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Crash of gyroplane N2223A on 7/24/98 at Mentone Indiana

I am not a regular participant on the PRA rotorcraft conference, but Chuck Roberg is and he has passed along much of the apparent confusion regarding my crash at Mentone in July of 1998. To set the record straight, and to hopefully prevent this type of accident from happening to someone else, I would like to give my account of the accident, which has not changed from day one, and then point out several facts for discussion. If anyone is unfamiliar with the accident or the participants there is a much lengthier version, which I prepared while I was in the hospital, attached at the bottom.

I flew the length of the runway at Mentone before starting a climb and turning the aircraft over to Jamie. The plan was to climb out to 500 ft. on the runway heading, then turn right and fly over to the practice area, which was located about three quarters of a mile east of the airport. We never got the chance to make the first turn. Jamie was flying the aircraft, and doing a good job, he had the airspeed bracketed in the climb between 40 and 45 MPH with the engine at 2500 RPM and I was lightly monitoring the controls to prevent any abrupt movement. Rotor rpm during the climb was steady at 363 rpm. When we reached 500 ft. just as Jamie started to lower the nose to level off the cyclic stick became very heavy and started to move forward on its own. At this point several things happened in very quick succession. I immediately realized we had a problem controlling the attitude of the aircraft. The downward force on the cyclic was more than I could overcome on my own so I told Jamie "we have a problem, I can't keep the nose up, help me pull back on the stick, we are going to have to land." I then reached over and pulled the throttle back to an idle, keyed the mike button on the throttle and announced, "23 Alpha is going down". Rotor blade speed was now at 380 rpm and the downward force on the cyclic was incredible. With both Jamie and I pulling back on the cyclic we could still not hold it and the aircraft entered a descending right hand turn at 40 mph. As the descent continued the nose of the aircraft continued to drop and the rotor speed continued to increase going from 380 rpm to 405 rpm and finally to 485 rpm at which point Jamie started screaming " Oh my God I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die". Jamie then took his left hand off the throttle and placed it on the cyclic with his right to put more force on the cyclic. At this point we were approximately 100-150 ft. in the air and the nose of the aircraft turned to the right slightly as Jamie's left hand grabbed the cyclic, and then the nose immediately dropped violently down and to the right. We impacted the ground a heartbeat later at what I would estimate to be a 40+ degree nose down attitude. At the point of impact I could not see the horizon, i.e. it was not within my field of vision so my estimate of the angle could be off. I believe the F.A.A. examiner at the scene estimated a nose down attitude of 13 degrees and Ernie Boyette, who has seen many gyroplane accidents estimated the angle of impact to be 70 to 90 plus degrees. From examination of the crash pictures and the wreckage it is apparent that the aircraft hit in an extreme nose down attitude. The main wheels are clean and look as if they never touched the ground and the nose wheel has dirt compacted back past the rudder pedals suggesting that the aircraft hit the ground like a lawn dart. The main axle is not bent down, but the steel brace that runs between the seats from shoulder height on the mast to the nose is bent "S" shaped as the weight of the engine pushed forward, not down. The mast also broke forward just above the axle at the lower engine mount.

 

Facts and Questions to consider:

  1. We lost control of the aircraft in a full power climb at 40–45 MPH just as we started to lower the nose. The stick was moving forward on its own and the aircraft was losing lift and coming out from under us. I pulled power after the control problem occurred, not before, because I did not want to go into a power dive and go screaming into the ground. For those of you who think I should have added power I point out that there was no power to add, and for those of you who think the controls were against the rear stop, they were not, the stick was moving forward toward mid-range, but the aircraft was descending. -- Why was the stick moving forward when both Jamie and I were trying to pull it back?
  2. The aircraft went into a descending right hand turn which neither Jamie or I could control. If I had a choice I would have preferred to turn left into the wind but we were not given an option.
  3. Rotor RPM increased from 363RPM to 485+ RPM during the descent, which took about 15 seconds. 485 was the last number I saw on the rotor-tach before the nose violently dropped down and to the right. My rotor-tach had a large digital display and was mounted at the top of my instrument panel, which made it very easy to read, which I got to do on the way down. I had never had any problems with it in the past so I believe it to be accurate. ---- Why was rotor RPM rapidly increasing, if anything you would expect a slight decrease in rotor RPM during a descent?
  4. What caused the nose to drop violently down and to the right at 100 ft, just before impact? Was it because Jamie moved his left hand from the throttle to the stick, which may have increased the right hand turning force on the stick? I doubt it. Was it because the control tube broke when Jamie added more back pressure on the stick? Possibly, but the NTSB/FAA tested the crossover tube and determined that it failed on impact, not during flight, so I doubt it.

