Study: Fatalities more likely in kit planes

LITTLE ROCK — Private planes assembled from kits have been involved in more crashes and deaths than other small aircraft because pilots are often ill-prepared to fly them, a U.S. safety study found.

Planes like those that Micron Technology Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Appleton and singer John Denver were piloting when they died are more than three times more likely to be in a fatal accident, the National Transportation Safety Board said last week. Ten of 102 accidents in home-built planes last year occurred the first time they were flown.

Home-built small planes are classified as experimental by the Federal Aviation Administration and have fewer regulatory restrictions than similar factory built planes, the safety board said. It voted to recommend requiring pilots to conduct fuel-system testing, file flight-test plans and use the latest electronic gear to record flight data.

“This has been an issue for a while,” Robert Sumwalt, an NTSB board member, said at a hearing in Washington last week after describing Denver’s crash almost 15 years ago. “It involves a lot of pilots. Hopefully we can drive the accident rate significantly down as a result of this study.”

Unlike with a factory plane, pilots of home-built aircraft must test fly the planes themselves. Flight tests are not always conducted according to FAA recommendations and pilots are often not prepared to assess whether the plane is in working order, the study found.

Pilots who bought a used home-built plane often had similar difficulties on initial flights, according to the study. While the FAA has guidance for how to test the planes, the regulatory agency doesn’t check to ensure that it was done.

“There’s really no excuse for not having an effective flight-test program,” Earl Weener, an NTSB member, said at the hearing.

Of about 224,000 U.S. general aviation aircraft, 33,000 were built from plans or kits, according to the safety board. About 1,000 are made each year, Dick Knapinski, a spokesman for the Experimental Aircraft Association, said in a phone interview. The group welcomed the board’s suggestions, and is working on implementing several recommendations, he said.

The association, based in Oshkosh, Wis., represents more than 160,000 pilots and other enthusiasts, according to its website. The group helped the safety board survey owners for its study.