Aviation officials call for checks for Piper aircraft

Press, 16 June 1982, Page 10

Aviation officials call for checks for Piper aircraft

PA Auckland The Civil Aviation Division has called for checks on all Piper Tomahawk aircraft after the crash which killed a young pilot near Wanganui a week ago.

It is believed that the Wanganui crash may have something in common with the disappearance of a Tomahawk from Ardmore in January. This aircraft was never found.

A Civil Aviation Division source confirmed yesterday that the two accidents had been linked. In the absence of any wreckage from the January disappearance it was unlikely that the cause of this accident would ever be known.

Users were being asked to check a mechanism called the elevator torque tube for cracks or failure.

Before his aircraft plunged into the sea off Wanganui on

June 7. the. pilot. Ross Clark, aged 20. had radioed that he had a “control problem." The wreckage has been recovered and it is believed that parts are being examined by the D.S.I.R. On January 7 another 20-year-old pilot took off from Ardmore on an hour’s training flight, and disappeared without trace.

A four-day air and ground search found nothing, and it was assumed that the aircraft went down in the Thames Estuary.

The similarity of both flights has been "noted. Drake Aviation Flying School at Harewood, uses two Piper Tomahawk aircraft. a third being used part-time. Mr Bruce Drake has said that he had received, a message from the ■ division and that visual checks on the aircraft had been made.

One of the aircraft had undergone a magnalfux ultralviolet light check yesterday and had shown -iio evidence of cracking.

The visual check had taken about two minutes, while the magnaflux check took about 30 minutes. Mr Drake said he did not believe that a fault in the elevator torque tube was the cause of the Wanganui accident because the divisions bulletin had recommended only that the check by made within five flying hours. If the division had strongly believed that the fault had caused the accident it would have asked for the check before further flight, or even have grounded all Tomahawks- until that cause had been eliminated. The Canterbury Aero Club does not fly Tomahawks.