L2013-04 Seaplane accident at Vehmersalmi near Kuopio on 29 June 2013

An accident occurred at Vehmersalmi near the city of Kuopio on 29 June, 2013 at approximately 15:30 Finnish time. A float-equipped Cessna 185D collided with water in nearly level flight at high airspeed. The pilot and two passengers perished. One passenger survived the accident.

The pilot took off from Vehmersalmi guest harbour and following the take-off made a descending turn back towards the place from where he had taken off. Because of a public event going on at Vehmersalmi, there was a large crowd of people on the shore. The pilot’s intention was to perform a low-altitude flypast in front of the crowd. He flew the aircraft to approximately 1–2 m above the surface of the water, thereby infringing the minimum permissible altitude. After approximately 200–300 m of flight at this altitude the right float of the aircraft hit the water. Both floats were torn off in the collision, the empennage broke into two and the aircraft somersaulted over its nose, after which it rapidly sank. There were many boats in the area and they rushed to the site. After approximately one minute one of the passengers came to the surface, buoyed by a life vest. The passenger was lifted to a boat, taken to the shore, where doctors were waiting, and then onwards to the hospital. The passenger had only suffered slight bruising. By 18:00 hours divers had located and retrieved the bodies of the other victims of the accident.

The meteorological conditions were good for flying. Winds were light and visibility was good. The water at the site of the accident is approximately 14–17 m deep.

The wires which were used to fasten the middle seat belts broke during the accident. According to the aircraft manufacturer, these fastenings were not in compliance with their instructions.

The cause of the accident was the pilot’s decision to perform a flypast in front of the crowd of people below the minimum permissible altitude and close to the surface of the water. An error in altitude judgement resulted in the right float making contact with the water. Contributing factors included the pilot’s desire to fly the flypast in the most impressive manner, the nearly calm water surface which made it difficult to judge altitude, and the pilot’s limited recent flying experience in situations resembling the accident flight.

On the basis of the accident investigation two safety recommendations were issued:

Safety Investigation Authority, Finland recommends that the Finnish Transport Safety Agency publish a national Aviation Regulation requiring the owners or operators of general aviation-class aircraft to check that all seat belts are installed as per requirements.

Safety Investigation Authority, Finland recommends that the Finnish Transport Safety Agency, together with the Finnish Aeronautical Association, improve the curricula of basic flight training, recurrent training and flight instructor training by expanding the portion that deals with the limits of human observation and decision-making.

L2013-04 Report (pdf, 0.41 Mt)