CL-44 Flight Test Damage

CL-44 Flight Test Incident Photos

The following is a list of the damage and the corresponding photos which occurred during an acceptance flight test intended to perform an airframe stress test. The FAA test pilot, James Bugbee, copilot Jim Seymour and flight engineer Jeff Seideman experienced violent shaking which was tail flutter. The right hand dump shoot door had separated from the aircraft and impaled itself in the right hand horizontal stabilizer. I don’t know which occurred first but it was apparent that something had gone horribly wrong. The reported speed when the shaking began was 376 MPH which was confirmed with the onboard data recorder. They proceeded to Edwards AFB that had the facilities for a hopeful safe landing. The damage was assessed and major repairs were made to make the aircraft airworthy again.