Pilot's error led to serious microlight accident (From Warrington Guardian)

Pilot's error led to serious microlight accident

A WARRINGTON pilot's error in wrongly connecting vital control cables has been blamed for a microlight crash at a Manchester airfield in July 2003 in which he was seriously injured.

An official Air Accident Investigation Branch report into the incident at Barton Airfield at 11.40am on July 8, 2003 blames the pilot and owner Peter Little, aged 60, of Richmond Close, Culcheth, for the crash of the 2002-built Skyranger microlight.

The report says the first part of the takeoff proceeded uneventfully. However, it says that just after becoming airborne, the pilot applied a small amount of right rudder.

Shortly after that, he recalled making a correction for a slight bank with ailerons, flap-like devices, which control an aircraft's rolling or banking.

However, according to the report, instead of reducing the bank, it increased.

Witnesses on the ground recalled seeing a slight left bank develop which smoothly and rapidly increased until the nose of the aircraft dropped, descended and hit the ground.

The pilot, who had 70 hours' flying experience, was trapped in the wreckage having suffered severe injuries.

The report says that, prior to the accident, the pilot became distracted during the process of rigging the aircraft which he had taken to the airfield himself and which he had originally built from a kit.

It says he failed to notice an error in the aileron control cables connections, despite experiencing difficulty in actually making the connection.

"Also, although during the pre-takeoff control checks he checked that the ailerons moved in response to control inputs, he did not check that the ailerons moved in the correct direction, and thus missed a final opportunity to avoid the accident," says the report.