Icon A5 Dunked...

With an AOA front and center in the cockpit no less. :eek:

Maybe the comprehensive, "we bear no liability" contract in the luggage space put them over gross? :rolleyes:
 
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Art VanDelay said:
Surprised it hasn't happened sooner !
...
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Why?
Is there something about the aircraft or the target buyers or something else that caused concern?
Any airplane can crash but I had not heard the ICON had any notable bad habits, or was squirrelly to fly.

Maybe they tried to land it with the gear down?
 
Ultralight lol


s4yy5s.jpg


The A5 seems like a great little plane, think where the "surprised it didn't happen sooner" came from was with the company and how they market it, it's marketed as anyone can fly it, hop in and go, and all the videos have it doing low level contact flying, plus it's a amphib, and those three things don't blend well together.
 
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I wonder if that was the plane that they "raffled off" at Oshkosh ? Now they have a valid excuse not to deliver
 
I bet they did this on purpose, now they will claim that they are "unsinkable"(you know, like the titanic)
 
It will be interesting to learn more about this accident. I wouldn't expect the plane to be sitting upright if they landed with the gear down.
 
Acrodustertoo said:
I thought you couldn't stall an icon?
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Yeah, but you could not stall a LongEZ either, yet John Denver managed to crash it. If you do not recover from the mush, you pancake on the surface. Notice that nobody died.
 
flightwriter said:
It will be interesting to learn more about this accident. I wouldn't expect the plane to be sitting upright if they landed with the gear down.
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It's got some pretty large sponsons on either side of the hull. Possible gear out dragged the nose under; with any forward momentum and the leading edges of the sponsons below waterline it could have dragged it under and swamped it.
 
zaitcev said:
Yeah, but you could not stall a LongEZ either, yet John Denver managed to crash it. If you do not recover from the mush, you pancake on the surface. Notice that nobody died.
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You are wrong in saying nobody died. The icon brand is dying a slow death!
 
From the photo, I'm wondering, was that a "crash," or a successful ditching?
 
I've been as amazed as anyone by some of Icon's high jinks, but somehow, a survivable ditching doesn't sound like a big negative for the company.
 
If it had been out in the open ocean I might call it a ditching as most Seaplanes can only manage swells of a certain small height.

For those of you not familiar with Biscayne Bay it's VERY flat water. The Cherry Creek reservoir in Denver gets bigger "waves" than Biscayne Bay. Unless of course there's a hurricane present which there was not.

So let's quit calling it a ditching !
 
Art VanDelay said:
If it had been out in the open ocean I might call it a ditching as most Seaplanes can only manage swells of a certain small height.

For those of you not familiar with Biscayne Bay it's VERY flat water. The Cherry Creek reservoir in Denver gets bigger "waves" than Biscayne Bay. Unless of course there's a hurricane present which there was not.

So let's quit calling it a ditching !
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We don't know if the pilot was having to make a forced landing on the water. If he/she was then it's a ditching. How flat the water is irrelevant.
 
Art VanDelay said:
If it had been out in the open ocean I might call it a ditching as most Seaplanes can only manage swells of a certain small height.

For those of you not familiar with Biscayne Bay it's VERY flat water. The Cherry Creek reservoir in Denver gets bigger "waves" than Biscayne Bay. Unless of course there's a hurricane present which there was not.

So let's quit calling it a ditching !
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Is Del Boca Vista near Biscaybe Bay?
 
Art VanDelay said:
If it had been out in the open ocean I might call it a ditching as most Seaplanes can only manage swells of a certain small height.

For those of you not familiar with Biscayne Bay it's VERY flat water. The Cherry Creek reservoir in Denver gets bigger "waves" than Biscayne Bay. Unless of course there's a hurricane present which there was not.

So let's quit calling it a ditching !
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How do you feel about its being called a "crash"?
 
Considering the intended use of A5 - the aggressive maneuvering in proximity of the surface - I think we should see a significant number of incidents as the fleet numbers grow. In this regard, it's heartening that there were no fatalities.
 
Art VanDelay said:
For those of you not familiar with Biscayne Bay it's VERY flat water.
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Not always... I lived in Homestead for 9 years and tried to never miss an opportunity to go fishing, and a two foot chop in the bay was not uncommon, with 2 to 4 easily with a stiff breeze. I think the story said they were just offshore from Biscayne Bay, so if they were east of the barrier keys, that's a different ballgame.
 
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zaitcev said:
Yeah, but you could not stall a LongEZ either, yet John Denver managed to crash it. If you do not recover from the mush, you pancake on the surface. Notice that nobody died.
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Denver sure didn't pancake out of a mush. He poked a rudder so hard he nosed in and decapitated himself. Wrong fuel lever location for a short guy....
Several canards have ditched, floated and were recovered and repaired.
 
zaitcev said:
Considering the intended use of A5 - the aggressive maneuvering in proximity of the surface - I think we should see a significant number of incidents as the fleet numbers grow. In this regard, it's heartening that there were no fatalities.
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Calling a few demonstrators to sucker in new "customers" a fleet? Come in now!

And at their current production rate, their "fleet" will be minus 1 for about two months.
 
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From ICON:

In the coming days, you may hear about a mishap involving an A5 that occurred over the weekend in South Florida. I wanted to reach out so you'd hear the facts directly from us.

During flight operations of two A5s down in Miami, Florida, this Saturday, 1 April (no joke), one of the A5s experienced an extremely hard landing that resulted in hull damage that caused the aircraft to take on water. Both the pilot and passenger were uninjured. While the aircraft subsequently submerged up to the wings, it remained afloat and was towed approximately eight miles to a marina where it was loaded onto an A5 trailer and transported back to ICON. The situation is still under thorough review by ICON, but all initial information suggests pilot error.

As you might imagine, towing a partially submerged A5 into the closest marina attracted a lot of attention for many reasons. Attached is one of the photos that was taken. I'm guessing this will be as painful for you to look at as it was for me. After more than 3,500 A5 flight hours in 20+ aircraft over many years, including an extensive development program, this is the first situation like this we've experienced.
 
A hull breach on landing. That's interesting.
Maybe the water was dead flat and misjudged the height?

Moral of the story...The AOA is God? :D
 
FastEddieB said:
... an extremely hard landing that resulted in hull damage that caused the aircraft to take on water....
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In light of this, it looks like the use of the word "crash" is less of an exaggeration than I thought.
 
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