The airplane perches like a ballerina on ambitious floats, the cockpit far off the ground. It’s an eye-catching little beast: Clean white, deep red, and black.
Vortex generators line the leading edge of the wing and it has a three-bladed prop to gobble up the air.
But I, for one, would not want to taxi it even in 4 knots of wind. Those “second-story” wings just beg to grab the slightest gust.
The airplane is a diminutive two-seat Kitfox 7 STi, and it’s at Orlando International Airport (KMCO) — the Big Bravo at Orlando, Florida — of all places. And, kid you not, in a scene right out of Disney’s Planes, it’s parked next to a Boeing 737.
After refueling at the Signature FBO on the west ramp, the pilot contacts clearance delivery, then ground, where he is cleared to Runway 18R via Taxiway Alpha. This sea level runway — at 12,004 feet long and 200 feet wide — might just be a little bit overkill for the lightweight STOL bush plane, unless the pilot is cleared to takeoff perpendicularly.
The Accident
As the pilot of the miniature bush plane taxis across the ramp en route to Alpha, in rounding the 737, he “walks” straight into the jet blast of a NetJets Bombardier Challenger 650, which is doing an engine run-up.
The right wing of the Kitfox snaps into the air, the left wing smacks the pavement with a sickening crunch, and the entire airplane is blown sideways across the pavement.
The pilot quickly shuts down his engine and master, exits his right door, and grabs the wayward wing by the strut in an attempt to righten the airplane again. But in a scene right out of a Coyote and Roadrunner cartoon, he and the wing together are lifted into the air repeatedly by the ongoing jet blast.
In his report to the NTSB, the pilot wrote, “The jet blast was very difficult to overcome and I was lifted multiple times off the ground.”
He dangles haplessly from the strut for what he estimates to be five to 10 minutes (the jet was doing a long run-up, I guess) but no ground personnel come to his aid. Finally, two people in a passing truck stop to assist and help him keep the airplane on the ground.
A few minutes later an airport fire truck arrives with three firefighters, and the six men together are able to wrangle the twisted Kitfox out of the jet blast and into the shelter of a United Airlines hangar.
The airplane’s left wing spar is substantially damaged and the amphibious undercarriage rendered unairworthy.
The Pilot
The pilot tossed around in the jet blast was a 57-year-old male who held an impressive wallet full of credentials, including ATP, Commercial, and CFI certificates. He was rated for both single-engine land and single-engine sea, as well as multi-engine land and multi-engine sea. In addition to powered airplanes, he was certified in gliders and helicopters and even had a helicopter instrument rating. In fact, he took his last flight review in a helicopter.
For all of that, his total hours are modest for his age and certificates, just shy of 3,000 hours total time, the bulk of it in airplanes. He had 366 hours in the make and model, and a decent amount of recent flying. He held a Class 2 medical, but, according to NTSB documents, was not an occupational pilot.
In his LinkedIn profile, he lists his occupation as an “Aviation & IT Project Expediter.” Not a job title I had seen before, but sounds like fun work if you can get it.
At LinkedIn he also listed a wide array of certifications in the computer and computer security worlds.
Analysis & Discussion
The pilot’s safety recommendations in his report to the NTSB reads like a textbook case study of defense mechanisms. This accident — apparently — is everyone’s fault but his own.
He blames the flight crew of the jet, the FBO, the linemen, the ground controllers, and even his headset, but not once does he take responsibility for taking the light-weight (it had a gross weight of 1,550 pounds, making it only marginally heavier than a Light Sport seaplane) backcountry amphib, built to turn every breath of air into lift, into a large airport like KMCO.
Why he would do such a thing is unclear to me. The Orlando area features numerous reliever airports. There’s Exec Airport literally eight miles north, or Kissimmee Gateway Airport 12 miles southwest — both Deltas.
And within the Mode C and ADS-B Out veil around KMCO there is one more Delta and two uncontrolled airports. Just outside the veil are six more uncontrolled airports. There are also numerous seaports throughout the area.
And, of course, there’s Orlando Sanford International Airport in the vicinity, too. And while a Charlie still isn’t a great choice for backcountry aircraft, at least it’s not the seventh-busiest airport in the United States.
What possible reason could there be for taking this airplane into KMCO?
I had briefly wondered, as the pilot was an ATP, if he was a working airline jockey using his weekend play toy to commute to work, but the NTSB report on the accident and his own LinkedIn profile show that he wasn’t an occupational pilot. (Take no offense, airline pilots with weekend toys, I love it when you heavy metal pros stay in touch with your aviation roots. I only suffer from moderate-to-severe jealousy.)
The Takeaway
So is the takeaway a reminder to be alert to all forms of wake turbulence in mixed airframe environments? I don’t think so. I think it’s something else entirely.
One of the great things about aviation is that we have so many different kinds of airplanes to choose from. Airplanes are, after all, the ultimate specialists. But in addition to picking the right airplane for the job, an important pilot skill is bringing the same level of thought to picking the right airport for the airplane.
I can’t think of any good reasons to take any GA airplane into a major airline hub, much less a two-seat, feather-weight amphibious bush airplane built for STOL.
What possible need is there for that? All the biggest airports boast a healthy ecosystem of reliever and alternate airports. Leave the 12,000-foot runways to the airplanes that need them. There are plenty of more modest — and more appropriate — runways to choose from.
I think that’s the big takeaway from this accident. As pilots, we pretty much have the right to land at any airport that we want to, in any airplane we want to. And I wouldn’t want to change that.
On the other hand, just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.
The Numbers
Want to read more? Download the NTSB’s final report here ERA23LA116 or view the items on docket here.
