| Crash location | 35.113889°N, 106.890833°W
Reported location is a long distance from the NTSB's reported nearest city. This often means that the location has a typo, or is incorrect. |
| Nearest city | Albuquerque, NM
35.084491°N, 106.651137°W 13.7 miles away |
| Tail number | N78DZ |
|---|---|
| Accident date | 05 Jun 2017 |
| Aircraft type | William D TELFAIR/ZIA Z Telfai Excalibur |
| Additional details: | None |
On June 4, 2017, about 0824 central daylight time, an experimental Excaliber Light Sport Aircraft (LSA), N78DZ, registered to the pilot, was substantially damaged when it impacted terrain near Albuquerque, New Mexico, during an emergency landing due to flight control anomalies. The commercial pilot, who was the sole occupant, was not injured. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed throughout the area and a flight plan was not filed. The personal flight was being conducted under the provisions of Federal Code of Regulations Part 91. The local flight originated at 0715 from the Double Eagle Airport (AEG), Albuquerque, New Mexico, and was enroute back to AEG when the accident occurred.
The pilot had been flying a little over an hour without any problems since takeoff from AEG. He was flying straight and level, about 75 mph, when the pitch control became erratic. The control stick started slamming fore and aft to the limits and the nose began pitching up and down. The airplane began buffeting like it was going to come apart. The pilot declared an emergency and reduced airspeed to 50-60 mph, which slightly lessened the fore and aft stick movement and pitch, but did not control it. The pilot turned to clear steep terrain and choose a relatively flat field for an emergency landing. He was able to make final directional corrections and flew the airplane to landing about 40-45 mph and 200-300 fpm rate of descent. The airplane remained upright, but the nose gear and the left main gear sheared off, the airplane turned 180-degrees, and the left wing and horizontal stabilizer struck the ground.
Inspection of the aircraft after the accident revealed a broken, right elevator control rod. The left elevator control rod was not broken. The control rod that separated was a factory-supplied, 1/2-inch aluminum tube with bearings at each end. The attach points of the control rods appeared to be intact. The bearings were still connected and safety wired and all other control rod linkages and attach points were connected. There was normal movement of the left elevator control system (rod still intact), The control damaged control (right elevator) and the intact control rod (left elevator) were sent to the NTSB Materials Laboratory for further evaluation.