While I was in the hospital I spent countless hours on the phone with Ernie Boyette, Doug O’Conner, and others trying to figure out what caused the accident and the best two theories come from Marty Hollman and information from Ernie Boyette. Marty is an aeronautical engineer who designed the Hollman Sportster, which is essentially what the Marchetti is.

Marty’s theory is that the Dragon-wing rotor blades were not structurally strong enough to support the weight of the aircraft. He believes that when Ernie increased the width of the rotor blade by elongating the upper and lower skin, the skin of the airfoil was not internally supported between the spar and the trailing edge of the blade, which allowed the skin of the airfoil to deform in flight. I.e. as the center of pressure pushed up and moved back on the bottom of the blade, the shape of the airfoil changed to accommodate that force, which caused the center of pressure to move further back on the blade, which caused an increased bending force. The result would be an irreversibly changing airfoil, which decreased lift and allowed rotor speed to increase.

A second theory is a little more complicated, but very similar, and has pretty much the same result. If you put the pieces together you see that when the aircraft started to transition from a climb to level flight, the angle of attack on the advancing blade decreased, and the forward speed of the aircraft increased, which would have caused the relative tip speed of the advancing blade to increase. This would have caused the center of pressure to move further back on the bottom of the blade, which would have increased either the twisting or bending force on the blade.

Now at this point these are just theories, but when you combine them with the observed performance of the aircraft the pieces start to come together. The observed rotor RPM was rapidly increasing, the stick was moving forward by itself, and the aircraft was losing lift and turning right. Since the advancing blade is on the right, if it was either depitching or deforming, this would occur on the right side of the aircraft. If it were depitching, this would cause the stick to move forward, if it was deforming I have no clue as to what would happen to the stick. In either case, once the process is started, it cannot be stopped since the forces acting on the blade increase with increased speed of the advancing blade. Now if we throw one more piece of information into the equation we might find out why the nose of the aircraft violently dropped down and to the right. According to Ernie, the airfoil he uses in the wide chord blade, which is different than his narrow chord blade, stalls or goes into something similar called a Mach Tuck at about .7 MACH, which is about 525 MPH. Now if you do the math on a set of 28 ft diameter rotor blades, you will see that 1 RPM of blade rotation gives you approximately 1 MPH of tip speed on the rotor blade, and I am sure that if I have done the math wrong somebody will check it. Now, if I had rotor blades that were accelerating at 485 RPM (485 MPH), and an aircraft with 40 MPH of airspeed and probably increasing, if you add the forward speed of the aircraft to the advancing blade speed, bingo, you blow right past that 525 MPH of advancing blade speed at just the point where the nose of the aircraft dropped violently down and to the right. Couple all of this with the fact that there were less than three hours of flight time on the rotor blades at the time of impact and all reasonable information points to a rotor blade failure.

 

