CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 1 | Issue 3 - 6

A little learning
BY DAVID JACK KENNY
Roughly one-third of the way back, over Alamo Lake, the Diamond abruptly reversed course, descending from 7,400 to 6,700 feet msl. It then turned north and climbed back to 7,300 feet. A few seconds before 3:20 p.m., radar returns showed it dropping 1,300 feet in 12 seconds before contact was lost. Two friends fishing on the lake saw the airplane drop from a clear blue sky and disappear behind a hill. Both told investigators that … THE PILOT HAD GRADES FOR SPIN it was “spinning;” AWARENESS, ALL SATISFACTORY, ON neither recalled ABOUT TWICE AS MANY LESSONS AS THE hearing any engine CURRICULUM REQUIRED, WITH NO noise. After dockEXPLANATION OF THE EXTRA SESSIONS. ing their boat, they found the wreckage lished curriculum, you’re left to rely on within 15 minutes. Fuel was gushing out your assessment of the student’s character of the ruptured tank. The pilot no longer in deciding whether it’s really a good idea. had a pulse. Shortly before noon on December 20, The accident site was just 300 feet 2008, a Diamond DA-20 took off from Falcon from the last point of radar contact at an Field in Mesa, Arizona. The 18-year-old pilot elevation of 1,100 feet msl. There were was a student in the combined instrument, no gear scars on the ground behind the commercial, and multiengine program ofwreckage, and brush just in front of the fered by the Sabena Airline Training Center, nose showed no sign of impact, suggesta large Part 141 school based at Falcon Field. ing that the airplane had hit nose-low He’d passed his private pilot checkride 25 in a near-vertical descent. There was no days earlier, and all of his 94 hours of flight evidence of any pre-impact failure of the experience had been logged in the preceding airframe or flight controls, and the engine three months. The flight was a VFR crosswas test-run successfully during the incountry to Lake Havasu City and back for vestigation. The radio was tuned to 121.5. the purpose of building solo cross-country The condition of the wreckage was experience; the school’s syllabus specified consistent with the pilot’s failure to that no airwork was to be performed. During recover from a spin, and the NTSB his weather briefing, the pilot filed a roundconcluded that this was what caused the robin VFR flight plan, giving his planned accident. But how could a flight squarely cruising altitude as 6,500 feet msl. in the middle of the envelope, cruising The combination of radar track data straight and level from point A to point B, and information recovered from the develop into an unrecoverable spin? aircraft’s on-board GPS indicate the The pilot’s training records provide one Diamond flew almost half the outbound clue. Like any Part 141 school, Sabena inleg above 10,000 msl, climbing as high as cludes spin awareness training in its private 14,000 msl. It stayed above 12,000 for 29 pilot curriculum. Although the DA-20 is minutes. After landing at Lake Havasu certified for intentional spins, actual spin City, the pilot had the tank topped, then entry is neither prohibited nor required. left for home about 2:45 p.m. Investigators found the pilot had grades for 6 | www.airsafetyinstitute.org
MEMORIZING PROCEDURES without a firm grasp of the underlying principles can give a student just enough information to get into trouble without the skills to get out again. And as a flight instructor, you’re in the unenviable position of having to determine which student will use your lessons constructively and which might be tempted to freelance. Particularly when someone wants to go beyond the estab-

Safety spotlight

spin awareness, all satisfactory, on about twice as many lessons as the curriculum required, with no explanation of the extra sessions. His CFI told investigators that they’d practiced fully developed spins; contrary to the airplane’s flight manual, he taught spin entries with the throttle wide open rather than at idle. During training, the accident pilot was able to enter and recover from a one-turn spin, with no control inputs by the instructor. He did not say whether he’d provided verbal coaching. The Safety Procedures and Practices section of the school’s training manual includes the rule that “Spins will only be practiced when an instructor is on board.” However, the climb to 14,000 feet on the outbound leg is one indication that the pilot wasn’t feeling overly constrained by school policy that day. Flying solo over open country less than three months after his first lesson, who could blame him if he felt a rush of euphoria over his newfound prowess and the speed with which he’d learned? If pitching up to do an impromptu spin seemed like a great way to celebrate, well, he wouldn’t be the first 18-year-old to succumb to a passing impulse. But once the spin developed, things probably happened fast. A 6,000fpm descent could startle a more experienced pilot. If the details of the recovery procedure got a little confused and the airplane didn’t resume flying right away, he’d have had about one minute before it hit the ground—just enough time, perhaps, to tune the emergency frequency for a panicked “Mayday” call. This was the second time in the past two years that a teenage pilot fresh from his checkride deliberately put an airplane into a spin, and then couldn’t recover. It’s just as fair to say these two got too much extra training as too little. David Jack Kenny is manager of aviation safety analysis for the Air Safety Institute, an instrument-rated commercial pilot, and

http://www.airsafetyinstitute.org

CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 1 | Issue 3

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 1 | Issue 3