TC Safety Letter Retracts TSB Error - COPA (Bush Caddy)

[Widow]

And here is the response to all of this from Don Sherritt, Director, Standards, Transport Canada

Dear Mr. Gilmore


I am writing regarding the most recent issue of the Aviation Safety Letter (ASL). As the Director of Standards, I am responsible for the publication of Transport Canada's ASL.

The ASL is a key way of informing the aviation community of various aviation issues, including safety matters raised by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB). Consequently, the reprinting of information such as the TSB's Aviation Safety Advisories has been a common practice.

The article titled "Major Modifications to Amateur Built Aircraft", printed in Aviation Safety Letter Issue 1/2010, was a direct reprint of the TSB's Aviation Safety Advisory A09Q0071-D1-A1. As such, its content was unedited by Transport Canada and was reprinted by the department in good faith.

After consulting with the TSB on this matter, the department acknowledges that none of the aircraft mentioned in the subject advisory and ASL article were actual Bush Caddy aircraft.

Due to the identified errors in the subject advisory and ASL article, Transport Canada has removed the article from all web versions of the ASL, and the next print edition will include a retraction notice.

Please be assured that we have taken all necessary actions to address this matter.


Don Sherritt
Director, Standards
Transport Canada

Full article, Bush Caddy and the Aviation Safety Letter from COPA.

[Hornblower]

It is kind of understandable that TC would reprint an "official" TSB report without editing; after all it was already officially published by a government agency. What is inexcusable is the TSB forwarding their often unfounded opinions as fact-based objective reports. I've never been impressed with their accident report findings or recommendations.

It's a good thing that Don Sherritt sucked it up and corrected his error then officially distanced TC from the nefarious TSB.

What is curious is why CADI didn't more strongly react to the initial publication of the TSB accident report and only reacted to it once it was published in the ASL.

[into the blue]

Yes, as I read the latest issue of the ASL, I couldn't help but wonder if there was something seriously wrong with Bush Caddy. The name was also mentioned in the Accident Synopses with regard to another similar accident (structual failure). How can one explain this kind of mistakes? I wouldn't be surprised to see a lawsuit from the company that currecntly owns the rights for this kit.

[Widow]

Sherritt said this is a reprint of a TSB Safety Letter regarding accident A09Q0071, which took place on May 13, 2009 (see CADORS 2009Q0876). The TSB report itself may not yet be out, as Safety Letters are usually sent interim to advise of serious safety problems before going through the final draft process. In other words, CADI may not have known about what was written yet.

It will be interesting to see how the final report (a TSB Class 3 Occurrence) compares to the retracted Safety Letter. Perhaps there should be a draft process for Safety Letters

[CpnCrunch]

I'm confused. Wasn't the aircraft in A09Q0098 a bush caddy? Here is the TSB report:

— On June 28, 2009, an amateur-built CADI L-160 was conducting a flight between the Sherbrooke, Que., airport and Drummondville, Que. While the aircraft was in cruise flight approximately 10 NM from Sherbrooke, the pilot heard a thud and immediately noticed that the aircraft’s right wing had folded upward at the wing-strut attachment point. Because there was no safe area to land, the pilot decided to continue on to Drummondville, where the aircraft landed safely. TSB File A09Q0098.

Even CLASS themselves admit that the L-160 is "is perhaps the weak sister of the fleet" and they "beefed up the wings".

As I read it, the article seemed to be a warning about making modifications to Amateur-Built designs (that was the title of the article, after all!)

Perhaps they did make too much mention of Bush Caddy, but it certainly seems worthwhile to warn builders and owners about potentially fatal design flaws.

[Inverted2]

Wow, lucky guy to live after seeing his wing folding up in flight! I'll stick with Cessnas anyday. I saw the wing spars on some homebuilts that are literally a piece of aluminum bent a couple times to become a spar.

[CpnCrunch]

Wow, lucky guy to live after seeing his wing folding up in flight! I'll stick with Cessnas anyday. I saw the wing spars on some homebuilts that are literally a piece of aluminum bent a couple times to become a spar.

