Houston crash today

Kevin, your original comment referred to "a disturbing pattern
is beginning to form with the JS1c" which is the 21/18 version.
The accident that you now refer which was caused by a
severed rudder cable to was to the 18m-only JS1B.

I think that the original JS1 rudder pedal S tube design was
very poor indeed but you now report that you "can find no
recommended action on the manufacturers website". If you
had followed the link at the bottom of the report you referenced
to the fuller accident report you would find information at the
end about the TN modifications that were made to all JS1
rudder pedals.

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief2.aspx?
ev_id=20120501X72635&ntsbno=CEN12LA265&akey=1

The relevant service bulletins and TNs regarding the rudder
pedal modifications are also in the technical support section of
the JS website but you presumably are not registered for access
to that.

All JS1s now flying will have been delivered (including all JS1-
Cs) or modified to the new rudder cable/S-tube design which I
can assure you I check routinely before flight on my glider and
can find no evidence of any cable damage at all. I can also say
for certain that the Blomfontein accident was not caused by a
severed rudder cable because Uys Jonker spoke to the
remaining pilots there (including myself) about his findings
immediately after he had inspected the wreckage the following
day.

As to whether the 2 fatal accidents this year involving the JS1-C
variant are connected in any other sort of pattern, you simply
cannot infer that yet. I would be more interested than most to
find out.

John Galloway



At 10:26 15 July 2014, Kevin Christner wrote:
Given the current unknowns about the two JS1c fatalities its
a bit of a
stretch to say that.

Beyond that rudder pedals slicing through cables

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?
ev_id=20120501X72635&key=1

I can find no recommended action on the manufacturers
website.