Accident Analysis: May Day Maydays

Europe’s traditional spring holiday, chosen as International Workers’ Day by socialist groups in the late nineteenth century, apparently was not the inspiration for the radio distress call said to have been derived by a British radio officer in 1923 from the French phrase m’aider (“Help me!”). Still, flying on May Day could feel like tempting fate.

The radio distress call is said to have been derived by a British radio officer in 1923 from the French phrase “m’aider” (“Help me!”).As it turns out, the aviation gods don’t flaunt that brand of humor. In recent years May 1 usually has seen two to four reportable accidents, about the daily average over that period. But there might be something to the superstitious suspicion of the number 13, as 2013 saw eight—twice as many as any other year in the past decade. The details add up to a microcosm of some of the “most usual suspects” of light general aviation accidents:

• A Beechcraft Bonanza A36 on an IFR flight plan in clear daytime weather lost power during its initial descent from cruise. Although the pilot claimed to have switched tanks at the preceding ATC handoff, investigators found 30 gallons in the right tank and one quart in the left. The pilot made a forced landing in a cornfield and escaped without injury, but the airplane’s nose gear separated and the right wing’s spar was fractured.
• While practicing autorotations in a Schweizer 300C, the student raised the collective rather than lowering it. The instructor’s intervention was too late to prevent a hard landing that bent both skids and deformed the airframe.
• The pilot of an amateur-built Carbon Cub ground-looped the airplane after what his instructor described as “a good landing with normal touchdown” in light and variable winds—and after the student commented that “it’s skittish, all right.” The flight instructor was unable to keep the right wing tip from hitting the ground. The accident took place on the pilot’s first familiarization flight in the airplane.
• A banner-tow pilot in a Cessna 172 stalled just after pick-up—while being observed by an FAA inspector reviewing his technique after another banner-tow accident three days earlier.
• The left main gear of a Cessna 421A collapsed on landing when the pivot bolt fractured from overstress. The airplane had sustained another left main gear collapse six years earlier for the same reason. Although failures of this bolt had been implicated in a number of Cessna 421 gear collapses in the United States and Spain, the airplane’s maintenance records didn’t indicate whether it had been inspected in the meantime.

If “May Day” doesn’t carry any particular curse, neither does it provide any apparent immunity. Just like every other day, it’s best to keep your head in the game.