Hidden Splendor Airport
Aircraft Accident/Incident Report

Blanding, Utah 84511
Wednesday, April 25, 2012 15:40 MDT

The pilot departed in the airplane with his father and a flight instructor who had extensive experience flying in the local canyon areas. The intention was to perform a sightseeing flight, with multiple stops at backcountry airstrips. The flight instructor was carrying a personal locator device, which transmitted position data at 10-minute-intervals but no altitude information. This data revealed that the airplane landed at three airstrips. Shortly after the airplane departed the third airstrip about midafternoon, the instructor’s personal locator began a series of transmissions all from the same location, about 1.2 miles from an unused airstrip. These transmissions continued from that location for about the next 12 hours; however, no emergency or alert notifications were received from the personal locator or the airplane’s emergency locator transmitter (ELT) during that period. When the airplane had not returned to the original departure airport by nighttime, search and rescue efforts were initiated. The wreckage was located in the early morning hours the next day on the edge of a plateau in remote wilderness, at an elevation of 6,900 feet mean sea level. The airplane wreckage came to rest on an uphill slope and was mostly consumed by postimpact fire. The terrain north and east of the accident site fell away to steep canyon walls, which descended to a confluence of rivers 1,500 feet below. Area weather conditions included low-level thermal activity, wind gusts, and light turbulence, which would have been further exasperated at the accident site due to the surrounding terrain. The flight instructor and the aft seat passenger were fatally injured on impact; however, the pilot sustained serious injuries and was able to extricate himself from the airplane. However, he eventually succumbed to his injuries before the airplane was discovered. Although the airplane was equipped with a 406-MHz ELT and evidence suggests that it activated during the accident, it had become separated from the airplane’s structure (and thus its antenna) during the impact sequence, which limited its transmission range. As a result, no ELT transmissions were received by search and rescue (SAR) satellites. Had the ELT remained connected to its antenna, it would have effectively transmitted an alert signal, thereby providing SAR personnel with a rapid indication that an accident had occurred. Under such circumstances, the airplane would most likely have been discovered earlier, possibly during daylight hours. The pilot's injuries fell within the "severely" injured category, and analysis of emergency evacuation and trauma treatment resources revealed that with prompt ELT notification, medical response would have been greatly augmented, and he may have survived the accident. Furthermore, although a personal locator device survived the accident intact, it was ejected from the airplane during the accident sequence and was not within easy reach of the pilot.

The pilot's failure to maintain airplane control during low-level maneuvering flight. Contributing to the pilot’s death was the lack of a timely emergency rescue response due to the lack of effective emergency signal transmissions from both the airplane’s emergency locator transmitter and the personal locator device, which were both ejected from the wreckage.