WPR10FA223

The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from trees while flying over hilly, forested terrain.

After refueling his airplane in the early afternoon, the pilot departed to a destination unknown to anyone else. When he did not return, he was reported missing and a search ensued for the airplane. About seven months later, the airplane's wreckage was discovered in thick underbrush on a ridge of densely forested hilly terrain. The airplane's left wing had impacted two conifer trees near their tops, resulting in the outboard four feet of the wing separating at that location. The airplane had traveled another 115 feet through the forest, with its wings impacting several other trees, before coming to rest inverted in the underbrush. Examination of the propeller blades and observation of cleanly cut tree sections along the wreckage path revealed evidence of engine rotation at the point of initial impact. A full engine teardown inspection did not reveal any evidence of anomalies that would have existed at the time of the accident and that would have kept the engine from developing full rated horsepower.

HISTORY OF FLIGHT On October 10, 2009, about 1300 Pacific daylight time, a Taylorcraft BC12-D1, N44362, departed Harvey Field, Snohomish, Washington, for an undetermined location. When the Sport Pilot failed to return that evening to participate in a planned family activity that was supposed to take place about 1830, he was reported overdue/missing. The Washington State Department of Transportation Search and Rescue Unit then organized a search effort that lasted about 10 days. As of the termination of that search, neither the airplane nor the pilot had been found. Almost seven months later, on April 30, 2010, two individuals picking Salal on the densely forested lands of the Skokomish Tribal Reservation came across the substantially damaged wreckage of the airplane and the remains of the pilot. The crash site was located about 1.3 miles northwest of Skokomish, Washington. The airplane was registered to the pilot, and was being operated under Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91. On the day of the flight, visual meteorological conditions prevailed throughout the region. No flight plan had been filed, and the pilot did not tell anyone what his planned destination was. The airplane did not have an emergency locator transmitter (ELT) on board. Initially the search for the airplane was focused in the area around Snohomish, Arlington, and Darrington, Washington, because individuals who knew the pilot well believed he had been limiting his flying to that general area while accumulating hours on a used engine that had recently been installed in his airplane. About four days after the beginning of the search effort, there was a report from an individual in Westport, Washington, stating that he believed he had talked with the pilot of N44362 at Westport Airport (14S) on the afternoon of October 10, 2009. That individual said that he watched a Taylorcraft land at Westport, and then after the pilot taxied to parking, he and that pilot chatted for about 30 minutes (mostly about home-built airplanes). Reportedly, the pilot had introduced himself by name, and during the conversation mentioned that he was going to walk into town (about one mile) to meet up with the pilot of another airplane that was already parked on the Westport Airport ramp. Although this witness did not talk with the pilot of N44362 again, he did notice the Taylorcraft take off between 1600 and 1700 and head northwest toward Hoquiam, Washington. Based on that information, Search and Rescue personnel sought recorded radar coverage information for the area between Harvey Field and Westport, Washington, and switched their search to the area along the route between those two locations. The search effort was eventually terminated when no sign of the airplane or pilot was found. Later, after the airplane was located by the Salal pickers, it was determined that the crash site was about 1.5 miles southeast of a direct line between Westport, Washington (where the witness believed he talked with the subject pilot) and Snohomish, Washington (the airplane's home airfield). PERSONNEL INFORMATION The 51 year old Sport Pilot, who was rated for single engine land airplanes, did not possess a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) airman's medical, nor was he required to do so to exercise the privileges of his Sport Pilot certificate. After a review of his pilot log, which had no entries after August 23, 2009, and a discussion with individuals who were familiar with the pilot's flight activities after the engine installation, the NTSB Investigator-In-charge (IIC) estimated that the pilot had accumulated about 180 hours of total flight time, with about 140 hours of that time being in the same make and model as the accident airplane. AIRCRAFT INFORMATION The airplane was a fixed-wing single engine 1946 Taylorcraft BC12-D1 (serial number 10162). Its last annual inspection was signed off on October 4, 2009. It was being operated as a Light Sport Aircraft (LSA), and did not have an electrical system, a transponder, or an ELT. Neither the electrical system nor the transponder were required, but Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR) 91.207 requires a two seat LSA to have onboard an emergency locater transmitter (ELT) that meets Technical Standard Order (TSO) C-91/C-91a. The airplane's engine was a Continental Motors model A65-8 rated at 65 brake horsepower. It had been removed from another airplane on December 7, 2008 (for an engine upgrade to 75 horsepower), and was installed on N44362 on October 4, 2009. The engine replacement was performed in lieu of overhauling the airplane's old engine because the owner had been informed that the overhaul would probably cost substantially more. Its standard fuel system included a 12 gallon fuselage tank and a 6 gallon auxiliary tank in the right wing (17 usable gallons). Refueling records show that about 1255 on the day of the accident, the pilot put 12.05 gallons of 100LL aviation fuel into the aircraft's fuel system from a self-serve fuel pump. The total amount of fuel onboard after the refueling was not able to be determined. METEOROLOGICAL INFORMATION The 1653 recorded surface aviation weather report (METAR) for Hoquiam, Washington, which is located about 43 miles southwest of the accident site, indicated winds at 030 degrees at 8 knots; 10 statute miles visibility; few clouds at 7,000 feet; a temperature of 15 degrees Celsius; a dew point of 02 degrees Celsius, and an altimeter setting of 30.03 inches of mercury. The 1653 METAR for Shelton, Washington, which is located about 7 miles southeast of the accident site, indicated winds from 060 degrees at 03 knots; 10 statute miles visibility; an overcast ceiling at 7,500 feet; a temperature of 13 degrees Celsius; a dew point of minus 02 degrees Celsius; and an altimeter setting of 30.04 inches of Mercury. The 1655 METAR for Bremerton, Washington, which is located about 22 miles northeast of the accident site, indicated winds from 030 degrees at 04 knots, 10 statute miles visibility; scattered clouds at 6,500 feet; an overcast ceiling at 8,000 feet, a temperature of 12 degrees Celsius; a dew point of minus 02 degrees Celsius; and an altimeter setting of 30.09 inches of mercury. WRECKAGE AND IMPACT INFORMATION The wreckage site was located in a dense coniferous forest, near the top of a nearly flat north/south running ridge, about one and one-half miles west of Skokomish, Washington. The altitude of the accident site was 560 feet above sea level, and the terrain along most of the top of the ridge was between 560 feet and 580 feet above sea level. The airplane's entire structure, except for the outboard four feet of the left wing, was located at 47 degrees, 20.405 minutes North; 123 degrees, 11.057 minutes West. The left wing outboard section was about 115 feet south of the primary wreckage, and about 30 feet north of two trees, both about 80 feet tall, which had been broken off near their tops. There were about eight other trees of smaller diameter that had been snapped off at various heights along the path from the remains of the left wing tip to the main wreckage. During the wreckage recovery operation, two cleanly severed tree trunks, both about eight inches in diameter, were found along the impact path. Both trunks had smooth straight clean cuts at the location where they had been severed, and the face of the cuts contained evidence of silver-gray discoloration/staining (see photo # 13). One was located about half way between the point where the airplane first came in contact with the trees and the location of the primary wreckage. The other was found about 10 feet down-track from the primary wreckage. The fuselage came to rest inverted in the dense underbrush below the forest canopy, with both wings and their associated lift struts folded almost straight back along the sides of the fuselage. The damage to both wings was consistent with their structure impacting numero