My thoughts exactly. When was the last time you heard of a wing collapsing on a Cessna 150/152/172/182? I'm sure it has happened, but probably not very often considering the number of Cessnas flying out there. Off the top of my head there have been somewhere between 5 and 10 structural failures in homebuilts in the past year alone.

Of course there are many very well built ultralights and amateur builts, and it is just a minority that are dangerous. But how do you determine that when you fly as a passenger or when you buy one of them?

[Hornblower]

Wow, lucky guy to live after seeing his wing folding up in flight! I'll stick with Cessnas anyday. I saw the wing spars on some homebuilts that are literally a piece of aluminum bent a couple times to become a spar.

Have you looked at a Cessna 150 wing spar???

[Big Pistons Forever]

r.

Have you looked at a Cessna 150 wing spar???

The last one I looked at had 17,000 hrs of student abuse and looked as good as new.....

[hz2p]

Didn't a wing just break off a Cessna 337, killing 5 people on board?

http://www.warbirdinformationexchange.o ... 03&start=0

A good friend of mine and his wife died when the wing broke off his Cessna 210. Never understood why the TSB and Transport didn't care about it.

I know of an instructor and student that died when their rudder jammed in a spin in a Cessna 150. I was glad to see the TSB cared enough about that one to get an AD issued to fix the rudder stops.

Certified is no guarantee either.

[mr.jinks]

Wow, lucky guy to live after seeing his wing folding up in flight! I'll stick with Cessnas anyday. I saw the wing spars on some homebuilts that are literally a piece of aluminum bent a couple times to become a spar.

Have you looked at a Cessna 150 wing spar???

The last one I looked at had 17,000 hrs of student abuse and looked as good as new.....

Beat me to it. Cessna's are tanks. Even though the Internal structure looks like it was built from pop cans and window frames

[CpnCrunch]

Didn't a wing just break off a Cessna 337, killing 5 people on board?

Yes, but apparently it was caused by the pilot doing a buzz job and pulling up too quickly:

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/0 ... _wing.html

A good friend of mine and his wife died when the wing broke off his Cessna 210. Never understood why the TSB and Transport didn't care about it.

The Cessna 210 doesn't have any wing struts, and according to wikipedia "due to its single spar wing structure, the 210 could not meet the current certification standards" which is why Cessna discontinued it after 1986.

I know of an instructor and student that died when their rudder jammed in a spin in a Cessna 150. I was glad to see the TSB cared enough about that one to get an AD issued to fix the rudder stops.

Certified is no guarantee either.

It certainly isn't a guarantee, but the statistics show that this kind of thing happens a lot less frequently in certified planes (even though there's a lot more of them around than amateur built).

[Invertago]

The Cessna 210 doesn't have any wing struts, and according to wikipedia "due to its single spar wing structure, the 210 could not meet the current certification standards" which is why Cessna discontinued it after 1986.

Does the same apply to the C177, as in it wouldn't meet certification standards now?

[Inverted2]

Wow, lucky guy to live after seeing his wing folding up in flight! I'll stick with Cessnas anyday. I saw the wing spars on some homebuilts that are literally a piece of aluminum bent a couple times to become a spar.

Have you looked at a Cessna 150 wing spar???

But a Cessna spar is an extruded "I" beam whereas a bush caddy spar is some flat aluminum bent to make a spar.

[JL]

The first series of 210's from 1960 had wing struts...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cessna210C-GXCT.JPG

[gary wolf]

Fellows,
It was RAA Canada that broke the BushCaddy/TSB/ASL story. We read the original TSB document in French and found that the registration marks of none of the planes were Bushcaddy's. We then contacted the editor of the ASL and found that he had translated the original but had never checked the marks on the TC database or he would have found out that none of the planes were BushCaddy's.

