The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) announced on Friday that it was discontinuing the investigation into the fatal crash of a Jodel D11 on Christmas Eve last year.
VH-WBL was being flown on a private flight from Ball Bay airstrip in Queensland when the engine failed at 60 feet AGL. The pilot turned left towards the beach, but the aircraft crashed heavily into the sand. The pilot survived, but the one passenger on board was fatally injured.
The ATSB investigation revealed that the pilot did not hold a current licence and the aircraft had not been properly maintained.
“The Australian Transport Safety Bureau conducts independent ‘no-blame’ investigations into accidents and incidents for the purpose of identifying safety issues and actions and to help prevent the occurrence of similar future accidents," said ATSB Chief Commissioner Angus Mitchell, "and we do not investigate for the purpose of taking administrative, regulatory or criminal action.
“In this tragic accident ATSB investigators established quite quickly that the aircraft, an amateur-built two-seat Jodel D11, was being operated outside of aviation regulations.
“The pilot was not licenced to fly aeroplanes and the aircraft and engine had not been maintained in accordance with the appropriate regulations for about 10 years.
“On that basis, the ATSB has determined that there was limited opportunity that continuing to direct resources at this investigation would uncover safety learnings for the broader aviation industry.”
Among the concerns raised during the ATSB investigation were:
- the pilot did not have the appropriate pilot's licence
- the pilot did not have a maintenance licence and was not approved to certify for maintenance
- the most recent maintenance release was dated 2015 and issued by the pilot
- entries were made in the maintenance release after it expired
- engine logbook entries ended in 2014
- the last entry for the aircraft in the pilot's logbook was in 2015.
The ATSB also found that the seat belts should have been replaced under an AD no later than 1990. One cylinder was found to have very low compression and although the controls moved correctly and unhindered, the aileron cables were significantly corroded.
"The Civil Aviation Safety Authority have put in place regulations designed to ensure aircraft are airworthy and pilots are properly trained and qualified," the final report states. "When owners operate outside of the rules, they remove the built-in safety defences and undetected problems are more likely to emerge.
"Given that the aircraft and engine had not been maintained in accordance with the regulations for about 10 years, a more detailed investigation to find the source of the engine failure would have unlikely led to the identification of broader systemic safety issues."
The discontinuation report is on the ATSB website.