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SkyCatcher crash, second since September, likely to delay production

Posted by Peter Sachs on Mar. 23, 2009 at 4:03 am

A Cessna test pilot was uninjured Thursday when he pulled the emergency parachute on a Cessna 162 SkyCatcher, bringing the plane down in a field about 20 miles northeast of Wichita, Kan. This was the second crash of a SkyCatcher during flight tests; the pilot in a September crash parachuted out after entering an unrecoverable spin, which prompted a redesign of the plane’s tail section, the Wichita Eagle reported. Cessna has not said what the test pilot was doing leading up to last week’s crash. Now that both flight test planes have been damaged or destroyed in accidents, Cessna said it is likely the plane’s production schedule will be delayed. The company had planned to ship 40 planes later this year, but it is unclear how many will actually be delivered in 2009. One of the last hurdles for the SkyCatcher is completing a regimen of spin testing, but the company is not saying if that’s what the pilot was doing before Thursday’s crash. The $110,000 plane is being certified as a light sport plane aimed squarely at the training market. The two-seat plane will include a Garmin glass cockpit but like all other light-sport planes, it will not be certified for instrument flight.

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