Accident Progressive Aerodyne Searey N801SR,
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ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 189489
 
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Date:Tuesday 23 August 2016
Time:15:00
Type:Silhouette image of generic SREY model; specific model in this crash may look slightly different    
Progressive Aerodyne Searey
Owner/operator:Private
Registration: N801SR
MSN: 1MK283
Year of manufacture:2001
Total airframe hrs:1058 hours
Engine model:Rotax 914ULS
Fatalities:Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 2
Aircraft damage: Substantial
Category:Accident
Location:Sebring Regional Airport, FL -   United States of America
Phase: Landing
Nature:Training
Departure airport:Sebring, FL (SEF)
Destination airport:Sebring, FL (SEF)
Investigating agency: NTSB
Confidence Rating: Accident investigation report completed and information captured
Narrative:
During initial climb on an instructional flight in the experimental amateur-built airplane, about 200 ft above ground level, the engine began running rough. The flight instructor immediately decreased the airplane’s angle of attack and the engine subsequently experienced a total loss of power. The flight instructor tried to land on the remaining runway; however, the airplane landed hard and struck an embankment.
Examination of the airplane revealed wiring that contained mismatched wire gauges and splices throughout the wiring harnesses. The ground wire for the master arm solenoid was disconnected from the back of the ignition switch. Without this ground wire, the battery was disconnected from the airplane’s electrical system. The airplane’s rectifier kept the fuel boost pumps running per the wiring diagrams; however, a postaccident engine run revealed that the rectifier was weak and only displacing 12.3 volts, rather than its nominal output voltage of 13.5 /- 0.2 volts. It is likely that, during takeoff, the ground wire became disconnected from the ignition switch and the weak rectifier could not adequately supply the high electrical load requirements imposed by the fuel boost pumps, the landing gear motors retracting the gear, and the strobe lights. This degraded the performance of the fuel boost pumps, resulting in fuel starvation and a total loss of engine power.


Probable Cause: A disconnected ground wire during initial climb, which degraded the fuel boost pumps’ performance and resulted in a total loss of engine power due to fuel starvation.

Accident investigation:
cover
  
Investigating agency: NTSB
Report number: ERA16LA299
Status: Investigation completed
Duration: 2 years
Download report: Final report

Sources:

NTSB

Location

Revision history:

Date/timeContributorUpdates
24-Aug-2016 04:30 Geno Added
24-Aug-2016 15:25 Aerossurance Updated [Time, Registration, Cn, Location, Destination airport, Source, Narrative]
24-Aug-2016 15:29 Aerossurance Updated [Operator]
16-Sep-2018 19:09 ASN Update Bot Updated [Time, Nature, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Damage, Narrative, Accident report, ]

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