Cessna 182 C Crash in Ailertchen After Engine Failure

Incident Overview and Flight Details On May 30, 2020, a Cessna 182 C aircraft operated for skydiving operations crashed into a residential building in Ailertchen, Germany. The aircraft, manufactured by Cessna Aircraft Company in 1960 with serial number 52478, was equipped with a 230-horsepower O-470-R engine and a three-blade propeller. It had been modified for parachute drops, with only the pilot's seat installed. The aircraft had a total airframe time of 5,106 hours and was last inspected on March 4, 2020. The flight was the tenth and final planned drop of the day, departing from the Ailertchen special landing site (EDGA) at 18:55 local time. The 54-year-old pilot, holding a commercial pilot license, was accompanied by four skydivers. Previous drops that day had been conducted at 6,500 feet AMSL, with two earlier flights reaching 7,800 feet. Fuel records indicated the aircraft was initially fueled with 26 liters of Super Plus from a mobile tank, with two subsequent refuelings of 30 liters each after the third and seventh flights. The pilot estimated that 14 gallons of usable fuel remained in both wing tanks after the final flight, with a total flight time of approximately three hours that day. Fuel was drawn from both tanks during all operations. After dropping the skydivers, the aircraft began a descent south of the airfield in a long, shallow right turn. The pilot reported observing a rapid engine cooling on the electronic engine monitoring device (EDM 730) while on a right crosswind approach to runway 03. He attempted to compensate by increasing manifold pressure, a technique he used to prevent rapid engine cooling during descents. However, the cooling continued despite increased power, leading him to initially suspect incomplete fuel combustion. He later realized the engine had failed and the propeller was windmilling. The pilot reduced speed to slow the descent and attempted to restart the engine following the procedures in the flight and operating manual, including setting the fuel selector to both tanks, mixture to full rich, and magneto to both. The restart attempt was unsuccessful. As he approached the extended final approach to runway 03, he determined he could not reach the airfield due to low altitude, which would have resulted in a forced landing in a forest. He turned left toward a nearby meadow to avoid the forest. During this left turn, the aircraft collided with a high-voltage overhead power line, which witnesses described as producing a loud bang and an electric arc. The aircraft then crashed into the roof of a single-family house at approximately 19:29 local time. The pilot was seriously injured but managed to free himself from the wreckage and exit the house via the stairs. The aircraft was destroyed. The accident site was located approximately 1,500 meters southwest of the threshold of runway 03. The point of contact with the power line, which ran north-south, was about 250 meters northwest of the approach path. The wreckage came to rest in the attic of the house, which had been converted into a living room. The gable roof was two-thirds open on the southeast side, and a chimney was torn off. The engine protruded about 0.3 meters from the building, and the cockpit was on the right side of the attic, facing west. The tail and wings were bent, deformed, and crushed, lying compactly over the fuselage. Both wing tanks were ruptured, and fuel seeped through the ceiling into the floor below. The instrument panel was visually intact, with the flap lever at zero degrees, throttle at full forward, mixture at full rich, ignition on both, and carburetor heat off. No defects or anomalies were found during the engine inspection. A detached wing segment was partially soot-covered, but there was no evidence of fire in flight or after impact. The aircraft was not equipped with a flight data recorder or cockpit voice recorder, as neither was required by applicable regulations. The investigation used radar data, GPS data from a mobile navigation device, and data from the EDM 730 to reconstruct the flight path. The EDM 730 data showed a rapidly falling exhaust gas temperature during the descent. Radar data documented a steep descent in a long right turn, but did not capture the lower portion of the flight path to the accident site. The pilot held a commercial pilot license (CPL A) converted to an EU license on January 28, 2014, with ratings for single-engine piston aircraft (SEP land) valid until January 31, 2022, and a type rating for the Pilatus PC 6 SET valid until May 31, 2020. He also held an instrument rating (IR) valid until January 31, 2021, and a Class 1 medical certificate valid until September 13, 2020, with a vision limitation requiring glasses. His total flight experience was 4,495 hours, including 68 hours on the Cessna 182 C, with 12 hours in the preceding 90 days. Weather conditions at the time included visibility over 10 kilometers, light cloud cover, wind from the northeast at approximately 6 knots, air temperature of 16°C, dew point of 3°C, and QNH of 1,020 hPa. The Ailertchen special landing site is located about 30 kilometers northeast of Koblenz in the Westerwald region, at an elevation of 1,542 feet AMSL. It is surrounded by open agricultural land and forest, and has a 550-meter by 30-meter grass runway oriented 030/210 degrees. The pilot maintained radio contact with the Ailertchen flight control and the skydiving group's ground station. His last transmission before the accident was reporting entry into the right downwind approach to runway 03. The radio communications were not recorded.