The NTSB says a simulated engine failure on takeoff that turned into the real thing led to the crash of a STOL Aircraft UC-1 Twin Seabee into a house in Winter Haven, Florida, Feb. 23. The crash killed instructor James Wagner while student pilot Timothy Sheehey was slightly injured and a young woman in the house was seriously hurt. Sheehey, a commercial pilot training for a mult-engine seaplane rating, told NTSB investigators that before takeoff, Wagner said he was going to reduce the power on one engine. When he chopped the power, the engine quit, the prop feathered and the engine couldn’t be restarted.
The report said Wagner headed for an emergency landing spot but determined he couldn’t make it and turned left to land on a lake instead. He lost control and the airplane ended up tail-up vertically in the house. The impact knocked the woman in the house through an interior wall. The aircraft is based on the original single-engine Seabee but equipped with two wing-mounted Lycoming IO-360 engines.
