20150613008999A

This was the last flight of the day for the skydiving operation. The PIC during the accident just took over from the previous pilot. At 1753 16 gallons of fuel was placed on the aircraft. The oncoming pilot reports there was 14 gallons on board when he took the aircraft for the flight. No other fuel was added by the oncoming pilot. The fuel usage for this aircraft is reported at 12 gallons per hour (6 gallons per 30 min) the total flight time was estimated to be 30-35 min. The operating limitations section of the flight manual reports there is 10 gallons of unusable fuel and 7 of which may be available but only in level flight operations. Thunderstorms were reported to be developing in the area. The aircraft took off from runway 21 and made several left turns to align the aircraft with the intended drop zone. New heading was northwest. Once the jumpers were out of the aircraft the pilot flew continuing a northwestern direction for a few miles and then initiated a left turn to realign the aircraft with runway 3 for landing. The aircraft experienced an inflight engine shut down appx 3 miles out from runway 3. There were 2 reported attempts to restart the engine were unsuccessful. The pilot set his glide angle and headed for the runway. The aircraft crashed two miles west on bluehills road from highway 191 and approximately 300 yards south of the roadway (appx lat 3844'36.47"n log 10946'26.09"w). The aircraft sustained significant damage to the r/h horizontal stabilizer and the r/h elevator was broken away from the outer mount and bent back over on top of itself. On the r/h side the just behind the door opening the aircraft has a hole in the skin appx 10 by 9 inches, this damage is due to the main landing gear on the r/h side breaking away from the aircraft during the crash. The propeller does not appear to have taken any damage during the accident. The propeller and engine condition are consistent with an engine not running when the accident occurred. The fuel tanks were dipped for level this check yielded the following results: the r/h tank had appx 5 gallons on board and l/h tank had appx 3 gallons on board at the time the aircraft was inspected after the accident.