Originally published at: Founder Of Asian Women In Aerospace And Aviation Dies In Plane Crash - AVweb
Nguyen was on a solo global flight and had departed Oshkosh, Wisconsin, just days earlier.
A sad and tragic ending to a pilot who worked to inspire. Some accidents, like this one, just baffle me at first, because in what way did the swiss cheese line up to have this happen. She was an accomplished pilot and flight instructor. Reading about her had me thinking she was not one to be reckless. I found in a CBS article these comments:
āThe plane was kind of banking and they started to lower and then pulled up and started to roll, and I thought itās like a sky show and they went straight into the ground,ā witness Amanda Landwerlen told WTTV.
āShe was banking hard left to go north, and all of the sudden, the nose dove and she went into a spin and just went straight down,ā added Frank Williams, another witness.
It sounds then like a simple stall spin, but minutes after climbing out? My hope is that the NTSB can discover a cause so her death can be a learning moment for other pilots in the future.
Iām only speculating with this comment as it pertains to a possible cause of the accident based on witness observations. A āYank and Bankā accelerated stall accompanied by adverse yaw can put a light airplane into a snap roll induced post stall gyration and departure from controlled flight which can lead to a steady state spin if the controls are not immediately returned to neutral. As a long since retired flight instructor, Iāve demonstrated it in the past. It can happen in a moment of carelessness and neglect which, when combined with a lack of altitude, can be fatal. RIP Nguyen
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Too many fatal accidents in the Lancair 4PT. Very powerful engine in front of a small frame. I owned one. Flamed out at 26,000 feet. Landed in Parowan with no reverse thrust. Plane damaged and rebuilt by the next owner. The owner after that killed himself in it.
Lancair IV-P is kit built. I suspect structural failure.
LOC
Most likely W&B issue bringing the characteristics very close to the edge of the normal envelope
RIP 
The Lancair 4 P stall characteristics have contributed to a very high fatality rate when a stall occurs. I had a friend who wanted me to do a Flight Review for him back in the day. I contacted a factory pilot and discussed the stall characteristics with him. He said the plane was recoverable from a stall but even a coordinated power off straight ahead stall resulted in a spin entry and it would take a minimum 2000 feet to recover from it. He also said to do it with the gear down to minimize the chances of over speeding the plane on the recovery. Guess what, he was right on. Even with power off, gear down, a deceleration of less than one knot per second, and the ball dead nuts in the center, the airplane rolled over on its back and started to spin. Full opposite rudder did nothing for a few seconds with no apparent back pressure from aerodynamic forces felt at all. The plane gathered speed very rapidly and after a turn began to respond to the rudder and stopped rotating. We lost 2000 feet and exited the maneuver at just under 150 knots just as the factory pilot had said. That was with us anticipating the maneuver, knowing how the aircraft would respond, and immediately executing the correct recovery procedure. The aircraft is very unforgiving in a stall of any nature. Iām sure a pilot with Nguyenās abilities and experience would know not to intentionally go anywhere near a stall in the Lancair 4 P. I would hope the investigation looks closely for any maintenance or control system issues that might have caused the crash.
What if it was a stall? What if she just really screwed up in a very big way?
Lima Oscar Charlie.
Look it up !
Not to nit-pic, but why is the top photo reversed ?
note the reversed āNā in the tail number.
While the investigative rigor is slightly amusing, the N in the picture above is likely an aircraft marking for the Navy with the I-Phone āMirror Front Cameraā picture reversing not properly set. You can back this thesis up by noting the orientation of letters on the sign in the background.
Sad day. Thanks for the information. Much appreciated.
ā As of June 2014, the NTSB Aviation Accident Database recorded 20 crashes involving 18 fatalities across all IV variants.ā With 20 crashes and 18 fatalities in 11 years, I think I would be looking for a different aircraft to attempt a global flight.
This airplane was not a turbine. It was a standard IV-P.
I stand corrected. Thank you. I somehow thought it was a IV-PT which is significantly more dangerous.
I keep a database of homebuilt accidents and causes. From 1998 through 2023, there were 75 accidents involving the Lancair IV. This includes all variantsā¦non-pressurized, turbo, etc.
Forty-eight percent of the accidents results in fatalitiesā¦about twice that of the overall homebuilt fleet. That may seem significant, but I think that reflects the fact that the Lancair IV is a VERY high-performance aircraft; it tends to hit the ground going faster, and m*v^2 is a major factor. Plot the fatality rate vs. the cruise speed, and youāll find the Lancair IV is better than it should be.
It may be surprising to note that the rate of āpilot miscontrolā accidents (cases where the accident was due to the pilotās stick-and-rudder skills) is actually LOWER than that of the overall homebuilt fleetā¦30% of the Lancair IV accidents, vs. about 40% for the overall homebuilt fleet. Then again, the pilots of the Lancairs are generally much more experienced. Yes, there are cases of lower-time pilots getting into problems, but the median total time for the Lancair IV pilots in accidents is 2,500 hours, vs. 1,000 hours for the overall homebuilt fleet.
I have a process to estimate the āfleet accident rateā for homebuilt aircraft types. The overall rate is 0.72% (e.g., on the average, 0.72% of all homebuilts have a reportable accident in a given year). The Lancair IV comes out at 1.21%. Shocking? I donāt think so. Itās not the highest. Itās roughly the same as the Searey and the Zenair CH-750. Itās quite a bit better than the Avid Flyer line, and the highest type on my list has a 1.96% fleet accident rate.
What do I think is wrong with the Lancair IV? Simple: Every aircraft design is a result of compromises, and in the Lancair IVās case, most of those compromises were made in favor of high cruise speed. This invariably means danger in the other portions of the performance envelope. Itās part of the trade for going really, really, fast.
Compare the Lancair IV to the Curtiss P-40 fighter.
Note that the specs are nearly identical. The P-40, like the Lancair IV, are not planes to be taken lightlyā¦
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