N101ME

HISTORY OF FLIGHTOn April 12, 2013, about 1055 eastern daylight time an experimental, amateur built, Velocity XL, N101ME, was substantially damaged during landing rollout, following a forced landing, after a complete loss of engine power in cruise flight, near Avon Park, Florida. The certificated private pilot and his pilot rated passenger were not injured. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and no flight plan had been filed for the personal flight conducted under Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 91, that departed Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE), Fort Lauderdale, Florida, destined for Plant City Airport (PCM), Plant City, Florida.

According to the pilot, after receiving weather for the route of flight and conducting a preflight inspection, the pilot and his pilot rated passenger departed FXE at approximately 1000 for PCM, with approximately 50 gallons of fuel on board. After about 35 minutes of flight time, they heard a slight "pop" and both of them looked at each other and said "What was that". They then scanned the instruments and all looked good. A minute or two later they heard a "pop", "pop", and the pilot stated to his passenger "that does not sound good and we had better look at alternate airports". He then began a decent from 4500 feet above mean sea level (msl), to get under the clouds for a "better visual". At approximately 2000 feet msl, he increased the mixture control to full rich, and turned the boost pump "on". He then noticed that "3 cylinders had gone cold" on the exhaust gas temperature (EGT) display. The engine then began losing power and running rough.

At his point, he decided to divert to Bartow Municipal Airport (BOW), Bartow, Florida. As he turned towards BOW, the engine lost all power. The pilot had a choice of either a road or a field. He then looked at the traffic on the road and it seemed like he had sufficient space to land. Since he had little time, he decided to head for the road. He touched down on the road and noticed that he was gaining on a car in front of him, so he headed off the road to the right to avoid the car. The airplane went down the shoulder of the road and the right wing got caught in the grass which caused the airplane to veer right. The airplane then struck a barbed wire fence and came to rest.

The pilot rated passenger also concurred with the pilot's statement regarding the accident advising that, when they were taxing out to the runway at FXE, he checked each fuel tank and they each read 25.3 gallons, giving them a total of 50.6 gallons of fuel. He added that, after the first, then second "pop", or what felt to him like a slight engine hesitation, all of the engine instrument's temperatures, pressures, rpms, and manifold pressure were normal with the oil temperature at 202 degrees Fahrenheit and the fuel pressure steady at 20 pounds per square inch. During the initial descent to get through a "hole" and under the cloud layer below them, he also noticed that the No. 3 and No. 5 cylinders had gone cold on the EGT display, then at about 2000 feet msl, he noticed that three cylinders had gone cold. Shortly after that, only the No. 6 cylinder indicated temperature and very shortly after that, all 6 cylinders went cold. The pilot attempted twice to restart the engine at approximately 1,000 feet above ground level (agl) and approximately 300 feet agl, but the engine would just sputter.

Shortly after that they cleared "wires" that crossed State Road 64, and two cars traveling in the same easterly direction with a gap of at least 500 feet between them, and the next set of cars ahead. With no on-coming traffic for about a half mile, they committed and dove into the gap. After touch down on the road their speed was probably 20 to 30 knots faster than the group of cars ahead of them and even with hard braking, they closed the gap quickly. They then turned off the side of the road on to the shoulder to avoid the car ahead of them, and rolled for a couple of hundred feet on the shoulder of the road, coming alongside the car that had been immediately ahead of them. The embankment then steepened just enough to have their right wingtip make contact with the ground and force them harder to the right, overcoming the brakes for directional control, and forcing them through a farmer's fence. PERSONNEL INFORMATIONAccording to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and pilot records, the pilot held a private pilot certificate with ratings for airplane single-engine land, airplane single-engine sea, airplane multiengine land and rotorcraft-helicopter. His most recent FAA second-class medical certificate was issued on November 28, 2012. He reported that he had accrued 7,500 total hours of flight experience, of which, 5 hours were in the accident airplane make and model. AIRCRAFT INFORMATIONThe accident airplane was an experimental amateur built, 4 seat, canard configured airplane. It was constructed of composite materials, and was equipped with retractable landing gear. It was powered by a fuel injected, horizontally opposed, air cooled, 300 horsepower, Lycoming IO-540-K1H5 engine, mounted in a pusher configuration, driving a 3-bladed, variable pitch MT propeller. It was capable of cruising at speeds in excess of 200 knots true airspeed.

