"Morgans" wrote in message
...

wrote

I vaguely remember reading in the FAA/NTSB archive about such an
incident. It was a while ago, so I may be a bit off. What I remember
was that the pilot was killed on impact and apparently he was aware of
some minor seperation and continued to fly the aircraft until it failed
catastrophically. Might have been another bird, but I think it was a
celebrity. I'm not 100% sure though. You might try searching the
accident database for the celebrity if you haven't already.

I am not an authority on the facts, so I didn't bring up the name of the
incident that I was thinking of, but since nobody else with all of the
facts
has, I will.

Steve Whitman(sp?), namesake of the OSH airport, racer, and designer of
the
Tailwind (among others) was killed in such an unbonding incident. I don't
recall the details, but I recall that he did something wrong, or against
other's recommendations.

That is my recollection as well. IIRC, he mixed and matched covering
processes and product "A" didn't get a good bond to product "B". Eventually
the bond failed, leading to flutter and a structural failure.

The planes he designed were much higher performance crafts than what the
OP
was asking about. I'm sure he can google the details.
--
Jim in NC

KB