This past week, I was exposed to the professionalism of the Lancair factory insurance inspection, and their attitude toward responsibility, while performing the famous insurance required factory inspection.  Here are the facts as I experienced them.  I'll put down what I personally saw and experienced, with hearsay noted.

Some background:  several weeks ago, I sold my Lancair IVP N441JH.  Completion of the sale was contingent on the Buyer's ability to obtain hull insurance.  As has been discussed before on this forum,   the insurance company made successful completion of a factory condition inspection a requirement of issuing the policy.  The Buyer told me that he paid Lancair $3,700.00 in advance for them to perform the inspection at an FBO maintenance hangar in Santa Monica,  California (where the plane is based.)  He rented the maintenance hangar from the firm that did 441JH's annual condition inspection in February.

On Tuesday,  June 30th, a single Lancair employee turned up to inspect the plane.  He was thorough and took off all inspection plates, cowlings, and disassembled the cockpit interior including the seats,  side panels and all pressure vessel covers in the back seat.  He was helpful and willing to fix minor squawks, like the rudder cable swedge fittings which only had a single crimp, as he went along.  He used the FBO mechanical tools, but brought along his own electronic gear like the bore scope.

On Wednesday,  July 1st I came down to the hanger to be present during the gear retraction test because my FBO mechanic and I hoped to remove the nose gear and replace the O ring internal gasket because of a mild shimmy.  Since it's not possible (my opinion) or at least very difficult for a single individual to jack up a Lancair IVP and perform a gear retraction inspection,  the Lancair inspector enlisted the FBO mechanic--and me--at his direction.  I manned the engine hoist jack while they pumped up the main jacks--which belonged to the FBO as did the engine hoist of course.  With the main jacks a foot off the ground, I worked the engine hoist jack to get the plane level as directed.  At that point the Lancair inspector asked me to get into the cockpit to work the gear lever while he inspected the gear as it retracted.  All went well to this point.

With the gear in the well, the inspector asked me to pull the hydraulic circuit breaker, select the gear lever down position, and use the emergency gear handle to put the gear down.  The emergency gear handle didn't work.  It pumped without siphon and did not exert any hydraulic pressure on the gear.  At this point the inspector climbed onto the port wing root.  For no good reason, I reset the hydraulic circuit breaker and lowered and locked the gear.

With me sitting on the passenger side of the front seat, the inspector reached in from the wing root.  He loosened the hydraulic line to the emergency pump and saw he had fluid.  Then while leaning in, he began to pump the handle vigorously.  The plane started to rock and slipped off the right jack first.  The right wing first went down far enough to break the strobe housing on the starboard winglet, as the starboard jack went through the pressure vessel in the right rear foot well.  The left jack came off and went through the port wing root top and bottom.  At this point the engine hoist twisted off the fitting holding it to the engine and the nose came down with a thump.  Upon inspection, the damage was found to be entirely cosmetic--holes top and bottom of the wing root and in the rear foot well.  The jack shafts missed all the fuel and control lines and structure.

At this point, the inspector began insisting that the fault lay with the broken engine hoist coupling.  I was sitting in the cockpit and both felt and watched the right wing go to the floor first.  Other witnesses confirmed my experience.  I left the hanger--not in the best of moods.

When I returned on Thursday at noon,  the inspector had returned to Bend.  He did nothing further on the airplane after the accident did not return to Bend that day but stayed overnight and took a Thursday morning flight back.  The airplane was in pieces--cowling was off,  inspection plates were off,  the cockpit was disassembled.  Although the FBO mechanic and I could put the cowling and seats back in,  neither of us knew which of the many parts went where in putting the rear pressure cover back together.

The Buyer was notified by me and the FBO of the accident and he told me that he had discussions with Lancair about his inspection fee.  I don't know the outcome but understand to date that Lancair maintains it earned the inspection fee, and no report has been prepared or tendered to the Buyer.

Although I was not a party to the contract for the inspection by Lancair,  I sent an email to Kim Lorenzen complaining about the mess the plane was left in when the inspector departed.  Kim replied that she would look into it, and shortly thereafter the inspector called me and offered the advice that it wasn't really hard to reassemble the plane, and in his opinion that the FBO mechanic and I were up to the task.  Kim also said she had ordered the out of stock starboard strobe cover but did not offer to pay for it.

While I was at the plane,  Joe Bartels called.  After a long conversation,  he got to the bottom line:  Lancair would not accept any responsibility for the damage to the plane.  "As a courtesy to me" when the plane was repaired he would send someone down to reassemble it.  Incidentally, and irrelevant to the topic,  when I mentioned my O ring plan to fix the shimmy, he  was dubious and said that his own IVP had a shimmy and that it was not a big deal.

The FBO put the plane back together as best he could since the rental of the hanger was only for two days and the plane would have to be returned to my own hanger.   The FBO got a local bid for a thousand dollars to fix the damage and match the paint from Burkett on the Santa Monica field.  The Buyer got an estimate of 3 to 4 thousand dollars from Phoenix Composites.  The Buyer and I reached a compromise and he took the plane with the damage.  Bottom line for a Lancair Insurance Inspection:  Aircraft Owner out 1 to 4 thousand dollars plus cost to reassemble airplane;  Buyer/insuree out the cost of inspection with no report,  a damaged airplane to repair, and no insurance;  Lancair, the big winner with money in the bank for services they did not complete.  Such a deal.

 

Bill Edwards