Lancair Crash

[Iceman]

Two dead after plane crashes near Olds

By BILL LAYE, Calgary Sun

 

Two people are dead after the crash of a small plane near Olds, 70 km north of Calgary, last night.

 

RCMP spokeswoman Const. Kerry Doran said the four-seater aircraft was last heard from around 8:30 p.m. when it was being tracked by radar flying west of Olds.

 

"The last time they had it on radar it was at 20,000 feet and falling fast," said Doran.

 

The two occupants died on impact, after the plane crashed in a farmer's field east of Hwy. 22 about 80 km northwest of Calgary.

 

Further details on their identities or where they were flying to were unavailable by press time. STARS air ambulance was called in to help search for the aircraft, reportedly a Lancair kit plane, after air traffic controllers noticed it went off the radar but its emergency locater beam didn't go off.

 

The Calgary-based helicopter crew were first on the scene, but due to its remoteness ground rescuers were having difficulty finding the crash scene, said STARS spokesman Lance Stephenson.

 

"STARS left our medical crew on the ground, went up and guided the ground crews in ... so it was truly a co-ordination of all the emergency services," Stephenson said, adding a WestJet plane in the area relayed messages from the chopper to air traffic controllers in Edmonton.

[R22Captain]

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

wow....anybody know if it was Canadian registered? I know the owner of one who regularily flys from edmonton/calgary to the east coast. There's not too many of these up here.

[Guest Bullet Remington]

Not sure of the registration of this specific aircraft.

 

I do know that there is (was?) one stationed in OLDs/Didsbury airport.

 

That aircraft was owned and flown by a WJI -700 Boss Driver. There are no rumours floating around the hangar at this time, so hopefully it's not his nor him?

 

Can't find out if he was / is flying or was / is on days off.

 

Anybody else have anything??

[justfly]

Not sure of the registration of this specific aircraft.

...

Anybody else have anything??

IDENTIFICATION

Regis#: 750F Make/Model: LNC4 Description: LANCAIR 4, 4P

Date: 08/09/2005 Time: 0120

 

Event Type: Accident Highest Injury: Fatal Mid Air: N Missing: N

Damage: Unknown

 

LOCATION

City: CALGARY State: Country: CA

 

DESCRIPTION

ACFT CRASHED UNDER UNKNOWN CIRCUMSTANCES, THE TWO PERSONS ON BOARD WERE

FATALLY INJURED, CALGARY, CANADA

 

INJURY DATA Total Fatal: 2

# Crew: 2 Fat: 2 Ser: 0 Min: 0 Unk:

# Pass: 0 Fat: 0 Ser: 0 Min: 0 Unk:

# Grnd: Fat: 0 Ser: 0 Min: 0 Unk:

 

WEATHER: NOT REPORTED

 

OTHER DATA

 

Departed: GRANDE PRAIRE, CANAD Dep Date: Dep. Time:

Destination: CALGARY, CANADA Flt Plan: Wx Briefing:

Last Radio Cont:

Last Clearance:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

FAA Registry

 

N-Number Inquiry Results

N750F is Assigned

 

Assigned/Registered Aircraft

 

Aircraft Description

 

Serial Number 493 Type Registration Corporation

Manufacturer Name AINSWORTH STERLING K Certificate Issue Date 01/22/2003

Model LANCAIR 4P TURBINE Status Valid

Type Aircraft Fixed Wing Single-Engine Type Engine Reciprocating

Pending Number Change None Dealer No

Date Change Authorized None Mode S Code 52415206

MFR Year None Fractional Owner NO

 

Registered Owner

 

Name AFALCON LLC

Street 1692 KIOWA RD

City LYONS State COLORADO Zip Code 80540-8267

County LARIMER

Country UNITED STATES

 

Airworthiness

 

Engine Manufacturer AMA/EXPR Classification Experimental

Engine Model UNKNOWN ENG Category Amateur Built

 

A/W Date 07/20/2003

[justfly]

TQN - looks like the registered owner/builder was Sterling K Ainsworth of Lyons, CO ($2,200,000 home for sale). Possibly a Chief Officer/Scientist with NaPro Biotherapeutics/Tapestry Pharmaceuticals with operations in Boulder, CO and British Columbia. You may see or hear something in the local media?

[Kyle]

Found this on CBC

 

Investigators are trying to determine how a homebuilt plane travelling to Grande Prairie, Alta., from Calgary fell apart in the sky, killing the pilot and his passenger.

 

"There was an inflight breakup of the aircraft," John Lee, an investigator with the federal Transportation Safety Board, told the Calgary Herald.

 

"You could estimate 50 per cent of the aircraft had fallen apart in the sky."

 

The plane, described by Sundre RCMP as a Lancair IV-P, a four-seat, single-engine turbo propeller, crashed about 20 kilometres southeast of Sundre on Tuesday night.

 

The aircraft's cabin, engine and part of one wing landed in a field. The rest of the fragments were scattered over kilometres of grass and brush.

