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Loss of a friend

togaflyer

Well Known Member
It is with great sorrow I am passing this information on to the Van's forum family. Today my friend, Bruce Stamper, crashed his RV 10 in Wyoming. He did not survive the crash. I will not go into the circumstances of the accident. I will say that over the past few years Bruce and I formed a strong friendship and he was my constant mentor and encourager with my build. He was an outstanding person with a heart of gold. He will be dearly missed and has created a void in our lives. Please keep your thoughts and prayers in your hearts for Bruce's wife and four children.
 
Just numb. Did not know him but certainly followed his build.

Condolences to his friends and most importantly his wife and four kids. Let us know if there is any type of fund set up for them.

Blue Skies Bruce.

E
 
This is horrible. We enjoyed meeting him at the fly ins and discussing his build. We were also looking forward to spending time with him on our trip to Alaska this coming summer.

Vic
 
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This is terrible news! I just talked to him on Thursday and missed a call from him on Friday. I believe he was having fluctuations of his MAP and Fuel Pressure gauges.

Love and prayers for the family!
 
I am sorry!!! Bruce was great man...he had a great amount of passion for the RV10 he built. Our condolences!
 
Stunned--

Saw this this morning on VAF----Bruce was a client several years ago. NOT the news I wanted to hear. Condolences to the family and friends-
Tom and Suzanne
 
Bruce Stamper

An outstanding craftsman, a family man and overall super pleasant guy. I will miss you buddy. I had a great time in Alaska staying with Bruce family for couple days when weather raged.

We drove to Cordova harbor to look if his boat was all right.

Bruce%20Stamper%20-%201.jpg


We entertained ourselves dancing competing with the kids.


Bruce%20Stamper%20-%201%201.jpg



b34.jpg



We toured a seafood processing plant and visited an airboat project.

b22.jpg


In three days weather subsided and Bruce brought me avgas from his stash. Couple months ago he was waiting for me. We planned to go fishing. I couldn't make it that day I now regret.


b1.jpg



Good hardworking guy is assigned to sky squadron. I will meet you there Bruce.
 
Lesson for the rest of us

I walked around the reckage yesterday before it fully cooled.

We all need to think heavily about what is and is not an acceptable loss when thinks don't go as planed.

Please do this, please take some time to reflect.

Noel
 
Bruce was hands down my favorite client/flying friend of all time! I cannot put into words what I am feeling right now. May God be with your family forever! I love you, buddy! Rest In Peace

Zac
 
I walked around the reckage yesterday before it fully cooled.

We all need to think heavily about what is and is not an acceptable loss when thinks don't go as planed.

Please do this, please take some time to reflect.

Noel

Noel, not certain what you are trying to tell any of us here.

Vic
 
Any new news on this crash? I have done searches, but nothing new comes up. Bruce was known by many of us that would like to know more. Not speculation, just what happened. This is a very sad time. I am so sorry for his wife and kids.
 
This is awful...I was talking to him last week. I texted him Saturday afternoon without a reply. He was such a nice guy, always inviting me and anyone else who wanted to come over for salmon BBQs. I feel horrible for not having time to go out there last week.
 
I walked around the reckage yesterday before it fully cooled.

We all need to think heavily about what is and is not an acceptable loss when thinks don't go as planed.

Please do this, please take some time to reflect.

Noel

Are you implying that he crashed trying to save the airplane?
 
Accident

aviation-safety.net has some basic information, nothing official. Skyvector.com, airport identifier KDUB will provide airport info and satellite view.
 
Funeral services/ possible fly over.

I met Bruce this last spring during his salmon BBQ, though I only spent that little bit of time with him, i looked forward to getting to know him and his family better. This sad news hit me suprisingly hard.

I talked to friends of the family tonight and was told the funeral will be Friday a at 2:00 pm in Duboise WY. She also told me that Bruce's Wife Crystal would very much like a fly over of some kind at the grave side.

I hoped to go, but I have a family wedding to attend that day. I haven't been a member of this community long, and don't know if you get together to do this kind of thing, but I thought I would put it out there.
 
Very sad, but thanks for the update. There is a fine line between human morbid curiosity and the vital need for information to learn from and help make our avocation better and safer.

