"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...

much snipped

The one "passenger-induced emergency" in my airplane I'm aware of is that
the front seat passenger can actually push on the yoke lever with their
feet. Oddly enough, the one passenger to show this to me
(unintentionally,
of course) was the same one that a few years earlier kept messing with my
elevator trim on a nighttime flight, by repeatedly alternating the
position
of his seat back (it was a clear night, he was in the back seat in a
182RG,
and he kept lowering the seat back so that he could look at the stars, and
then raising it again to look out the side and front).

Pete

Hijacking the thread here, but...

We had a fatal accident in an Ercoupe in the local area last year that
possibly/probably involved accidental control manipulation by the passenger.
Apparently, the aircraft ran out of fuel and the pilot had lined up for a
landing in a field. Most likely survivable, possibly even a field he could
have flown out of after adding fuel. However, the airplane went in almost
vertical at the "approach end" of the field. Speculation is/was that the
passenger used his feet to brace himself for the off-field landing and
unknowingly used the elevator control linkages in the footwell as a place to
brace. The harder he braced, the more the airplane pitched nose down...
Right into the ground. Two fatalities in an accident that shouldn't have
even resulted in injuries.

KB