Accident Overview
The accident occurred during a single-engine flight test conducted with the inboard gear doors removed. A chase aircraft was photographing the test. After the tests concluded, the pilot was unable to restart the left engine and returned to the airport for a single-engine landing. The pilot overshot the landing attempt and performed a single-engine go-around, subsequently reporting a gear problem.
Flight Details
An occupant of the chase aircraft observed that the main landing gear were hanging 75 to 80 degrees from the horizontal. A company employee at the airport reported that the nose gear was about 10 degrees aft of the normal down-and-locked position. The aircraft continued on a west-southwest heading away from the airport, passing over several suitable emergency landing sites while in a slow descent, until it collided with the guy or grounding wire atop a powerline pole located 4 miles west-southwest of the airport. The aircraft was destroyed, and both occupants were killed.
Official Findings
The probable cause includes two occurrences. Occurrence #1: loss of engine power during maneuvering, with an undetermined cause related to the propeller system or feathering system. Occurrence #2: in-flight collision with an object during the go-around phase. Contributing factors included the pilot's poor planned approach, initiated go-around, performed aborted landing, issues with the landing gear doors and normal retraction/extension assembly making gear retraction not possible, deteriorated aircraft performance due to engine-out capability, and improper in-flight planning and decision-making. The object was the guy wire.