Responses to other theories/ questions I have heard:
  1. Did the drag of the prop cause the accident? -- No. The thrust line of the prop on the Marchetti is above the center of gravity of the aircraft. Any drag from the prop would cause the nose of the aircraft to rotate up around the center of gravity.
  2. Would it have helped if I had added power on the way down? -- No. At the time we lost control of the aircraft we were at full power, so there was nothing to add. I also believe that if the problem had happened any higher or if we had any more forward speed, such as adding power on the way down, the nose of the aircraft would have dropped off sooner, the aircraft would have rolled inverted, Jamie and I would both be dead and buried, and the accident would have been written off as a PIO.
  3. Have I done power off landings in the Marchetti? – Yes, Every student I have taught has done power off landings at different throttle settings. I do some at 1300-1500 RPM to simulate a dead engine with prop not turning (i.e. no prop drag) and I do some with the throttle at a complete idle which simulates an engine out with prop drag because in real life you have both situations. As a matter of fact almost every landing I did at Mentone prior to the accident was a complete dead stick with the throttle at an idle.
  4. Did Steve Graves ever tell me not to do power off landings in the Marchetti? –- No. As a matter of fact the day Steve delivered the aircraft to me was extremely windy, with a 90-degree crosswind to the runway at Lansing. Steve demonstrated a complete power off landing into the wind so that we could land on a 200-ft piece of taxiway that was pointed into the wind. I also did several power off landings with Steve when I took both my Commercial and CFI check rides with him in his new machine at Bensen Days, which had both the wide chord prop and wide chord Dragon-wings. What Steve did tell me was that in his new Marchetti, with the tall tail, he liked to carry a little power on landing in a crosswind because at low speed his new aircraft lacked rudder authority, a problem that I would not have in the twin tail Marchetti. There is also no mention of any unusual flight characteristics attributed to the aircraft when the throttle is reduced to an idle in the flight manual for the aircraft, which was written by Steve, and is on file with the PRA. As a matter of fact the aircraft flight manual instructs the pilot to reduce power to idle to avoid PIO under the emergency procedures section. Steve appeared to be very conservative and thorough when he wrote the manual and I am sure that if there were any unusual flight characteristics related to the Marchetti when the throttle is reduced to an idle it would have been mentioned.
  5. Did I think the rotor blades were unsafe prior to that flight? – Not only "NO", but "Hell No". Those blades were designed and built by Ernie. If either Ernie or I thought there was a problem with the rotor blades they would have been off that aircraft so fast you would have thought that Ernie and I were a pit crew for the Indy 500. I had other blades at the airport, Ernie had other blades at the airport, and for that matter, I had an entire second aircraft at the airport. My primary focus as an instructor is safety, and the only reason I bought the Marchetti in the first place was so I would have a safe, open cockpit aircraft to take my kids for a ride in. As a matter of fact I had already taken my son up that morning and my daughter was waiting for a ride.
  6. Was I wrong to put those rotor blades on that aircraft? – From a practical standpoint, No. When I bought the aircraft it was being flown with the wide chord blades, and had about 150 hours on that configuration, all I did was put it back in the condition it was in when purchased. Hindsight, of course says otherwise.
  7. Do I blame Ernie for the accident? -- "No". Ernie did not intentionally do anything wrong, as a matter of fact it is the innovative people like Ernie that help improve our sport. Ernie has done a great deal to improve the safety of the gyroplane design and probably saved many lives as a result.

As I said earlier this is my version of the accident and what caused it, and I believe it to be true and correct, but it is also my conclusion based on the facts as I see them. Others will have other opinions, which are fine, this is America, I would expect no less. My only purpose in taking the time to write this is so that we can all learn from our mistakes, and the mistakes of others, so that we do not repeat them, so please read and digest this information with an open mind without any hidden agendas, finger pointing or assigning blame.

In closing I would like to thank all of the people who helped Jamie and I. Without their help Jamie and I might have died, and certainly would have lost limbs without their care. A special thanks goes out to Bill Clem, who is a trauma physician who came to the convention with the tools of his trade in tow and insisted that a helicopter be called to transport us to the hospital instead of letting the local ambulance take us. The time saved in getting us to the hospital was a key factor in our survival and recovery. I also thank God every day for the additional time that I have here on earth to enjoy with my family and friends.

 

 

This is the lengthy version of the crash and related information:

Crash of gyroplane N2223A on 7/24/98 at Mentone Indiana

Index of significant people related to the accident:

Majestic Aviation, Inc. - An Illinois Corporation.

- Owner of N2223A

- Employer of Silas Smith

N2223A - 2 place experimental gyroplane

Silas Smith - Flight Instructor flying N2223A

- Lives in Indiana.

Jamie Bodie - Student pilot in N2223A at the time of the accident.

- Lives in South Carolina.

Steve Graves - Previous owner/builder of N2223A

- Gyroplane flight instructor

- F.A.A. Designated Examiner, rotorcraft-Gyroplane.

- Lives in Florida.

Ernie Boyette - Owner of Rotor Flight Dynamics, Inc.

- Designer & builder of the rotor blades involved in the

accident. (i.e. Dragon Wings)- Gyroplane flight instructor.- Lives in Florida. Accident - Occurred on 7/24/98 in Mentone Indiana.

