Wed, Apr 19, 2006
Victim Developed Autopilot Later Sold By Chelton
The National Transportation Safety Board investigator now
combing through the wreckage of last Sunday's fatal accident involving a
Beechcraft B-60 Duke (file photo of type,
below) at Gainesville Regional Airport says the airplane had
an out-of-date annual inspection.
"Every year at a minimum, it has to have an inspection," said
the NTSB's John Lovell to the Gainesville (FL) Sun. Lovell declined
to say when Prof. Giuseppe Basile's aircraft was last examined,
although he noted there were "no entries" on the plane's
maintenance log to indicate it had been inspected in the past
year.
Basile, 69, was a noted engineering professor. He was flying
with one of his former students, Steve Varosi, 40, and Varosi's
12-year-old nephew Michael when witnesses report the Duke rolled to
the right shortly after takeoff from GNV Sunday afternoon. The Duke
clipped an SUV parked outside the terminal as it impacted the
ground, sending the vehicle into the passenger terminal of the
airport.
All three onboard the
aircraft perished in the accident, although no one on the ground
was injured.
Relatives say Basile and Steve Varosi were conducting a test
flight for a new autopilot system the two had developed when the
accident occured. It is unknown whether that system may have played
a role in the accident.
While teaching Electronics and Control Automation at the
University of Bologna in 1973, Basile designed the AP-1 autopilot.
An updated AP-2 version of this system was certified in Italy,
manufactured, and marketed in 1977 by the Italian company
O.C.E.M.
In 2001, Chelton Flight Systems purchased the FAA-certified
AP-2C and AP-3C variants of the original autopilot system,
and after several further modifications began to market the
AP-3C one year later.
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