According to FAA and maintenance records, the airplane received its special airworthiness certificate December 19, 2003. The airplane's most recent conditional inspection was completed on March 1, 2013. At the time of the inspection, the airplane had accrued 35 total hours of operation. METEOROLOGICAL INFORMATIONThe recorded weather at Winter Haven's Gilbert Airport (GIF), Winter Haven, Florida, located approximately 31 nautical miles, north of the accident site, at 1053, included: winds 210 degrees at 13 knots, 10 miles visibility, broken clouds at 1, 800 feet, temperature 26 degrees C, dew point 22 degrees C, and an altimeter setting of 29.93 inches of mercury. AIRPORT INFORMATIONThe accident airplane was an experimental amateur built, 4 seat, canard configured airplane. It was constructed of composite materials, and was equipped with retractable landing gear. It was powered by a fuel injected, horizontally opposed, air cooled, 300 horsepower, Lycoming IO-540-K1H5 engine, mounted in a pusher configuration, driving a 3-bladed, variable pitch MT propeller. It was capable of cruising at speeds in excess of 200 knots true airspeed.

According to FAA and maintenance records, the airplane received its special airworthiness certificate December 19, 2003. The airplane's most recent conditional inspection was completed on March 1, 2013. At the time of the inspection, the airplane had accrued 35 total hours of operation. WRECKAGE AND IMPACT INFORMATIONExamination of the wreckage by an FAA inspector and personnel from Velocity Aircraft revealed that the airplane had been substantially damaged.

The nose of the airplane was scratched and gouged, the nose landing gear was damaged, and the nose landing gear door displayed impact damage and was separated from its aft pivot point.

The right winglet, right winglet /wing joint had been compromised and an approximately 8 inch long tear existed which had penetrated the skin and internal foam core, and the right rudder displayed impact damage and cracking.

The main gear doors were impact damaged, and the left main landing gear was impact damaged. An approximately 10 inch long crack existed along the longitudinal axis of the left main landing gear leg.

The engine oil cooler scoop was also impact damaged, and all three propeller blades were impact damaged. Two blades were broken near their tips, and one blade was broken about 10 inches in from the tip. ADDITIONAL INFORMATIONAccording to the Velocity Owner's Flight Manual for the XL Series, modern aircraft engines are extremely durable and seldom fail catastrophically without plenty of advance warning (lowering oil pressure, excessive mechanical noise, rising oil temperature, etc.).

Pilot induced failures, on the other hand, are far more common (carburetor ice, confusion of mixture and carb heat controls, fuel starvation, fuel management, etc.).

The manual advised that in the event of inflight engine stoppage, check mixture - RICH, boost pump on, magnetos -BOTH, and attempt restart. If the engine began to run rough, to check for induction icing, improper mixture setting, or a bad magneto. If an alternate magneto setting failed to correct the roughness, to make a precautionary landing as soon as possible and troubleshoot.

Lowering or rising oil pressure, rising oil temperature or increasing mechanical noise are good indications of impending failure and flight should be aborted as soon as possible. The manual also advised to not hesitate to declare an emergency to obtain priority clearance, and if stoppage does occur and restart is impossible, to execute an engine-out approach and landing. FLIGHT RECORDERSThe airplane was not equipped with a cockpit voice recorder or flight data recorder, nor was it required to be under the CFRs.

It was however equipped with a J. P. Instruments EDM-700 which is a panel mounted instrument that the pilot can monitor and records up to 24 parameters related to engine operations.

The unit contained non-volatile memory for data storage of the parameters recorded and calculated. The rate at which the data was stored and selected by the operator was from 2 to 500 seconds per sample. The memory could store up to 20 hours of data at a 6 second sample rate.

The EDM recording contained data from 35 power cycles. The event flight was logged as "Flt79" and was the second to last recording available upon download.

Data retrieved from the unit included cylinder head temperature (CHT), and exhaust gas temperature (EGT). The unit had not been set up to record fuel flow.

Review of the data indicated that a drop in CHT and EGT for all of the engines cylinders occurred over an approximate 5 minute period. The drop f...