all we want, but it's a lot like shouting down a long dark tunnel and expecting it to suddenly light up. When I chaired Laramie's Airport Board years ago, I tried really hard to cultivate relationships with local media people in hopes that aviation reporting would become more accurate, and occasionally that happened. But mostly they're much more interested in the sensationalism that comes from making unfounded accusatory comments about things like (in this case) tube & fabric airframes, no flight plans, etc. Even media folks who are pilots seem to be on that band-wagon, perhaps because they don't run the show and they like their jobs.

About the best we can do, I think, is fly within the regs, use common sense, and do what we can to dispel the image of being outrageously rich risk-takers. For instance, when I can work it into conversation, I describe my airplane as being 50 years old, well maintained, smaller than a VW, a model that is among the safest of all small airplanes ever built, etc. I tell them that while others buy new expensive cars every couple of years, I drive older vehicles with well over 100,000 miles on them and put my money into my airplane instead.

When I take people for rides, many times I'm asked "don't you have to contact a tower?", and I not only tell them "no" but I explain that of the 15,000 or so airports in the US, only about 5,000 are paved, and only about 500 have towers. But we have specific rules to follow when there aren't towers, and so at a not-very-busy place like Greeley and Fort Collins and Laramie, it's very safe not to have a tower--and their taxes don't have to pay for a tower that isn't needed.

There isn't any way to educate the non-aviation public adequately, but each of us can do our little part that may help. One thing we can do is not speculate about the causes of accidents, when it's way too early to know and our only sources of information are rumors and others' speculations.

Cary

Sounds like the report regarding the gust lock was correct:

Luke Schiada, senior air safety investigator with the NTSB’s office of aviation safety, said Monday that after examining the crash site, it appeared that the plane’s rudder-control gust lock was still in place. A gust lock, which keeps the rudder stable when the plane is stationary, is usually removed before takeoff.

“The effect of that gust lock on the accident flight is something that will be analyzed later,” Schiada said. “At this point we’re still in the fact-gathering stage of the investigation.”

He added that investigators still don’t know the cause of the crash and that the rest of the investigation will determine what happened.

Papa Foxtrot wrote: When I saw this last night, my first thought was how do you manage to ball up a Champ bad enough to result in two fatal? Docile, slow and steel tube fuselage - doesn't get much safer.
......

This comment reminded me of the old joke.........the Piper Cub is the safest plane in the world- it's just barely fast enogh to kill you. When you consider that you can die from a fall in the bathtub, any airplane goes high enough & fast enough to easily do you in.

hotrod150 wrote:

Papa Foxtrot wrote: When I saw this last night, my first thought was how do you manage to ball up a Champ bad enough to result in two fatal? Docile, slow and steel tube fuselage - doesn't get much safer.
......

This comment reminded me of the old joke.........the Piper Cub is the safest plane in the world- it's just barely fast enogh to kill you. When you consider that you can die from a fall in the bathtub, any airplane goes high enough & fast enough to easily do you in.

And I had a college professor that managed to kill himself falling off a bicycle...

A quick search of the FAA database for "Aeronca Champ" only yields 9 records(including those for Aeronca Champion). There was only one fatal of the nine and the two victims were in a 7BCM.

Only 9 registered??
Only 9 Champ accidents registered??

Help me here....
lc

Littlecub wrote:Only 9 registered??
Only 9 Champ accidents registered??

Help me here....
lc

Only 9 accidents show up in the FAA database for Aeronca Champ. I might have found more if I had tried other search terms, such as 7AC...

The gust lock problem is now widely reported with the latest information coming from flying magazine.

http://www.flyingmag.com/technique/accidents/control-lock-eyed-culprit-massachusetts-aeronca-champ-crash

I've been flying forever and I get my current plane out weekly, but I use a check list for every pre-flight. It is probably more important now that I am familiar with the plane than it was when I first bought it. The more familiar a task is, the easier it is to get distracted and miss something obvious - like a gust lock. Without rudder at slow speed, the champ would yaw like crazy with any aileron input. That is the perfect formula for a stall/spin on departure. The AW SHIT realization of what was happening must have been terrifying. I can't help but wonder if aggressive down elevator might have recovered enough airspeed to level the wings and allow a crash going forward with the mains absorbing some of the impact energy and possibly sparring at least one life. This really is an unforgiving sport!

For those who have never flown a champ, I am assuming the gust lock is the clamp on variety that actually clamps on the rudder and not inside the cabin?

scottf wrote:For those who have never flown a champ, I am assuming the gust lock is the clamp on variety that actually clamps on the rudder and not inside the cabin?

Yes Scott. That is correct. I had one for my 150 as well as my citabria to keep the rudder from moving when windy.
David