The unnamed TSB author had his own agenda and slandered BushCaddy in his report. BushCaddy has never had a structural failure or a fatality but the TSB author blamed them for both. At RAA's insistence the TSB rewrote the report and left BushCaddy entirely out of it. RAA then embarrassed the editor of the ASL into retracting the story from the online version of the ASL. XX had originally intended to wait until the next quarterly edition of the ASL to do this but the retraction happened the next day and there is now also an apology to BushCaddy.

Along the way Adam Hunt, formerly of Copa, read one of our emails to the RAA membership and asked permission to reprint it for his Copa Flight 8 website. That is the extent of Copa involvement to date. We have contacted them to ask that they assist in clarifying that BushCaddy is innocent of all allegations by TSB but to date this has not happened.

If you hear of anyone running down BushCaddy, please correct him on the matter. They do real engineering and testing and deserve much better treatment than they have had from TSB and the editor of the ASL.

Gary Wolf
RAA Canada

[Big Pistons Forever]

Fellows,
It was RAA Canada that broke the BushCaddy/TSB/ASL story. We read the original TSB document in French and found that the registration marks of none of the planes were Bushcaddy's. We then contacted the editor of the ASL and found that he had translated the original but had never checked the marks on the TC database or he would have found out that none of the planes were BushCaddy's.

The unnamed TSB author had his own agenda and slandered BushCaddy in his report. BushCaddy has never had a structural failure or a fatality but the TSB author blamed them for both. At RAA's insistence the TSB rewrote the report and left BushCaddy entirely out of it. RAA then embarrassed the editor of the ASL into retracting the story from the online version of the ASL. XX had originally intended to wait until the next quarterly edition of the ASL to do this but the retraction happened the next day and there is now also an apology to BushCaddy.

Along the way Adam Hunt, formerly of Copa, read one of our emails to the RAA membership and asked permission to reprint it for his Copa Flight 8 website. That is the extent of Copa involvement to date. We have contacted them to ask that they assist in clarifying that BushCaddy is innocent of all allegations by TSB but to date this has not happened.

If you hear of anyone running down BushCaddy, please correct him on the matter. They do real engineering and testing and deserve much better treatment than they have had from TSB and the editor of the ASL.

Gary Wolf
RAA Canada

I am confused because the aircraft that had the half the wing fold up in flight, but fortunately was able to land safely was by all reports a Bush Caddy L160. So how can anybody say the Bush Caddy has "never had a structural failure".

[gary wolf]

The TSB had it wrong. The 160 was designed and built by C.A.D.I., the predecessor to BushCaddy. When Bushcaddy bought the company they redesigned and reengineered the CADI planes, then added another four or five models of their own.

The TSB writer exaggerated the report of the 160 too. The plane had encountered severe turbulence and got rolled abruptly and all that happened was that the section of the spar beyond the lift strut bent slightly. Presumably it saw 4 G's of load. The plane was still controllable and the pilot flew it to destination.

The personal agenda of the TSB writer appears to be that he he wants a design standard for uncertified aircraft. He has his head in the clouds because that would mean that Transport Canada would have to enforce the standard and they do not have the personnel capable of this nor would their lawyers allow them to take on that responsibility.

There is already a design standard for Advanced UL planes but Transport Canada refuses even to inspect their documentation, let alone their physical conformity with the DS 10141 design standard that governs that category.

It is unfortunate that the TSB writer was so determined to push his agenda that he had to slander an innocent party in his report. TSB has rewrittent the article with the correct manufacturer named, and Transport Canada has taken the very unusual step of issuing an official apology. Bushcady is innocent.

Gary Wolf
RAA Canada

[Cat Driver]

and Transport Canada has taken the very unusual step of issuing an official apology.

I am truly pleased to see Bushcady at least received an apology Gary.

And I am even more surprised to see it come from Don Sherritt.

To get him to publicly offer any hint that there was wrongdoing within the regulator is a landmark event.

In an ideal world Bushcady should be able to receive compensation for damages, but once one crosses into their world it is about as far from ideal as anyone can get.

