Type of plane in fatal crash has accident record

The type of light aircraft that crashed in western Sydney last week, killing its Indian student pilot, has been involved in a spate of accidents in its short life.
There have been at least eight incidents involving the more than 100 craft that have been flown. There are 17 in Australia.
A US flying school, Ormond Beach Aviation, grounded its remaining fleet of 11 Liberty XL2s in January after two were destroyed in crashes, one crash leaving the student pilot with burns to 60 per cent of his body.
The Florida school, which had ordered 35 XL2s, has had two other documented crashes with the two-seat single-engine aircraft, prompting the US Government’s civil aviation regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration, to investigate the aircraft it certified for production in 2006.
In July 2006 one of Ormond’s XL2s crashed after the student pilot tried to abort the landing. The crash investigator, the National Transportation Safety Board, blamed the pilot’s improper recovery from a bounced landing – the same finding as in two other accidents.
Contributors to aviation chat sites suggest the pitch control – which adjusts the aircraft attitude and its climb and descent – of Liberty Aerospace’s only craft is quite sensitive and not ideal for student pilots.
Last week 20-year-old Sydney Flight Training Centre student Rahul Sharma died when the XL2 he was flying crashed in a paddock in Luddenham near Wallacia in western Sydney. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is expected to release a preliminary report this month.
The manufacturer’s legal council, Margaret Napolitan, and a representative from the engine maker, Teledyne Continental, visited Sydney this week as advisers to the American safety board, which did not send a representative.
Barry Diamond, the chief executive of the Sydney Flight Training Centre, owns 12 of the 17 Liberty craft in the country, said he had no problems with the aircraft.
04/10/08 Alex Tibbitts/Sydney Morning Herald, Australia