Trevor Davis, a 64-year-old amateur stunt pilot, has filed a £2 million lawsuit against the Light Aircraft Association (LAA) following a crash at Popham airfield in Hampshire in March 2022. Davis suffered a fractured skull and multiple injuries when his Pitts Special biplane nose-dived onto the runway. He attributes the accident to a mechanical failure involving a loose or missing nut critical to the aircraft’s control system.

According to court documents submitted to London’s High Court, Davis’s plane had undergone a significant rebuild and modification shortly before the incident. The lawsuit alleges that during the process, a nut associated with the tail elevator—responsible for controlling the aircraft’s pitch movement—was either missing or not properly secured. The aircraft was inspected and certified as airworthy by an LAA inspector prior to flight.

Davis maintains that roughly 15 minutes into his flight, he lost effective control of the elevator via the joystick, causing the plane to become uncontrollable. He asserts this loss of control resulted from the elevator rod becoming detached due to the faulty or absent nut. Davis purchased the 1966-manufactured Pitts Special in 2011 and engaged an engineer to rebuild and modify the aircraft in 2018.

The LAA has rejected claims of mechanical negligence. Their legal representatives argue that the team responsible for rebuilding and inspecting the aircraft would have identified any missing or defective components, including the nut and split pin, during their checks. Instead, they suggest Davis’s own piloting contributed to the crash.

The case remains unresolved and is expected to return to the High Court unless a settlement is reached. The lawsuit highlights ongoing debates about responsibility and safety oversight in amateur aircraft maintenance and inspection.