France’s BEA aircraft accident investigation agency has few clues as to what caused the fatal loss-of-control accident involving a Daher TBM 700 east of Paris on Aug. 6, 2014, because the turboprop single was not equipped with a flight data recorder (FDR). Officials have recommended that the requirement for an FDR be extended to high-performance aircraft, even if they weigh less than the mtow threshold of 5,700 kg (12,566 pounds). The crash killed two people—the pilot and one passenger—and seriously injured three passengers.
According to the report, published on December 2, the pilot took off from Cannes-Mandelieu Airport in the south of France at around 10:40 a.m. to fly to Courtrai, Belgium. The TBM cruised at 24,000 feet in a thick cloud layer.
After flying for an hour and 40 minutes, the aircraft descended suddenly with a sharp turn to the right. Speed increased rapidly and the VMO (max speed) alarm sounded. Some 45 seconds after the start of the descent, the aircraft started climbing again and the pilot made two radio transmissions, each of which contained the phrase “we have a problem.” Soon after, the aircraft went into a spin and came out of the clouds at between 2,000 and 1,000 feet in a flat spin, at which point there was insufficient altitude for the pilot to recover control.
The investigation, in which the NTSB participated because the TBM was U.S.-registered, was not able to determine why the aircraft suddenly descended to the right. Investigators were not able to determine conclusively why the aircraft suddenly descended to the right, but they suggested that the aircraft entered a spin while the pilot was struggling to regain control. The pilot had earned a private pilot certificate in Belgium in 1988 before converting it to a U.S. certificate in 1993 and subsequently qualifying for an IFR rating in 1995. However, the pilot's U.S. certificate was not current at the time of the accident.