L2021-03 Amateur-built Aircraft Accident at Hyvinkää Aerodrome on September 27, 2021

On Monday September 27, 2021, a pilot receiving instruction and a flight instructor departed on a refresher training flight from Hyvinkää aerodrome. The purpose of the flight was to extend the LAPL privileges of the pilot receiving instruction. The intention was to conduct cross-country work and then return to Hyvinkää for three simulated forced landings.

The aircraft was a tandem-seat Van’s RV-8 amateur-built airplane. In this particular aircraft, the instructor occupying the rear seat had a control stick and a throttle lever, but neither flight instruments nor rudder pedals were installed.

The pilot receiving instruction acted as the pilot flying during the flight. On return from the cross-country portion of the flight, he advised on Hyvinkää aerodrome frequency that he would commence a simulated forced landing. During the maneuver, airspeed fell to a value close to the stalling speed. Control was lost, and the aircraft impacted ground. The pilot receiving instruction was fatally injured while the instructor sustained serious injuries. The aircraft was damaged beyond repair.

Investigation revealed that the 78-year-old pilot receiving instruction died from a bout of illness on the accident site. He had been diagnosed with several cardiovascular diseases, which were under regular hospital monitoring. The risk of incapacitation due to aging and multiple diseases had not been recognized, and the validity of his medical certificate had been extended.

It is not unusual that aeromedical examiners need to assess incapacitation risks among working-age pilots diagnosed with only one or two diseases. There are few aeromedical studies looking at increased age-related incapacitation risk among elderly comorbid pilots, and with very limited information available, the assessment of incapacitation risk will be extremely difficult or even impossible.

The use of an RV-8 for the dual instructional flight would have required a specific approval from the competent authority. The specific approval requires, among other things, complete dual controls. The simulated forced landing was initiated at low altitude and flown at the limits of the airplane’s aerodynamic performance envelope. Because of the lack of instruments and rudder pedals, the instructor had only limited possibilities to intervene with the control inputs of the pilot receiving instruction. In case the pilot receiving instruction had become incapacitated before the impact, the instructor would have had extremely limited time to respond and execute corrective actions.

The Safety Investigation Authority Finland recommends that

- The Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom improves the knowledge of general aviation pilots of the requirement for obtaining a specific approval for the training use of amateur-built and experimental aircraft.
- The European Aviation Safety Agency improves aeromedical examiners’ knowledge and skills in the assessment of the state of health of elderly comorbid pilots.
- The International Civil Aviation Organization updates its Manual of Civil Aviation Medicine to better address age-related factors behind various diseases from an aeromedical point of view.