It's been a tough year for the modestly-attended 2003 Sun 'n Fun Fly-In. While we're thankful that we have no fatalities to report, a number of serious accidents have occurred, some in a manner that seem to bear out the concerns we raised in our six-part ANN series earlier this month.

At this writing, we have just received word of a Monday evening light aircraft accident in the lightplane area, similar to the incident that claimed a life, and injured another, two years ago in the same area. In this accident, an AGA Banbi, a two-place light aircraft powered by a Rotax 912, apparently failed to get airborne despite "struggling in ground effect for the length of the runway." The aircraft went down before it could hit any of the cars in the parking lot that lie off one end of the active lightplane runway.

The reported conditions offered little to no headwind (mostly crosswind), high temperatures (about 90-95 degrees) and a pretty full load (two people, plus) aboard a lightweight hotrod that (depending on version) is capable of as much as 200 mph. Not remotely a STOL aircraft, we wonder about the wisdom of operating such a loaded aircraft... or off an occasionally rough, unimproved, runway whose conditions obviously would lengthen, significantly, any take-off operation--especially on a hot day. One person was transported to the hospital and another apparently emerged with minor injuries. This could have been a lot worse. ANN has long questioned the length, position, and conditions of the limited runway that SnF operates light sport aircraft from... especially since in one particular direction, an aborted take-off or failed landing could deposit an imperiled aircraft right in the midst of a well traveled parking area... and handicapped parking, to boot.

Earlier in the week, a Stearman turned turtle; an experimental Escapade screwed up its main gear; and a trike ate some vegetation -- all without reported injury. Unfortunately, we're sorry to report that Titan Aircraft's slick P-51 replica, the T-51, had a landing gear failure requiring a landing with gear deployed asymmetrically. (The landing did some significant damage but company officials think that everything's fixable. They expect to see it flying again at Oshkosh 2003.)

Unfortunately, one of our most-serious concerns revolved around the way that Sun 'n Fun moves airplanes on the ground... 'way too close to pedestrians, according to a number of industry luminaries. This year our worst fears were realized when a Canadian gentleman, assisting with parking a Mooney, got clobbered by the aircraft after dark, and was hospitalized as a result.

Even more serious: a 12-year-old boy was struck in the back of his head by the wing of a taxiing Bonanza while he was walking alongside his parents on Saturday... the blow rendered the child unconscious and not breathing on the ground. Resuscitation efforts were successful, but the boy has been hospitalized as a result. We've obtained the police reports and some other investigative details and will file a report about both those accidents shortly... but we still maintain that SnF (knowingly... because they've been criticized quite publicly about this) moves aircraft 'way too close to people... especially in highly-trafficked areas and the warbird parking area. In our opinion, there's no excuse for this, and we strongly recommend that more safety-minded procedures be adopted swiftly. More info to follow...

FMI: www.faa.gov