 

 

History:

I agreed to purchased a Marchetti Avenger Gyroplane, N2223A, from Steve Graves, a Gyroplane CFI and an F.A.A. designated examiner on September 7, 1996. Steve delivered the aircraft on October 25, 1996. When I agreed to purchase the aircraft in September 1996 Steve had a set of 28 ft long, 9 inch chord Dragon Wing rotor blades installed on the aircraft which were manufactured by Ernie Boyette of Rotor Flight Dynamics in Florida. Ernie had manufactured the wide chord blades at Steve's request specifically for Steve's Marchetti Avenger N2223A. Steve also had a wide chord airboat propeller installed on the aircraft, which was manufactured by Sensenich to Steve's specifications. When I agreed to purchase N2223A in September Steve told me he would not be able to deliver the aircraft until late October because he was using the aircraft to train with and because he wanted to do a thorough annual inspection on the aircraft before he delivered it. Steve also told me that he would not sell me the 9-inch chord Dragon wing rotor blades with the aircraft as he had just purchased them and only had 150 hrs of flight time on them. Steve said that he was flight-testing the blades for Ernie and that they were the best blades he had ever flown on the Avenger. He said that he was experiencing a 25% increase in performance with the blades. Steve recommended that I contact Ernie and order a set of the blades when the testing was over and Ernie was ready to start production. (Note! that Steve was actively flying N2223A with both the wide chord rotor blades and the wide chord propeller prior to my purchase of the aircraft.)

In April of 1997 I saw both Ernie and Steve in Florida at Bensen Days, one of the annual Gyroplane Conventions. At that time I took both my Commercial and CFI check rides with Steve in his new Marchetti Avenger which had a set of Ernie's wide chord rotor blades on it and also a wide chord airboat propeller from Sensenich. Steve again said that Ernie's wide chord blades were the best blades he had ever flown on the Avenger and he recommended that I purchase a set. I asked Ernie about the possibility of purchasing a set of the wide chord blades at that time but he said it would be several months before he was ready to go into production with them. (Note that Steve was actively flying and training with the wide chord rotor blades and wide chord propeller at this time.).

 

Jump ahead to June 1998

Tom Milton, a local A&P mechanic and an I.A. who owned a Gyroplane manufacturing company, SnoBird Aircraft, needed a set of McCutchen rotor blades to complete delivery of an aircraft. I had a set in my hangar and Tom asked how much I wanted for them. I told Tom that I would trade them for a set of Ernie's wide chord rotor blades. Tom agreed and contacted Ernie who said he would bring them to the Convention at Mentone Indiana in July 98.

I arrived at the Mentone Convention on Thursday July 23rd. After I unloaded my aircraft I pushed it over in front of Ernie's display tent where I saw Ernie. I asked Ernie if he had brought any of his wide chord blades with him for Tom. Ernie said that he brought two sets and wanted to know if one of them was for me. I said yes and Ernie said I thought so. Ernie was busy at the time and told me to come back later and we would put the wide chord blades on my aircraft. When I came back later Ernie had already installed the rotor blades and had encountered a lack of clearance problem between the bottom of the rotor blade hub bar and the top of the rotor head. Ernie said that he knew what the problem was and how to fix it, he just needed to get in touch with Guy ???? who lived next door to the airport and had a machine shop. Ernie found Guy later on that day and had Guy machine several thousandths of an inch off the bottom of the teeter block which the rotor blade hub bar mounts to which gave Ernie the clearance he needed to mount the rotor blades on my aircraft. After Ernie had completed the installation and said everything was ready to go at which point I tossed Ernie a flight helmet and said lets go flight-test them to make sure everything is O.K. Ernie was a little hesitant because "he does not like to fly in big heavy machines" but he agreed and off we went. The flight was uneventful, everything appeared to be working fine, except that Ernie said that the rotor speed was a little higher than he liked. The rotors were turning at 360 rpm and Ernie preferred that they be around 330 rpm. Ernie said that the blades were perfectly safe to fly the way they were but if I wanted more pitch in the blades to slow them down he would either have to take the hub bar back home with him and put a little more bend in it or see if Guy had a big vise that Ernie could use to bend the hub bar. I asked Ernie again if the blades were safe to fly and he assured me that they were, he considered adjusting the blade pitch a minor adjustment. I flew the aircraft the rest of the day uneventfully, and put it in the hangar for the night at dusk.

On Friday morning July 24, 1998 before I rolled the aircraft out of the hangar I did a thorough pre-flight inspection. I even asked two other friends who both have similar aircraft to look my aircraft over just in case I missed something. Both Roy Hudson and Carlos ????? looked the aircraft over. Carlos, looked the aircraft over literally from top to bottom. He climbed up on the top of the engine and looked down on the rotor-head to check the head and linkage and he stuck his head under the seat to check the controls. Carlos found a little play in the control yoke and added a shim washer to take it out and he also tightened the bolts holding the crossover tube because they were looser than he liked. Both adjustments were minor and in my opinion had nothing to do with the accident.

