Stability Study of the Accident of a General Aviation Aircraft

Abstract

In April 2014 an aircraft accident occurred at Jämijärvi aerodrome when a Comp Air 8 aircraft crashed into the woods. According to the scenario of the investigation report, the pilot reduced the engine power in such a way that the thrust became negative. Simultaneously the prop-washed kinetic pressure of the tail was reduced, which rapidly evoked a nose-down moment and a corresponding angular velocity. This led to a negative angle of attack and a large negative wing load and finally resulted in a wing strut buckling and the wing folding toward the aircraft’s body. In this study, six degree-of-freedom (6-dof) simulations are carried out for the aircraft to assess the supposed accident scenario. The simulations show that the proposed mechanism is possible, but there existed other potential courses of events after the thrust adjustment.