# Sean tucker Crashed his Oracle!!



## bsracing8 (Dec 14, 2004)

*Sean tuckers oracle is gone!*








*sean-tucker-cr*



Just a few days after his riveting performance at the Riverside, Calif. airshow, legendary airshow performer Sean D. Tucker's beloved Pitts Special he calls the Oracle Challenger could no longer stand the strain that Tucker puts on it. 

While practicing in Louisiana, where he had put down because of bad weather on his trip to Sun 'n Fun in Florida, something snapped shortly after takeoff. Tucker discovered he had no control over his horizontal stabilizers (elevators). 

Tucker, who runs his own school of unlimited aerobatics inKing City, Calif. and is a much honored and beloved competitor, let the 380+ hp highly-modified, 1,200 lb. airplane continue its climb while he communicated his problem to his ground crew. Onboard, he had about 25 minutes of fuel. 

As he told a crowd of reporters at a news conference at Sun 'n Fun, the Challenger was the "most magical piece of equipment that I've ever gotten to fly in my life; I didn't want to give her up." As any pilot would, he tried to figure a way to save the airplane even though a decision had to be made quickly. 

His first concern was getting the airplane down and if that wasn't possible, making sure that when it hit the ground no one would be injured. 

He said he was at just 100 feet off the ground when he knew he had a major problem. Taking off for the practice session around 10:30 a.m., he pulled back on the stick and felt something snap. At first he said he thought the stick had just broken off. 

He said he was able to regain marginal control with trim, but "the trim just wouldn't keep up with it." 

The airplane continued to climb inartfully to 9,500 feet while Tucker continued troubleshooting with his team on the ground and weighing his options. Eventually, it was obvious that he wasn't going to be able to solve the problem from inside the cockpit. 

"This took a long time, about 25 minutes, burning off fuel," he said. "That's a long time to be thinking about an emergency situation, a little too long. 

"It was very poignant, it really affected me spiritually," the handsome airshow pilot, one of the few to be totally sponsored and salaried by a large corporation, told the reporters. 

He radioed the ground crew to find him someplace where he could abandon the airplane without hurting anyone. 

"The last thing you want to do is save your life and kill somebody in the process," he said. His ground crew directed him toward a soft plowed field nearby and alerted local emergency personnel, who shut down a nearby freeway. 

Tucker said he flew as high as 9,500 feet while trying to regain control, looking for options. 

"I was up and down and up and down and up and down," he said. 

Flying with just enough fuel for an air show, it wasn't long before he was down to his last gallon of gas. He pulled the power back and descended to about 8,000 feet. 

When it came time to get out, he turned off the mags, grabbed the red handles to set the canopy free and ducked but the canopy didn't budge. He gave it a quick punch and it returned the favor, he said, giving him a bump that dented his helmet. 

He got his lap belts off and tried to push himself free but a shoulder harness strap didn't seem to want him to go and the drag from it twisted Tucker's body as he left the cockpit. He found himself momentarily joined up with the tail section. 

"There are some flying wires under the tail, and I got stuck there," he said. Finally, he reached out and pushed at it, then watched the biplane fall away. After stabilizing himself in freefall, thinking, "This is it!" Tucker said with a smile. He pulled the ripchord and the parachute billowed out behind him. 

"I didn't see the crash" of the plane, he said, which came down in a farmer's plowed cotton field in Red River Parish, La. owned by a local man named Michael Simpson, said Red River Sheriff Johnny Ray Norman. 

Somewhat constrained in the canopy harness, Tucker managed to steer down to a safe landing near the emergency workers. Tucker was quite calm when he touched ground, the sheriff said. 

"He was a lot better than I would've been," the sheriff added. "He didn't have scratch on him." It wasn't his first parachute jump; Tucker bailed out of a Pitts once before several years ago, after an in-flight emergency. 

Tucker said he believes a rod end bearing connecting a modified torque tube linkage on the aircraft's new tail failed. 

In Louisiana, Tucker later visited the crash site, miles from where he landed, and collected a few souvenirs before his crew began cleaning the area of debris. 

Sheriff Norman contacted the FAA about the crash but was told no investigation would take place. 

"They said since no one was injured and there was no damage other than to the plane there was no need to," Norman said. 

Tucker brought to Lakeland a few of the parts he found, such as the shattered ends of the prop and a ragged foot-square piece of all that was left of his colorful Pitts. 

He told the crowd that he would be demonstrating unusual recovery techniques in a Columbia 400, now that he is contracted by the company to demonstrate the new airplane. He also said he had a back-up airshow Pitts and will start practicing in it and will be ready to rejoin the airshow schedule in about two months. 

The delay, he said, will be necessary to rebuild his G-tolerance after being away from his usual mount. And he plans to work with his team to build a new "magical dream machine" that will be even better than the one he lost. 

"We're okay and we're going to keep moving on," he added. 

And once again the tightly-knit airshow community breathed a sigh of relief that not only had one of its own had survived, but in this case, one of the most talented, beloved, friendly and outgoing of them all. 

Married 27 years to his wife, Colleen, they have two children - Eric, a 23 year-old senior at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (also also an aerobatic pilot) and Tara, a 20-year-old student at San Diego State University. 

At Riverside where his gregarious crew invited me to join the "pole holders" for the three-ribbon cut maneuver, I managed to just say goodbye and thanks before he roared off for Florida. Tucker stopped, looked at me and smiled, saying: "You're the best, Wayman, the absolute best." 

I have to admit my heart skipped a beat when I arrived at the office Wednesday morning and the first story on my internet file was, "famed stunt pilot crashes on way to Florida." Objectivity goes out the window in cases like this and I held my breath until I opened the story and found that Sean had survived. 

Brandon Snyder


----------



## d4man (May 3, 2005)

Oh thank god, I kept reading this story, waiting for the *bad news*, glad to hear he survived.....


----------



## bsracing8 (Dec 14, 2004)

Yah thank god he is awesom But i can say i held the pole for the ribon cut and i have a pin from sean!! Sean is the best aerobatic pilot ever!! he pushes it to the limit of himself and the plane!


Brandon


----------



## bsracing8 (Dec 14, 2004)

T T T


----------