I flew the aircraft uneventfully Friday morning and into the early afternoon. I even took my 11-year-old son up in the morning for a ride, and my 7-year-old daughter was waiting for a ride just prior to the accident. In the flight just prior to the accident I flew with a gentleman who wanted to buy a gyroplane, but wanted to go up with me for an introductory lesson to see if it was really something he would enjoy. I told him that I did not sell gyroplanes but that I would be happy to give him an introductory lesson. We flew for 1/2 hour with me demonstrating several flight maneuvers with Dwain (?) riding through on the controls. The last two maneuvers we did were a 180-degree climbing turn to the left followed by a brief level off and then a 180-degree climbing turn to the right. The purpose of the maneuver is to demonstrate the small turning radius of the aircraft with very little angle of bank. To perform the maneuver you start with straight and level flight at 45 mph and gradually pull the nose up into a climb without adding any power. As the climb is established the airspeed decreases, which allows a smaller radius turn for any given angle of bank. In this demonstration I allowed the airspeed to decrease to 25 mph and maintained that airspeed throughout the turn. As the turn is completed you gently lower the nose without any power adjustments to re-establish straight and level flight at 45 mph. The turn to the left was uneventful, but as we completed the turn to the right just as soon as I started to lower the nose the control stick felt heavy just like someone was trying to pushing it down. Dwain had both hands on the stick so I asked him if he was pushing down on the stick, he immediately let go with both hands and said no. The stick continued to feel heavy for a half-second or so after Dwain let go and then everything was normal again. We were pointed at the airport and Dwain had flown as much as he could absorb for one lesson so I elected to head back to the airport and land. Since we were North and East of the airport I flew crosswind and entered a left hand pattern to land on 36. I demonstrated a power off landing on the South end of the runway just prior to the taxiway, allowed the blades to come to a stop and then pulled off onto the taxiway and shut the aircraft down. At this point I was a little puzzled. The heaviness in the stick was only there momentarily and I did not know if it was from the student or the aircraft. I pushed the aircraft up the taxiway toward the fuel pumps and as I went by Ernie's tent I told him I needed to talk to him. He said I figured you would and I told him I would be back in a few minutes. I continued on up the taxiway to the fuel pumps were I added about 6 gallons to the aircraft and then I spent about 10-15 minutes doing another thorough pre-flight to see if there was a problem. When I found nothing I walked down and talked to Ernie. When I explained what happened, Ernie was as puzzled as I was, his only thought was that I might have been making too steep of a turn which would add load to the rotors and cause them to speed up. At this point I knew that the turns I had made were very shallow so I dismissed the problem as a tense student on the controls. I then went back and got my aircraft and pushed it back down the taxiway toward the runway. On the way I ran into Rick Marshall and his friend Barry Young. I had told Barry earlier that I would take him up for a ride and Barry was ready to go. When I looked at Barry he looked a bit on the hefty side so I asked him what he weighed. He said 265 lb. I told him I had just added fuel and I wanted to burn some of it off before I took him up due to his weight. Jamie Bodie was standing in the area and he had also asked me to take him up. I asked Jamie what he weighed and he said 215 lb., I asked Jamie if he still wanted to go and he said yes. I told Jamie to go sign my waiver since I and the aircraft were uninsured and to meet me down by the runway. As I passed Ernie's tent again I good-naturedly shouted at him and asked if he was sure everything was all right. He shouted back that the blades were safe just avoid steep turns and high G maneuvers and keep the blade speed below 380 rpm.

Since Jamie was already a student pilot and had soloed his own aircraft I gave him a quick safety briefing, instructed him to do a pre-flight on my aircraft, and discussed where we were going to go and what we were going to do. Jamie told me that he had flown with Steve Graves in this aircraft before and that he just wanted to go up in the machine again. During the discussion I told Jamie that Ernie had just put a set of his wide chord blades on my aircraft the day before. Jamie told me that he had a set of Ernie's narrow chord blades on his gyro and that he loved them. Jamie also told me that he had a set of Rotordyne blades that he had flown on his aircraft and that he thought Ernie's blades were much better. Jamie continued to tell me about his gyro while he pre-flighted my aircraft. (I make all students perform a pre-flight on my aircraft before they get in it, it gives me a chance to evaluate the person I am about to fly with, and it establishes good safety practice for the student).

