There’s a reason pilots don’t train for some inflight failures. Sometimes those failures are so rare that the likelihood of a pilot encountering them is not deemed worthy of more than a mention during ground school. Then there are those failures for which no solution exists, as was experienced by a designated pilot examiner and a commercial student in April 2018 near Daytona Beach International Airport when the left wing of the Piper Arrow they were flying separated from the airplane. Following a touch-and-go landing, the Piper was climbing on a westerly heading at about 80 knots when, with less than 1,000 feet of altitude between the airplane and the ground, the structural failure occurred. The DPE and the student were both killed in the accident.
NTSB Issues Final Report on 2018 Daytona Beach Accident
Key Takeaways:
- A 2018 fatal Piper Arrow crash, killing a flight examiner and student, was caused by extensive, non-visually detectable fatigue cracking in the left-wing main spar, leading to its in-flight separation.
- The NTSB concluded that the fatigue was accelerated by the aircraft's intensive flight training usage, including frequent landings and low-altitude maneuvers, which generated stress cycles more severe than anticipated by existing inspection guidelines.
- The NTSB urged the FAA to issue an Airworthiness Directive for Piper PA-28 series aircraft in flight training, emphasizing advanced non-destructive inspections to address this unique stress environment, noting the FAA had not fully implemented this recommendation at the time of the report.
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