Quite a lot has been written (and vlogged) about the crash of a Cessna 140 in a spot landing competition in May 2022. Most accounts point out—correctly—how decisions about spacing and glide path management, and even whether it was wise to hold the “pick-up game” contest in winds that caused cancellation of a larger, planned “STOL Drag” event, may have contributed to this crash. Those lessons are all valid.
But I’d like to look at this tragic accident from the more global perspective of stalls in the airport traffic pattern. First, though, let’s explore what the NTSB’s preliminary report on this accident had to say, highlights of which are in the sidebar below, including images of the accident sequence.
