1976 P337 Accident at LAL 1-14-05

[SkyKing]

I was shocked to learn this morning from the FAA's accident website that the victim airplane in Lakeland, FL was N42WA... this was the first P-model I'd seriously looked at in 1999. At the time, it was owned by a fellow from the Seattle area and flown out of Boeing Field with belly mounted aerial mapping-photo equipment. It was a beauty, well maintained and not a ding anywhere. Even though it was all 400 equipped and the radios and everything worked fine, I opted to hold out for a King-equipped bird that had boots and R/STOL. Anyway, I happened to save the recent 'for sale' specs, and the essentials were:

Airframe Total Time: 6,110.6 Hours
Front Engine: Continental TSIO 360 CB5B; 225 hp
1,071.6 Hours since Factory Remanufacture 06/20/99
(1,500 Hour recommended Time Before Overhaul)
Rear Engine: Rolls Royce (Continental) TSIO 360 C5; 225 hp
1,404.7 Hours since Major Overhaul 10/01/92
Front & Rear Propellers: 1,057.7 since New
Annual Date: April 24, 2004

For an asking price of $79K, it was quite a lot of airplane.

Will be very interested in seeing what the NTSB determines as the probable cause. It's interesting to note, however, that in a number of recent crashes of high-performance airplanes, including a number of single-engine models, the airplanes had only recently been purchased, leading me to believe that general unfamiliarity with the airplane systems could very well have been a contributing factor. This is not to say that I'm speculating 'unfamiliarity' was the culprit in this most recent P-model accident. I'm waiting for the NTSB's report.

SkyKing