Accident Details
A single-engine Fletcher aircraft, engaged in an aerial topdressing operation on a farm near Taumarunui, crashed and burned after failing to return from its 43rd sortie of the day. A search located the aircraft about midway between the sowing area and the airstrip. The aircraft was destroyed by impact forces, and fire was largely confined to the engine bay and cockpit.
The pilot, Robert Neville Scott, was killed in the accident. Evidence indicated that the pilot had made a 90-degree turn back toward the airstrip and had commenced jettisoning the hopper load of superphosphate, which weighed approximately 20 hundredweight (2,240 pounds, 995 kg). The aircraft collided with terrain on a 15-degree rising grassy slope at low forward speed and high rate of descent. About 15 hundredweight of the load remained in the hopper at impact.
Both fuel tanks were ruptured in the crash, and there was an absence of Avtur odor on the ground around the left-hand tank. The engine was producing high rotational energy at the time of impact. No evidence of mechanical failure prior to impact was found. An autopsy of the pilot produced no evidence that the fire had begun in the air.
Probable Cause
The official investigation reported the following findings: an in-flight emergency arose and influenced the pilot either to initiate a return to the airstrip or to make an immediate forced landing; the evidence suggests but does not conclusively prove that insufficient fuel flow resulting in partial loss of engine power influenced the pilot so to act; the emergency arose at a time when fuel quantity was marginal for continued operation without refueling.