FAR TOO CASUAL
This discussion is to promote safety and not to establish liability.
The CAA’s report contains padding and repetition, so in the interest of clarity, I have paraphrased extensively.
Aircraft registration: ZS-LVC
Date of accident: 8 April 2004
Time of accident 0730Z
Type of aircraft: CESSNA T210N
Type of operation: Acceptance/test flight
PIC license type: PPL
License valid: Yes
PIC age: 45
PIC total hours: 200.0
PIC hours on type 115.0
Last point of departure: FAGM
Point of intended landing: FAGM
Location of accident site: Field Near N59 Highway
Meteorological information: CAVOK Temp +17
POB: 1
People injured: 0
People killed: 0


Synopsis:
The pilot/owner departed from Rand Aerodrome on an acceptance/test flight after a MPI was carried out on the aircraft.
The pilot stated that during the flight, he recycled the landing gear to check the landing gear operation and operated the ailerons (rocking the wings up and down) when the engine suddenly failed. He then changed the fuel tank selection and restarted the engine. The engine started briefly but then failed again.
As he was committed to carry out a forced landing, he decided to execute a forced landing on a slightly rough but open field with the landing gear retracted. The aircraft skidded for approximately 100m on the grass and ground looped through 90 degrees before it came to rest.
The pilot was not injured during the event and the nose landing gear doors, nose under surface and propeller blades were only slightly damaged.
According to the pilot, he did not uplift additional fuel into the aircraft or visually check the level in the fuel tanks as he was of the opinion that there was sufficient fuel available for a flight of approximately 15 minutes. The left and right hand fuel quantity gauges indicated approximately ¼ full.
The last MPI was carried out 8 April 2004 at 3284.2 hours and the aircraft had accumulated an additional 0.3 hours at the time of the incident since the MPI. The Aircraft Maintenance Organisation who certified the last Mandatory Periodic inspection (MPI) prior to the Incident was audited by the Airworthiness Department on 07 April 2004 and no major findings were noted.
Probable cause:
The engine stopped due to fuel starvation when the fuel tank outlets were uncovered by fuel when the pilot manoeuvred the wings up and down with the ailerons during the acceptance flight with fuel quantity at a low usable fuel level.

Jim’s comments:
I come from an era when teachers told us, very publicly, when we had stuffed up, and hurled blackboard dusters at our heads. And that wasn’t for destroying expensive machinery and endangering lives, it was for failing to conjugate a Latin verb correctly.
There was a time, before all this woke nonsense, when it was perfectly normal to say what had caused an accident, and to speculate.
Overloading, alcohol, incompetence, poor training and crappy maintenance were all subjects on the agenda sheet for open debate.
Us newbies learned a lot by listening to these discussions and speculation. Nobody was going to take offense or legal action.
Now we have to be careful not to discuss how pilots or engineers killed people in case we upset them. Grrrrrrr.
So I am not going to pussy-foot around the lies, stupidity and incompetence surrounding this idiotic accident.
Fortunately, no one died. The pilot and AMO are not named and it all happened 20 years ago, so I hope feelings have calmed down, because I am going into wild speculation mode.
Who, in their right mind flies an aircraft without doing a preflight inspection? I guess the answer is no one. So it follows that the pilot was not in his right mind. He behaved like an idiot and was lucky not to have killed himself when he starved the engine over a built-up area.
But this leads to an interesting discussion. What exactly is a preflight inspection? I always teach that it’s a silly abbreviation for a pre-every-flight inspection. When you are training people, this is the safe and sensible thing to teach. But we have all done abbreviated versions which common sense seemed to indicate were okay.
If you are on a four hour flight in a well-maintained aircraft, and you land for a pee-break after three hours, are you really going to do a full preflight, or even sample the fuel? I would certainly check the fuel and oil levels and make sure there were no oil leaks or flat tyres, and then be happily on my way.
Legal? Perhaps not.
Safe? Almost certainly
But how about this oukie? If he doesn’t do a preflight after an MPI, when does he ever do one? To me a post-maintenance preflight has to be the most thorough one you ever do.
Hell, think about it. The guys who have been swarming all over your aircraft and pulling it apart, are not necessarily engineers. In fact they may be appies who have never even seen your type of aircraft before. Yep, it’s the engineer’s job to make sure all the work is done correctly and signed for. But I try not to consign my life to strangers.
Put it this way; I never trust the refueller to put the fuel and oil caps on properly – and I hope you don’t.
You may remember the Centurion that took off from Wonderboom with a family of four on board. Soon after takeoff they spun into the ground killing everyone. It turned out that the refueller hadn’t put the oil cap on properly. When it came off, the windscreen was instantly blackened with oil. The pilot, who could see nothing, got such a fright he stalled while turning back to the field.
And think about this. When you collect your aircraft after they have serviced it – it’s all nice and clean in the engine bay. Where do you think the cleaning material came from? It’s from your fuel tanks. And where do the appies who serviced your aircraft get fuel for their cars and motorbikes – that’s right. So the longer your aircraft is in the AMO the less fuel is in the tanks.
And if the aircraft has to be weighed – they have to record the empty weight – which means without fuel. So the guys at the AMO have to drain your tanks. Ideally they would be drained into spotless stainless steel containers with covers on, and then every drop returned to your tanks after the weighing… hmmmmm…
And who trusts their life to dicky fuel gauges that are reading around ¼?
And while I am speculating, who has exactly 200 hours? Remember when you started flying you proudly recorded hours to the nearest tenth. Most of us do that throughout our careers, but some greybeards with thousands of hours get a bit slack and round things up or down to the nearest half-hour – or perhaps even a whole hour on long-haul flights.
Anyone who writes in an accident report that they have exactly 200.0 total hours is either meticulously conscientious in recording this coincidence, or just a bit too bloody casual. And given the fact that he didn’t do a preflight I would suspect the latter.
And is it another coincidence that the AMO just happened to have been audited by the CAA’s Airworthiness Department one day before the accident? What’s that smell?
In the olden days when everything was black-and-white, and we learned to fly from grass fields in little aeroplanes with five instruments, 40 hours was deemed sufficient to earn a PPL. And 200 hours in little aeroplanes with a dozen instruments and two radios was generally enough to train a pilot to fly safely in uncluttered skies in decent weather.
Now I have to wonder how many hours you need to feel really comfortable barrelling through complicated airspace at 200 mph with flaps, retractable gear and a constant-speed prop while fiddling with a stack of avionics and a micky-mouse autopilot. Perhaps somewhere between 500 and 1000 hours? I don’t know.
But if this guy’s figures are to be believed, he converted to just such an aeroplane when he had 75 hours. Would you have happily consigned your loved ones to the back seat of his complex aircraft when he had less than 100 hours. Maybe it’s just an LCC thing.
Final thought – I believe that an instructor who signs out a brand-new low-hour pilot to fly a complex aircraft in a high density traffic environment is pushing his luck. Put it this way – if the airforce was converting a new pilot to a complex aircraft they would have him in the classroom for the best part of a month before he ever saw the aircraft – and he would probably have to do around 40 hours of dual in that aircraft.
Take home stuff:
- If you are the PIC please don’t trust anyone else to ‘help’ with the preflight, or the refuelling, or the removal of chocks, or the control locks, or pitot cover.
- Don’t let yourself fall into the category of too many Rands and too little sense.