[Widow]

I'm sorry, but without more information I don't understand why TC is being blamed here. TC (and a number of other government agencies) must rely on the TSB to produce accurate information, and there must be a high level of trust between agencies. As Sherritt stated, they reproduced the letter "in good faith". Excellent that they publicly apologized, and quickly ... but where is the public TSB apology?

Unless TC was involved in the investigation that produced the TSB SL (which wouldn't be unheard of), then the nefarious result of printing the misinformation lies squarely at the feet of the TSB. I would want to know - was this a "rogue* TSB investigator who wrote the letter? Where were his/her superiors - why didn't they vet the letter for accuracy before it was sent to TC?

As Sean Gilmore of CLASS wrote (see the COPA 8 link in the first post):

Notwithstanding however, the L160s built by CADI have been flying for years without mishap of a structural nature.The first incident referred to in the SL i.e. C-FYUB in 2003 has never been clearly shown to be the result of an in flight wing failure. We feel it was included in the article simply for effect. The question has to be asked, if it were an inflight failure why has it taken seven years for the TSB to report it as such.

Personally, I find it interesting that the accident referred to above was a double fatality, and yet a TSB "Class 5" investigation - there is no public report.

IMHO, this BushCaddy case adds to a growing list of evidence that the TSB is not doing its job effectively - whether it be for lack of funding, investigators, technical knowledge or whatever. Seems to me we are in need of - and like is now making its way through the US House (NTSB Reauthorization HR 4714)- a Bill to increase funding and expand investigative action.

[gary wolf]

The reason that Transport Canada deserves blame is because the document that TSB supplied was in French and it contained the registration marks of every plane in the report. The editor of the ASL had the report translated into English but he deleted all references to registration marks. I contacted him to ask if he had checked the registration marks but he had not. It took me all of two minutes in the online registration database to find out that none of the planes in the report were in fact BushCaddy's.

The editor of the ASL had the opportunity and the ability to verify the facts but he skipped that step. That is the reason that Sherritt had to make the apology.

The TSB author deserves a good slap but they will not identify who he is.

Gary Wolf
RAA Canada

[Widow]

Odd as it is that the reg marks were removed (perhaps for privacy reasons?), I don't see what reason the ASL editor would have had to mistrust the veracity of the TSB SL. As I said, I believe they must necessarily have a trusting relationship. Otherwise, what the heck is the purpose of the TSB?

I'd be more concerned not just about the TSB SL author, but his or her superiors that didn't check their facts.

[gary wolf]

TSB reports of private aircraft, particularly those that are not certified, are often inaccurate. Even if there are fatalities involved the invesigation is rarely done at anything above level 5, which seems to exist merely to provide filler for the coroner's report. They have a budget, and since all non certified planes are considered to be one-off's, the argument is that there is little to learn that might benefit others.

An example of how little concern there can be even after a fatality is the Jodel that lost a wing in flight on Vancouver Island last summer. TSB initially did not plan to do an investigation so all the best evidence was thrown into a dumpster behind a car dealership. Two of our members went there and pulled it all out and found that the rear spar had rotted from the plane having been stored outside near the ocean. RAA ran the members' report in the magazine, and also an article on the proper method of checking wood aircraft structures before flight and at annual.

Occasionally the TSB hands the investigation off to the RCMP or the local police, and when that happens the quality of investigation drops markedly. I recall one in northern Ontario in which the fabric became detached from the ribs and ballooned, causing the plane to spiral into the water and kill both crew. The police blamed pilot inattention. Photos of the wreckage taken by one of our members showed that there was no ribsitiching or adhesive to hold the fabric to the rib caps. Only the dope held it on for awhile until it ballooned.

Sometimes the TSB does very good work in the investigation of a fatality in a non certified plane but it depends on the region. One national problem is that there seems to be no way to search their inventory of reports. There seems to be a mandate to produce reports but no mandate to provide an index.

Gary Wolf
RAA Canada

[pelmet]

http://tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/a ... 9q0071.asp

A TSB report is out.