Both pilot and passenger suffered minor injuries after their Icon A5 flipped on landing at Okanagan Lake, West Kelowna, British Columbia. Police reports and post-crash video suggest that the Icon’s gear was extended for the water landing, likely to be the cause of the flip-over.
According to local reports, Caeli Turner with British Columbia Emergency Health Services said paramedics received a call around 5 p.m. regarding the crash. “B.C. Ambulance received a call around 5 o’clock this afternoon about a small plane that had crashed into the Okanagan Lake in the West Kelowna area near Sunnyside,” she says. “Our paramedics arrived to the scene and there were two patients that were transported by ambulance to hospital but in stable condition.”
Kelowna News is reporting that “Kelowna RCMP have identified the pilot as a 72-year-old Alberta man. He and his passenger, a 59-year-old man were transported to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.” RCMP spokesman Cpl. Jesse O’Donaghey said, “The crash is not being considered criminal in nature at this time As such, RCMP have since notified, and continue to support the Transportation Safety Board of Canada who have launched an investigation into the aviation incident.”
The 2018 Icon A5, N84GJ, is registered to International Air Services Inc., of Carson City, Nevada. We’ll update this story as more information becomes available.
Icon should design a MEMS based unusual attitude detection system that plays, “Another One Bites the Dust” (or is it water) as often as this is happening. I thought non-pilots were gonna be able to fly this thing??
This just proves that the A5, like any other seaplane, will flip if you extend the gear on water. Hard to design out human error.
This and other Icon misfortunes also prove the silliness of the arbitrary (or not so arbitrary) LSA weight limit. Icon applied for and obtained an exception to the LSA weight rule, but the fixed gear simple 1946 Cessna 120 which I fly to experience the opposite end of the spectrum on which I live professionally weighs in at just a few pounds too many to qualify for LSA. One of these two airplanes had a good lobby, the other not. Someone’s emperor has no clothes.
John Kliewer
Not to worry, John. I have it on good authority that the FAA / EAA / MOSAIC idea aimed at changing the LSA weight limit to performance based vs. a hard number is being worked at the highest levels. At the “Meet the Administrator” speech at Airventure next month, we should hear something about a way to get to “Yes” and see an NPRM some time just prior to 2050. After that, implementation could be less than a decade away after tabulation and collation are complete and the final rule is adopted at DOT. PBOR3 or 4 may accelerate action but … who knows? Just be patient.
Yes, John, sixty or seventy year old airplanes that are out of production don’t have much of a lobby. But the FAA grants weight exemption to amphibs with regularity. In fact, IIRC, Icon didn’t even use all of their “allotment”.
I guess if it’s not on your Checklist prior to a water landing to confirm the gear is up, maybe it should be???????
Of course it’s on there, as it is with every retractable (though the amphib gets two different choices for landing configuration: wet or dry!) Of course, that hasn’t stopped many people from landing gear up when it should be down, and vice-versa.
“The crash is not being considered criminal in nature at this time”
OK, that inane quote from the RCMP just made my day.
I’m waiting to hear how many horses drowned while the RCMP investigated…