The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) says an altered flight path and hitting a tree on a private property in the Brantford, Ont., contributed to a fatal aircraft crash during a failed runway landing in March.
TSB detectives say 57-year-old John Bacon from Hamilton received critical injuries in the incident and died before arriving at a hospital via ambulance.
The plane was reported to have been “well below” the nominal approach path with the left wing striking a tree approximately 70 feet above ground level, according to the TSB.
“Due to the tree strike, the aircraft yawed significantly to the left, pitched up, and spun around before crashing in a field approximately 200 feet past the tree-strike location, and 1,920 feet short of the threshold of Runway 29,” investigators wrote.
OPP say the plane went down east of the Brantford Municipal Airport in an open field late on Mar. 21, 2022.
A spokesperson for the TSB told Global News the plane involved was a single-engine Cessna 172RG aircraft rented from the Brantford Flying Club. The pilot was attempting to land at the airport sometime after 5 p.m.
The board revealed the right wing was the first part of the craft to hit the ground followed by the front-right corner of the aircraft’s nose.
Bacon was the lone occupant in the plane and the weather was “suitable” for a “brief flight to the west,” according to the report.
The occurrence happened when the pilot turned onto the final approach track approximately 1.4 nautical miles (NM) from the touchdown zone for Runway 29.
“At this point, the aircraft was slightly above the 3 degrees (nominal) approach path,” investigators said.
“However, at 1.2 NM from the touchdown zone, the aircraft had drifted below the nominal approach path, and after a short period of paralleling it, the aircraft continued to descend further below it.”
The TSB says Bacon previously had recorded eight successful landings in the last 12 months prior to the crash, five of which were conducted during flights with an instructor in August.
There was also no indication of pre-impact mechanical failure with the plane and the propeller did not exhibit any damage prior to the flight.
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