History of Flight
On the evening of June 20, 2014, about 2029 central daylight time, an experimental amateur-built Brumwell RV-6, registration N135BB, impacted a house near Sauk Rapids, Minnesota, approximately 6 miles northwest of St Cloud Regional Airport (STC). The airplane had departed from STC about 2010 on a local personal flight under visual meteorological conditions. The pilot had contacted STC Air Traffic Control Tower (ATC) and was cleared for takeoff from runway 13 with a turn to the west/southwest. The pilot informed ATC that the flight was an aerial tour of the city for the passenger, and that they would maneuver over the western part of town and then fly up the river. About 2017, ATC alerted the pilot to an inbound Airbus A319, Allegiant Flight 108 (AAY108), 30 miles southwest. The pilot acknowledged and later reported sighting the airliner. The pilot transmitted intentions to take a photograph of the airliner. The last transmission from the RV-6 occurred about 2025. A witness observed the small airplane "wobbling and shaking" before entering a descent; the airplane's wings rocked and the nose dropped. Another witness saw the airplane in a nose-dive with about 70 degrees nose-down attitude, descending nearly straight without rotation. No fire was reported during the descent. The airplane then struck a house; the post-crash fire destroyed the airplane and damaged the home.
Personnel Information
The pilot, aged 60, held an airline transport pilot certificate with multiple ratings including airplane multiengine land, airplane single-engine land and sea, as well as flight instructor and flight engineer certificates. He was employed as a Boeing 737 captain at an air carrier. His total flight experience was 24,465 hours, with 478 hours in the preceding six months as of his last medical examination on January 23, 2014. A recovered pilot logbook indicated flights in the accident airplane from April 2013 to June 2014.
Aircraft Information
The accident airplane was a 1992 Brumwell RV-6, serial number 20598, an experimental amateur-built aircraft. It was powered by a Lycoming O-360-A1A engine and featured an upward-opening (tip-up) canopy. The pilot purchased the airplane from the builder in December 2012; registration was accepted in March 2013. The last aircraft logbook entry by the previous owner was a pre-sale checkout on January 6, 2013. Notably, a pilot logbook entry on August 24, 2013, noted "canopy opened descending @ 120 kts STC," but no corresponding maintenance action was found in the airframe logbook. A condition inspection was completed on April 14, 2014, with the airplane and engine found in condition for safe operation.
Wreckage and Impact
The airplane was largely consumed by post-crash fire, which also damaged the house it struck. The fire precluded functional testing of systems, including the canopy latching mechanisms. A headset case containing an aviation headset and white PVC material was recovered from a neighboring house without thermal damage. The PVC was identified as material sometimes used for wheel chocks or control locks in homebuilt aircraft.
Medical and Pathological Information
An autopsy conducted on June 21, 2014, determined the cause of death as multiple blunt force injuries due to the plane crash. Toxicological testing detected no ethanol or listed drugs in the pilot's specimens; carbon monoxide and cyanide tests were not performed.
Additional Investigations
No radar data were available for the accident airplane. Data from AAY108's flight data recorder were downloaded. The potential effects of wake turbulence from the Airbus A319 could not be determined due to the lack of relative position and time information for both aircraft. A referenced paper on Lancair Legacy canopy safety issues, though not specific to the RV-6, noted potential pitch attitude stability and control issues with upward-opening canopies that become unlatched in flight.