-
Fatality
-
11 Replies
-
While i personally don’t have any details except what the article said, I do know a few things leading up to this tragic event. First off, for those of you that didn’t know Sam, he was one of the best and highest regarded light Sport fixed wing pilots in the country. His stick and rudder skills were among the best. He pretty much never missed a Sun N Fun or Oshkosh and flew more than anyone at every event. His daughters are pilots as well. Nothing was more interesting than watching a young lady wearing a huge, long Amish dress climbing up on the tire of a Highlander to get it and fly it. The whole family were passionate aviators with mad skills in airplanes.
So aboud 3 years ago, Sam Peachey contacted me and told me he had bought a little Aeros ANT and he wanted to get instruction. Sam came down from PA, and did,I think, just 1 intro flight in the back seat for maybe 30 minutes. Then he had to get back for some reason I can’t remember. Fast forward to Sun N Fun. 2022, I am standing in line to sign in for the flight briefing to fly at SNF and Sam is right behind me. So we start talking and I ask him if he ever got more training and ever flew his trike. He said no, and that he really needed to get with me to get his training so he could fly it. That was 3 months ago. So I don’t know if he got training or just talked himself into soloing his trike, but I suspect it’s the later. IF that was the case, this was a very senseless accident.
So many fixed wing pilots think trikes are similar to stick and rudder planes or easy to fly or whatever… I too have had fixed wing instructors even, discontinue their WSC training and take there part 103 trikes home to destroy it. No fatalities on the 103 YET… but try hard enough and anything is possible.
I have been overly clear with fixed wing pilots with a false sense of capability that have not completed training. But with Sam, I didn’t make that case because he never acted like he would even think about doing it. Now maybe he did get training, and I don’t know about it. And I intend to find out definitively. But I am speculating that he got the itch to just go fly it after 3 years of it sitting…
Great guy, amazing pilot and wonderful promoter of aviation lost. I hope this story, if I have my facts correct, can save others in the future.
-
It is tragic and most likely avoidable. I think that 3x pilot has bigger chance to get killed or seriously injured in trike or hang glider then total beginner with just mental knowledge. I remember TV program “60 Minutes” in ’80s showing how airliner professional pilot killed himself in a trike. Everything is in reverse and slow reaction. Trike doesn’t like to be pushed around. It likes to be handled gently and patiently. My 5 cents
-
Thanks for sharing this story. Training is so necessary with trikes no matter how much flight time you have in other aircraft. I remember talking with a guy at an airshow here in Arizona that had over 10,000 hours logged as a commercial pilot. He told me that flying trikes was the most fun aircraft to fly. He also told me it took him forever to learn to fly a trike, because of the different type of controls. I did some flying when i was younger without instruction in two different aircraft. I knew better at the time but i was young and brave. I knew better not to do that in a trike. Nor would I do now what i did when i was younger. It wasn’t that i really wanted to fly stuff without instruction it was the money that i didn’t have that made me brave enough to do it. I got really lucky that i didn’t get hurt or crash those aircraft. I don’t think there is any trike pilot that has hours under his belt that would think you should fly a trike without Weight shift Control training. I have no knowledge of this particular incident so my comments are not meant to reflect towards this incident. I am sure every flight instructor could tell story after story of mistakes that were made by their students that they had to save them from making which saved the plane and/or their lives.
-
About a year ago while on vacation I received a voice mail on my phone from a man that said he was at my airport with his aircraft. He got my name from someone there that said I was an instructor and he wanted to ask me if I could give him some “pointers” on how to take off and land his ultralight. I see this to often, People think that because it maybe a ultralight or even a trike that it is a toy and you should be able to fly it by just looking at it. “ it can’t be that hard” I called him back right away. It went to his voice mail, I gave him some cautions about rotors from a few of the runways and then cautioned him that “ if you do not have instruction I Highly Highly recommend it !!” About 10 minutes later I called again, this time he answered. He said “ I will no longer be needing your services because I already totaled my aircraft” He took it off and crashed it on his first takeoff! He was very fortunate to walk away. It is cheaper to get instruction than replace an aircraft or worse. I have refused to train a few people because they only wanted “a little instruction because they were just going to fly ultralight”. I told them that I was not going to train them just enough to take off and kill them self and fortunately I didn’t know any other instructor that would. If your reading this and have an aircraft of any kind you still have time for instruction! Please get proper instruction. Your friends and family will be grateful.
-
AMEN to that Ken!
-
-
Will be following. It is so important to learn to help others.
-
I am sure the family could use some prayers about now! They will be in mine. Thanks for sharing
-
-
I’ve been on a couple of these sites over the years and don’t typically reply but the Sam Peachy deal – Yes! There are over confident and overzealous students — add to that the fact that there just aren’t enough instructors — Too many have been regulated out of business — This is senseless — Our sincerest condolences go out to the family
-
Here is a copy and paste I received. Not sure who wrote it originally, but among other things the take away was loss of control is suspected by whoever wrote this.
“I got this from a friend and thought you should know. Most likely you knew Sam. “Samuel R. Peachy, of Belleville, PA was a legend in the aviation community that was well known for hosting fly-in picnics on his farm for his family and neighbours which was a special delight for the children as he dropped candy from his plane. Sam has piloted many aircraft over the many years of his life, from helicopters to airplanes and he was comfortable in all. During the Oshkosh AirVenture Airshow he would often be seen doing the demo flights in Highlanders and Hummel airplanes. Unfortunately Sam took his last flight on Friday July 8, 2022 when he was flying a powered hang glider and witnesses saw him contact the ground. He was killed instantly by blunt force trauma. Investigators are not sure of the caused it appears he lost control was not able to recover.
Sam will be missed by his loving family which includes his wife Barbara, four daughters, two sons and many grandchildren. Your thoughts and prayers are asked as his family tries to deal with their loss.”I got this from a friend and thought you should know. Most likely you knew Sam. “Samuel R. Peachy, of Belleville, PA was a legend in the aviation community that was well known for hosting fly-in picnics on his farm for his family and neighbours which was a special delight for the children as he dropped candy from his plane. Sam has piloted many aircraft over the many years of his life, from helicopters to airplanes and he was comfortable in all. During the Oshkosh AirVenture Airshow he would often be seen doing the demo flights in Highlanders and Hummel airplanes. Unfortunately Sam took his last flight on Friday July 8, 2022 when he was flying a powered hang glider and witnesses saw him contact the ground. He was killed instantly by blunt force trauma. Investigators are not sure of the caused it appears he lost control was not able to recover.
Sam will be missed by his loving family which includes his wife Barbara, four daughters, two sons and many grandchildren. Your thoughts and prayers are asked as his family tries to deal with their loss.” -
All aviation accidents are sad to read about, especially this one for me, being a fatality trike accident in PA. The area where it happened, near Altoona, is a pretty area of the mid-state, and one where I have made many really memorable flights. There aren’t that many trike pilots in PA — let’s be safe out there. Thoughts to his family.
-
At Oshkosh I was able to confirm eye witnesses said he climbed out to 300’ and spiraled it in. I imagined it went about like that before finding out.
We had a beautiful memorial for Sam at Oshkosh where his Grand daughter read a beautiful Eulogy about Sam.
He will be missed
Log in to reply.