20060718026899A

(-23) On July 19/20, 2006, this office was conducting an accident investigation at the Napoleon, MI airport (3NP), involving a Cessna 182A, N6155B, serial number 34155, configured for skydiving operations. Inspection of the landing runway, runway 27 which is a 2740' by 200' turf runway, revealed that the accident aircraft touched down more than half way down the runway, near the intersection of runway 15/33, on the right side of runway center. From the tire marks left in the grass, the aircraft drifted to the right towards yellow painted tires marking the runway edge. Marks in the grass indicate that the left wing tip had drug on the ground for a short distance. From the tire marks in the grass the aircraft then veered, sliding with the nose tire closer to the left main tire, to the left back towards the runway center, with the aircraft heading southwest, angled across the runway. The tire marks were no longer evident in the grass approximately 40 yards from the end of the runway indicating that the aircraft had left the ground. A metal fence post, used as a runway end marker was found damaged with evidence of being struck by the propeller approximately 4" down from the top. A second fence post was found on the west side of Napoleon road, this post was paired with the other post in a white pvc pipe for the runway end marker. The pvc pipe was destroyed and the second fence post showed evidence of being struck by the propeller at approximately the same height as the first post. A portion of one of the two propeller blades was found separated approximately 8" from the tip of the blade. The distance from the blade tip and angle of damage indicate that the aircraft was climbing upon impact with the fence posts. Inspection of the grass area on the west side of Napoleon road revealed marks from the right wing tip contacting the ground for approximately 10 feet then striking a chain link fence and post. Paint transfer matching that of the wing tip was found on the fence and metal fence post at ground level. The broken green glass from the right navigation light lens was also found around the fence post. A wooden fence post that supported a tubular metal gate was approximately 10 feet to the left of the chain link fence. The gate had no damage and the fence post had a small damage area approximately 3" down from the top of the post on the side towards the chain link fence. The gate had no damage and the fence post had a small damaged area approximately 3" down from the top of the post on the side towards the chain link fence. The lack of damage to the gate and fence post indicate that the aircraft passed through the area between the gate and fence at an altitude sufficient to clear the gate in a right wing low attitude. The right wing leading edge of the aircraft struck a tree trunk approximately 6' above the ground causing the wing to fail at the rib between the flap and aileron. The outboard section of the wing was located on the west side of the gate. The flaps remained attached to the trailing edge of the wing. The aircraft continued westbound for a short distance and evidence showed that the right wing struck smaller trees that bent over from the impact force causing the aircraft to turn to the right. The left side of the tail of the aircraft sruck several small trees bending them over and severely damaging the empennage, stabilizers, elevators and rudder. The aircraft came to rest in the trees approximately 30 yards from the west side of Napoleon road with the bottom of the aircraft approximately 8' above the ground. Inspection of the aircraft revealed the following: the engine had separated from the firewall, the engine mount tubes showed evidence of failing from severe vibration, no impact marks were noted on the tubes. The propeller blade that did not show impact damage with the fence post was bent aft towards the hub and forward towards the tip. The bend direction towards the tip indicates that the engine was operating at a high RPM when the prop struck an object. The carburetor heat control in the cockpit was jammed pulled "on" with approximately 2" of the control shaft showing out of the panel. The carburetor control cable had separated from the carburetor air box and inspection of the carburetor heat box showed that the carburetor heat was full on. The door was in the position to allow heated air into the carburetor and dump fresh air overboard. The throttle, propeller and mixture controls were pulled into the instrument panel and the instrument panel was deformed forward. These controls were found stretched tight inside the engine compartment due to the engine separation. There was no evidence of impact damage due to the left side of the engine. The flap handle was positioned in the second detent, 20 degrees of flaps. The elevator trim position indicator was set to the takeoff position. The left wing position light has grass embedded in it. Bottom of left wing tip has scrape marks in it.