Feds Report Engine 'Jerk' Preceded Plane's August Crash Landing

GROTON, CT —It was a clear, near-moonless mid-August night with light winds.

A student pilot was flying the small Piper aircraft that crash-landed onto the roof of a Groton house, federal transportation investigators said.

Having flown from Groton to Maine, the student pilot successfully, and uneventfully, had landed the plane while in Maine, but on the return to Groton, while preparing to land, the flight instructor was forced to take over the controls when he heard an engine sputter and jerk, the National Transportation Safety Board preliminary report of the crash reads.

Pilot looked for a place to land after engine 'jerk' and 'sputter'

It was 10:36 p.m. on Aug. 17 when the light aircraft crashed onto the roof of the house at 255 Ring Drive, just two miles from the Groton-New London Airport. The unnamed flight instructor “looked for a place to land and maneuvered for landing on a street.” But as he was “flaring to land, he felt a collision.” The plane “came to rest suspended by the roof structure of the house.”

The two in the aircraft, the student and the unnamed flight instructor, suffered minor injuries. The person inside the house, who was not injured as a result of the collision, suffered throat irritation because of the fuel odor, the report reads.

The day of flying instruction began at 4 p.m.

The student pilot flew to, and landed in, Bangor, Augusta and Portland, Maine before setting out for the return flight to the Groton-New London Airport.

Flying into the airport, the NTSB report states, the pilot plane was on an approach to runway 23 with its landing gear extended as the student pilot began the descent when the flight instructor “heard an engine sputter and verified the controls were in the proper position. He heard the engine sputter again and ‘felt the [airplane] jerk’ and stated, ‘my controls.’”

Taking over, the instructor “maintained airspeed and verified the engine controls were full forward, retracted the flaps but decided to leave the landing gear extended due to the altitude and proximity to the airport. He verified the malfunction to be the right engine and felt it was developing some power, but with ‘less output’ than the left. He briefly pitched nose-down, then nose-up, and when he noticed a high descent rate, he feathered the right propeller and placed the right mixture control to idle cutoff. He looked for a place to land and maneuvered for landing on a street. While flaring to land, he felt a collision. The airplane came to rest suspended by the roof structure of the house.”

Neighbors were evacuated

The night of the crash, nearby homes in the Poquonnock Bridge section of the town were evacuated as a precautionary measure as fire crews and EMS attended to the scene.

A representative from the Connecticut Airport Authority responded to the site before midnight. That Tuesday, NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss told Patch that while the preliminary report would arrive shortly, "our investigations could take between one and two years to complete."

Myriad agencies responded to the crash site including the Groton Town Police Department, Poquonnock Bridge Fire Department, Mystic Fire Department, Submarine Base Fire Department, Mystic River Ambulance, and Groton Ambulance. Groton Utilities and town building officials also responded.

Read the full NTSB preliminary report here:

NTSB Groton CT Aug 17 Cras... by Ellyn Santiago

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