Accident Overview
On May 1, 2018, at about 0845 eastern daylight time, a weight-shift-control Cosmos Phase III, registration N6466, sustained substantial damage after impacting terrain shortly after departing from Fernandina Beach Municipal Airport (FHB), Fernandina Beach, Florida. The flight instructor was seriously injured, and the student pilot was not injured. The aircraft was registered to and operated by the flight instructor as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 instructional flight. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and no flight plan was filed for the flight, which originated at 0830 from FHB.
Incident Details
According to the flight instructor's telephone interview with the National Transportation Safety Board investigator-in-charge, the student pilot was manipulating the controls and flying the aircraft. During the initial climb at about 700 feet above ground level, the airplane suddenly entered a "hard" left bank. The flight instructor took control of the aircraft but was unable to recover, and the aircraft impacted terrain in a nose-down attitude. The flight instructor did not recall if there was a mechanical anomaly but reported that the student pilot was known to freeze on the controls and that he could have been fighting him.
Pilot Statements
The student pilot did not provide a statement regarding the circumstances of the accident. Neither the flight instructor nor the student pilot completed or submitted the NTSB Pilot/Operator Aircraft Accident/Incident Report Form 6120.1 to the investigator-in-charge.