Lancair down in the Lolo Pass area. I have a friend in the Spokane FSDO who reports...

"Guy lost power over the Rockies, not all that far from where I grew up but still within our FSDO region. Lancair with an IO-550 in it. Hit a snag about 40 feet up, and the wreckage went 365 feet. No fire, which was amazing considering how dry it was. Those wings basically blew apart (structural failure) when they hit the trees, and the rest of the plane is plastic. I did find a small amount of fuel in a fuel line, but the integral tanks were blasted open at impact, way high in the air. Couldn't smell fuel anywhere.

So yeah, impact, a crater about 235 feet later, and the rest of it, including the pilot, went another 130 feet past that heavy impact. Broke the prop off, which I hadn't seen before.

Good news is the avionics were largely undamaged. He had a GPS with SPOT and an engine condition analyzer, so we should get some good data from that. "

I hope they can find out what happened, RIP aviator

An early news report posted just prior to the wreckage being found indicated another pilot relayed a message that the pilot in distress had oil on the windshield.

Hopefully the engine instruments will tell the investigators something. My buddy will keep me informed about it. I built my airplane so I've become his goto guy for Experimental aircraft. Thought Lancairs might as well be flying saucers compared to what I built.

svanarts wrote:Hopefully the engine instruments will tell the investigators something. My buddy will keep me informed about it. I built my airplane so I've become his goto guy for Experimental aircraft. Thought Lancairs might as well be flying saucers compared to what I built.

he can't talk to lancair?

The manufacturers do get contacted. Sometimes they can be a little guarded when the FAA comes knocking though.

It may be experimental, but there's a reasonable chance the motor was mostly stock. While they don't exactly fall out of the sky, lancair's are not known for the most polite dead-stick glide/landing characteristics.

There aren't a lot of pretty places to land an airplane over there. Condolences to the family. Terrible deal regardless of the cause.

MTV