[N5ZX]

Alrighty, then....

I told yall I'd let you know what my tech found out when they inspected my wing. Here is what they said:

"Tell everyone you know that has wing mods from this company to get their wings inspected ASAP."

They said that you can deal with a bad this or that....but you cant deal with a wing that falls off.

So...what did they see? Yall saw the pick I sent. A couple of smoking rivets and some minor disfiguring of the top skin.

Inside there were many MANY more smoking rivets. Bent stringers. Cracked mountings. all of which could be attributed to the stacked mods (extensions AND winglets).

However, they said that their primary concern was the workmanship (which has nothing to do with stacking mods). They said that 3/4 of the screws that they could see that were holding the extension to the original had no nut and no nut plate. They were simply relying on the threads contacting the skin.....they dit not like that at all. Additionally, the cap-stringer (the last orignial stringer to which the wing extension abuts) didnt quite mate to the extension perfectly, so whoever installed it had used a pair of pliars to rip the "lightning hole" to enlarge it to allow passage of one of the lines. All of which are text-book no-no's and very bad from their point of view.

I asked the crew chief what I should do, he said, "Call Carlie Emering at the FAA, he already has the info and is VERY concerned." I called Charlie, and he expressed his concerns very professionally and diplomaticly, but made his point very clear. "Tell everyone you know that they REALLY should take CE-10-20 extremely seriously."

I asked him what I should do about my plane. He told me to call Harry Sunderland at Cessna. They are trying to develope a uniform fix as opposed to having A&P's all over the country dream up their own solutions.

So thats where I am. Grounded. With very significant safety concerns.

Naturally, everyone must choose for themselves how seriously they want to take the issue. I've paraphrased the hour of phone conversations I've had fairly accurately. But I cannot convey their tone very accurately. Suffice it to say, I recommend taking it very seriously.

No, the mods didnt cause the crash in NJ. But that crash did shine a light on something we needed to be aware of.

Plan accordingly.

Cole