That’s what some press reports are saying. Had Jimmy Leeward not maneuvered the stricken plane as he did, things could have been much worse.
"The way I see it, if he did do something about this, he saved hundreds if not thousands of lives because he was able to veer that plane back toward the tarmac,”
This photo, taken moments before the crash, shows that the P-51 had lost its left elevator trim tab. (I’ve circled the spot where the trim tab should be.) Without the trim tab, the aircraft may have been uncontrollable.
This past April, the NTSB called upon the FAA to ground the entire fleet of Zodiac aircraft because their wings tend to fall off in mid-flight. As it turns out, a defect in the Zodiac’s design induces an aerodynamic phenomenon known as flutter. Flutter can destroy a wing or other control surface in a matter of seconds.
The families of the victims of the Zodiac crash near Oakdale, California, have filed suit against the aircraft’s maker, Zenith Aircraft, alleging that the Zodiac’s design is defective. The Zodiac is the two-seat aircraft whose wings tend to break off in flight due to a design-induced aerodynamic phenomenon known as flutter. That appears
Today the NTSB issued an "urgent" safety recommendation, asking the FAA to immediately ground all Zodiac CH-601XL aircraft. The reason: their wings tend to fall off. So far, six have broken up in flight, causing 10 fatalities. The NTSB suspects that the design of the aircraft induces "flutter"– an aerodynamic phenomenon that can destroy an aircraft