 

The aircraft is built by customers from kits supplied by manufacturer Lancair International Inc. of Redmond, Ore.

 

Lee said the condition of the aircraft structure, turbulence and the pilot's actions while flying could have caused the breakup. He said he's also looking to see what the weather conditions were like. There may have been thunderstorms in the area.

[justfly]

Publish Date: 8/12/2005 http://www.longmontfyi.com/Local-Story.asp?id=3109

 

A businessman, an adventurer

Local entrepreneur, passenger killed when plane breaks apart over Canada

 

By Tony Kindelspire

The Daily Times-Call (Longmont, CO)

 

A local businessman and adventurer died this week when his home-built plane crashed near Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

 

Sterling K. Ainsworth, 65, of Lyons and an unidentified passenger, also from this area, were killed when his Lancair IV-P aircraft came apart in mid-air Wednesday night about 121/2 miles southeast of Sundre, a town just north of Calgary, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

 

Constable John Carlson of the RCMP’s Sundre detachment confirmed that two people — a man and a 57-year-old woman — were killed, but he said names were not being released at the request of the families.

 

Ainsworth’s identity as one of the victims was confirmed by one of his former co-workers at Tapestry Pharmaceuticals, formerly NaPro BioTherapeutics, a company founded by Ainsworth in 1991.

 

Gordon Link, chief financial officer for Tapestry, had known Ainsworth since 1993. He said he learned of the accident Thursday morning.

 

 

“He and Pat Pilia basically founded (NaPro),” Link said. “He was the initial CEO and chairman and the one with the founding vision, if you will.”

 

According to Link, Pilia and Ainsworth were engaged and lived in Lyons. She is executive vice president at Tapestry, but Ainsworth resigned from the company’s board last year.

 

Another business associate, Shelia Burgess, said Pilia and Sterling Ainsworth Jr. — Ainsworth’s son from a previous marriage who lives in the Washington, D.C., area — were on their way to Canada.

 

Ainsworth and Pilia met in the early 1960s at the the University of Mississippi, where he earned his Ph.D. in medical science in 1969.

 

The name of the woman who died in the crash with Ainsworth was unconfirmed, but Carlson said she also was from the Boulder area.

 

The crash is being investigated by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.

 

“There was an in-flight breakup of the aircraft,” John Lee, an investigator with the agency, told the Calgary Herald. “You could estimate 50 percent of the aircraft had fallen apart in the sky.”

 

The IV-P is a single-engine, four-seat aircraft capable of reaching air speeds of more than 300 mph. According to the Herald, it was en route from Calgary to Grand Prairie.

 

The paper said debris was scattered several miles from where the remnants of the plane came to rest in a field southeast of Sundre.

 

Ainsworth had an impressive list of professional accomplishments, but “the résumé doesn’t tell half the story,” Link said. “He was a bush pilot in Alaska; he was a member of the Explorers Club; he played professional football; he was a Golden Gloves boxer; he was on a team that did some of the first joint clinical studies between the United States and China.

 

“He actually got off on things like hunting wild boars with a knife. ... You can’t say he didn’t have an interesting life.”

 

When he died, Ainsworth was co-founder and CEO of two local companies. He and Burgess started AZOS AI, which has locations in Boulder and Virginia, in 2000. Ainsworth was also founder and CEO of Longmont-based Advanced Building and Development.

 

Reached while traveling Thursday, Burgess said she had met Ainsworth through mutual friends and first worked for him as an engineer at another company he co-founded, Longmont’s Phoenix Fire Systems, in 1999.

 

“My background is artificial intelligence, and I wanted to make the world a better place, and he did, too,” Burgess said. “We just clicked.”

 

Ainsworth’s professional career included stints as founder or board member of more than a dozen companies and nonprofit agencies. He was a teacher and lecturer both here and abroad and participated in many university and civic groups and organizations, most of them centered around health.

 

He was also a member of more than a dozen professional societies and received numerous honors, including a Harvard Medical Research Fellowship from 1970 to 1972; a consultant professorship at Shanghai Second Medical University and ###-Jin Hospital in Shanghai, China, in 1986; and the Governor’s Award from South Carolina for founding and serving as chairman of the Palmetto State Games. He was named an Explorer’s Club fellow in 1980.

 

“He was a wonderful man,” Burgess said. “He grew up in Mississippi a very poor farm boy. He got on the football team (at Ole Miss), and the coach would buy his lunch to keep him.

 

“He was a big boy,” she added, noting that Ainsworth stood 6 feet 7 inches tall. “He wanted to do it all. He climbed Mount Everest. ... He could do it all.”

 

Link said he’s sad to see his friend go, but it gives him some comfort knowing that Ainsworth died doing what he loved to do. He was a teen when he worked as a bush pilot in Alaska, Link said, and Ainsworth had been flying ever since.

 

“I think he was an incredible individual, and he lived a full life,” Link said. “He did more in his life than five average people do in their lifetimes. We’re all sorry to see him go, and he had a lot of love for Longmont.”