19980411006469A

Engine quit on base. Overflew rwy. Alignment. Banked steeply to realign. Stalled. Rolled over top. Impact inverted. (.4) the aircraft was observed to climb steeply after takeoff and enter a downwind leg for landing. Witnesses heard the aircraft's engine lose power and the pilot transmitted on the UNICOM frequency that he had an engine cout. The pilot rolled the aircraft to a steep bank angle to enter a base leg and then a final leg. As the aircraft approached the final course it rolled rapidly to an inverted position and crashed on a street. The engine was heard to accelerate just prior to impact. Postcrash examination of the engine, propeller, and engine fuel system showed no evidence of precrash mechanical failure or malfunction. The airframe fuel system electric fuel boost pump did not operate after the accident and an incorrect o-ring had been installed in the pump causing the pump to leak through the drain. Witnesses stated to an FAA inspector that the aircraft had an engine failure several weeks before the accident due to an electric fuel boost pump failure and that the pilot had made repairs to the pump prior to the accident flight. (-23) according to several witnesses the airplane, N311RS, entered the downwind leg of the traffic pattern at Collegedale airport at lower than normal traffic pattern altitude. He turned his base leg closer than one would normally be to the runway; then made a radio call to the other airplane traffic saying that he had an engine out and that he would need to cut in front of another plane that was already on final. N311RS possibly overshot the base to final turn and attempted to correct this by banking very steeply. Shortly after the steep bank, N311RS, rolled inverted and descended very rapidly initially striking the tops of some trees in the yard of a house along apison pike; the plane remained inverted and then impacted upon apison pike. After impact it had enough momentum to carry it forward for approximately one hundred yards to its resting point.