CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 2, Issue 4 - 6

Safety Spotlight

Who's in charge?
By dAVId JACK KENNy
FROM A DISTANCE, flight reviews might look like easy money: an hour of ground, then an hour in the air with someone who already knows how to fly. You’ve always got the option of postponing the flight if the ground lesson sets off alarms. If not, sit back and watch a few takeoffs and landings, some slow flight and a stall or two, maybe some steep turns. Offer up a few pointers to prove you’re paying attention,

declined to speculate on exactly how two such experienced pilots, both very familiar with the airplane, allowed it to get into an unrecoverable attitude. Almost exactly a year earlier in California, a 6,000-hour instructor and a commercial pilot with almost 1,200 hours were killed while conducting a flight review in the latter’s RV-6. The same CFI had conducted the owner’s two previous reviews. Data recovered from a handheld GPS found in the wreckage showed the RV had done a four-turn spiral over the airport; the last data point showed it 549

we can make some guesses aBout why flight reviews can go so Badly off track. their presumed safety may actually increase the risk.
feet agl at a ground speed of 51 knots. Witnesses saw it roll inverted at about 350 agl and nose down into the ground. In Oklahoma, a Cirrus SR22 was destroyed during a flight review in February 2008. Its avionics suite recorded data indicating the airplane’s owner, a 1,300hour private pilot, and his 1,400-hour instructor began a simulated engine-out approach by entering a right downwind. Less than 600 feet agl, the Cirrus banked more than 45 degrees to reverse course to a left downwind for the opposite runway. Banking beyond 50 degrees in the baseto-final turn, it overshot the runway at 223 agl. In response, whoever was flying tightened the turn and pulled back on the stick, stalling the left wing. Hard right rudder and right aileron turned this into a snap roll to the right and the airplane hit the ground inverted. An apparent attempt to salvage a bad approach rather than go around wound up killing them both. If there’s a common theme to fatal accidents during flight reviews, it’s unintended low-altitude stalls, but trouble also comes in other ways. A 7,000-hour instructor and a 1,500-hour commercial

then head back to sign the logbook and collect the check. There’s a good chance you’ll never need to touch the controls. It sounds inviting, but reality is more complex. When things go wrong during flight reviews, they have a way of getting ugly. The resulting accidents are often fatal, even when both the instructor and the pilot under review are more than capable of flying the aircraft themselves. Case in point: In Colorado in August 2010, a 3,400-hour commercial pilot arranged for a flight review in his Cessna 310. The 3,850-hour CFI told a friend that he expected the flight to be quick and routine, “with no issues”—but barely an hour after they took off, the wreckage was found by a neighbor. The Cessna had hit the ground upright, wings level, in an attitude suggesting a flat spin, and there was no evidence of any failure of the airframe, controls, or engines. The gear was down. Both men died in the crash, and there were no other witnesses. The NTSB 6 | www.airsafetyinstitute.org

pilot did one touch-and-go on a high mountain lake in the CFI’s Cessna 150 floatplane, then turned toward terrain that the 150 couldn’t outclimb. Both were fairly big guys, weighing more than 400 pounds combined, and the 150 had been at or a little above its maximum gross weight when it took off 38 minutes earlier. Density altitude at the crash site was almost 7,000 feet. A Mooney entered a spin 2,300 feet above western Pennsylvania, and neither its 1,200-hour owner nor his 10,800-hour CFI was able to recover in time. We can make some guesses about why flight reviews can go so badly off track. Their presumed safety may actually increase the risk. You expect primary students to search out every chance to kill you both. By comparison, watching a certificated pilot demonstrate the competence already established on a checkride might seem like a chance to relax. And just as acting as observer and advisor to a qualified pilot-incommand could ease a CFI’s vigilance—so the pilot flying might feel less responsibility for their safety with an instructor on board to keep them out of trouble, even an instructor with no previous experience in the airplane make and model. If the pilot being reviewed also owns the aircraft, and the instructor is young, inexperienced, or unfamiliar with that model, the usual deference of student to instructor can be reversed without either party noticing. Famous airline accidents have been caused by confusion over who was actually flying. Fatal accidents during flight reviews can result from ambiguity over who’s responsible for the flight.

David Jack Kenny is manager of aviation safety analysis for the Air Safety Institute, an instrument-rated commercial pilot, and owner of a Piper Arrow.


http://www.airsafetyinstitute.org

CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 2, Issue 4

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 2, Issue 4

CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 2, Issue 4
Contents
CFI to CFI: Breaking the cycle—No regrets
ASI online: Fire in the cockpit
Checklist: Language lesson
Safety spotlight: Who's in charge?
Chief's corner: Teaching the teacher
CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 2, Issue 4 - Contents
CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 2, Issue 4 - CFI to CFI: Breaking the cycle—No regrets
CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 2, Issue 4 - ASI online: Fire in the cockpit
CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 2, Issue 4 - 4
CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 2, Issue 4 - Checklist: Language lesson
CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 2, Issue 4 - Safety spotlight: Who's in charge?
CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 2, Issue 4 - Chief's corner: Teaching the teacher
CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 2, Issue 4 - 8
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