After the pre-flight we entered the aircraft, cleared the area and started the engine. I performed a mag drop, checked the controls for freedom of movement, noted that the wind was from the Northwest at about 7 knots and then followed the directions of the runway safety coordinator to taxi into position and hold while other aircraft landed. Upon getting a clear sign I prerotated the blades to 180 rpm, told Jamie to ride through on the controls with me and started the take-off roll. At 20 mph the nose wheel came up, blade speed was at 270 and increasing, I added power and flew off at 25 mph. I leveled the aircraft at 5 ft, let the speed increase to 45 mph, adjusted the trim, checked the gauges, noted that the rotor speed was at 363 rpm, and told Jamie to maintain 45 mph at 2500 rpm on the engine and to climb out to 500 ft where we would level off and then make a right turn to go to the practice area. Jamie did an excellent job of flying the aircraft, he was light on the controls, steady and had the airspeed pegged at 45 mph while maintaining the runway heading. Rotor rpm during the climb was steady at 363 rpm. When we reached 500 ft just as Jamie started to lower the nose to level off the cyclic stick became very heavy and started to move forward on its own. At this point several things happened in very quick succession. I immediately realized we had a problem controlling the attitude of the aircraft. The downward force on the cyclic was more than I could overcome on my own so I told Jamie "we have a problem, I can't keep the nose up, help me pull back on the stick, we are going to have to land." I then reached over and pulled the throttle back to an idle, keyed the mike button on the throttle and announced, "23 Alpha is going down". Rotor blade speed was now at 380 rpm and the downward force on the cyclic was incredible. With both Jamie and I pulling back on the cyclic we could still not hold it and the aircraft entered a descending right hand turn at 40 mph. As the descent continued the nose of the aircraft continued to drop and the rotor speed continued to increase going from 380 rpm to 405 rpm and finally to 485 rpm at which point Jamie started screaming "Oh my God I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die". Jamie then took his left hand off the throttle and placed it on the cyclic with his right to put more force on the cyclic. At this point we were approximately 100-150 ft. in the air and the nose of the aircraft turned to the right slightly as Jamie's left hand grabbed the cyclic and then the nose immediately dropped violently down and to the right. We impacted the ground a heartbeat later at what I would estimate to be a 40+ degree nose down attitude. At the point of impact I could not see the horizon, i.e. it was not within my field of vision so my estimate of the angle could be off. I believe the F.A.A. examiner at the scene estimated a nose down attitude of 13 degrees and Ernie Boyette, who has seen many gyroplane accidents estimated the angle of impact to be 70 to 90 plus degrees. At the point of impact my face slammed into the ground just to the left of the instrument pod and I was thrown from the aircraft. I landed on my back about 20 ft. from the wreckage still conscious. I could hear Jamie breathing very loudly so I knew he was still alive. I did a quick analysis of my injuries and knew I was in pretty bad shape, my lungs were injured and I was having trouble breathing. I knew we were down in the soybeans and would be hard to find so I took my helmet off with my right hand and started waving it back and forth hoping someone in the air would see it. After 7-8 minutes I heard an aircraft circling lower and lower and I knew we had been found. I relaxed and put my arm down and waited another 3-5 minutes until help started to arrive. When help arrived I heard someone talking to Jamie saying " don't fight us, don't try to get up, we’re here to help". They continued to work with Jamie for a few minutes while I was left alone. My first thought was that Jamie must be in worse shape than I was in, and then I realized that they probably did not know that I was there with him. I then picked my helmet up again and stuck it back up in the air and tried to call for help, but what came out was just above a whisper. Someone saw the helmet and said, " Oh my God there’s another one over there".

 

Injuries sustained in the accident:

Jamie Bodie:

Broke both bones in his left forearm a few inches below his elbow.

He sustained an open book fracture of his pelvis, which required use of an external fixator ring for 6 weeks.

He dislocated his right kneecap, which required donor tendons to replace.

He had compression fractures to 2-4(?) of his lower vertebra, and he had a large gouge in his left buttocks.

 

Silas Smith:

Broke two bones in his left hand and dislocated the lunate

bone in his left wrist which resulted in extensive tendon damage to his left hand/wrist. (He is left-handed)

He suffered an external fracture of his right femur and resultant tissue loss.

He suffered an external fracture of his left ankle.

He fractured his pelvis in four places, with an external fracture to the ischial.

He had compression fractures to 3 of his lower vertebra.

 

 7/12/01

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