Does anyone know if either the Van's or Sean's door applications were installed or not? The time has come IMHO, for Van's to make Sean's package standard issue in their kits. I was chatting with a 10 owner at a gathering recently who had neither. He said that the Van's catch was ugly and a "hickie" on the airplane and feared that Sean's would be too complicated to retrofit (I agreed on the former and disagreed on the latter).

Prayers and best wishes to his friends and family.
 
Very Sad

It is heartbreaking to lose a fellow -10er, I always feel sadness when a friend perishes flying, and regretfully being prior military I have experienced this.
I always want to review these accidents and determine what I can do to avoid being in such a situation. With the door not closing correctly situation I have a sensor on the rear of the door that tells me if the door isnt fully closed, we all should, it triggers "opened" occasionally and the way the door was built the rear closes before the front does. Regardless if there is the Sean addition or not, the sensor check and pushing door every time before flight is a must.
Certainly not stating this could be avoided, but simply how sad it is and that we need to consider our options to make every effort to avoid losing another one of us.
God Speed Bruce!
 
Very sad, but thanks for the update. There is a fine line between human morbid curiosity and the vital need for information to learn from and help make our avocation better and safer.

Does anyone know if either the Van's or Sean's door applications were installed or not? The time has come IMHO, for Van's to make Sean's package standard issue in their kits. I was chatting with a 10 owner at a gathering recently who had neither. He said that the Van's catch was ugly and a "hickie" on the airplane and feared that Sean's would be too complicated to retrofit (I agreed on the former and disagreed on the latter).

Prayers and best wishes to his friends and family.

Because of the standard practice NDA with the NTSB that is likely in place, I can not comment on what is currently known at this point.

In an effort to prevent this memorial thread from going in a direction it should not, you will have to just accept the simple suggestion that at this time it would be wrong to pointing a finger at what latch system was installed being a specific factor in the accident.
If you just have to know, I am sure many RV-10 builders/owners familiar with the specific airplane can provide that information privately/offline.

My sincerest condolences for family and friends effected by this tragedy.
 
Bruce%20Stamper%20-%201.jpg


We entertained ourselves dancing competing with the kids.


Bruce%20Stamper%20-%201%201.jpg



b34.jpg



We toured a seafood processing plant and visited an airboat project.

b22.jpg
Those pictures say a lot. Thanks for sharing them Vlad.

My sincerest condolences go out to the family and friends.
 
Very sad news to hear. My thoughts are with his family and friends. I had actually just talked to him a few weeks ago about his WW propeller. He was extremely open to helping folks like me and I enjoyed our one conversation, learning quite a bit from him.
 
RV-10 Door

I'm not an RV-10 guy but correct me if I'm wrong. Was the door latch found to be operating correctly according to the investigators or am I reading this wrong.

Very sad news indeed. My condolences to the family.
 
I'm not an RV-10 guy but correct me if I'm wrong. Was the door latch found to be operating correctly according to the investigators or am I reading this wrong.

Very sad news indeed. My condolences to the family.

Here is a copy/paste from the report.

The right-side gull-wing door was located in a ravine about 600 feet northeast of the main wreckage. The door was located about 1,500 feet past the runway 28 departure threshold and 200 feet right of the extended runway centerline. The door had separated from the fuselage hinges. There was no evidence that the door had struck any portion of the airplane after it had separated. The door was equipped with forward and aft door latch pins and a center latch mechanism. The center latch consisted of a rotating semicircular cam that worked in conjunction with the two door latch pins. The door was not equipped with the safety latch mechanism that was provided by the airframe kit manufacturer. Before the door was recovered from the ravine, the door latch handle was observed to be about 20 degrees from a vertical position or about 110 degrees from the fully latched position. The forward and aft door latch pins were found extended about 1/8 inch outside the door. The curved portion of the semicircular center latch was found facing aft. A functional test of the door latch mechanism did not reveal any anomalies. The door latch handle rotated 180-degrees between the open and latched positions. When the handle was in the latched position, the forward and aft door latch pins extended 1-1/4 inches outside the door and the curved portion of the semicircular center latch faced down.
 
I flew over for the memorial today. Over half the town was there. School was closed. They took care of him, it's a tight community.
 
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