Accident Probes

Any pilot who has used a personal airplane for regular transportation has had to negotiate bad weather. By the time you accumulate more than 4500 hours of flight time, it’s likely you have dealt with a cold front or three, plus night IMC and a variety of other challenges. With that kind of flight experience […]

August 1, 2020, Seiling, Okla. Piper PA-28R-201 Arrow III/V At about 0130 Central time, the airplane was substantially damaged during an aborted takeoff attempt. The pilot and three passengers were not injured. The pilot later reported confirming takeoff weight was below the maximum and adequate fuel was aboard. He calculated the airplane required 1700 to […]

I’ve previously referred to scenes from Ernest K. Gann’s book “Fate Is The Hunter” in these pages. The combined autobiography and ground school traces his flying career from DC-2s over the eastern U.S., C-47s and C-87s over the North Atlantic during WWII, and DC-4s on the Honolulu/San Francisco run after the war. One of the […]

July 1, 2020, Brainerd, Minn. Piper PA-18A-150 Super Cub The pilot was receiving flight instruction in his newly purchased airplane to satisfy insurance requirements. During the flight, the two decided they would land in a hay field behind the instructor’s house, touching down beyond a ditch. After touchdown, the pilot “noticed trees at the end […]

These pages regularly urge new private pilots to go on to earn their instrument rating. Especially if you ever want to use a personal airplane for regular, reliable transportation, the rating is pretty much mandatory. If you’re content to only fly on good-weather days in search of expensive hamburgers and to abandon the peace-of-mind the […]

Poor weather has always topped my list of potential aviation hazards. But after earning the instrument rating, I was much more willing to go out and tackle low ceilings and visibility, which inevitably led to poking around thunderstorms and frontal activity. I quickly learned there were no iron-clad rules or procedures for safely penetrating them […]

June 1, 2020, Gulf Of Mexico Jabiru J250-SP LSA The private pilot departed with slightly less than 36 gallons of fuel aboard for the 262-nm flight, portions of which were over water. About 1.5 hours into the flight, he noticed that the fuel tank quantities were dropping rapidly. The engine subsequently lost all power, and […]

May 2, 2020, Palmyra, Ill. Yakovlev Yak-52 At about 1600 Central time, the airplane was destroyed when it struck terrain during an impromptu aerobatic maneuver. The solo pilot was fatally injured. Visual conditions prevailed. A pilot-rated witness observed the airplane make a low pass down the runway toward the south at 20-30 feet agl. He […]

The thing about airborne emergencies is that there are not that many scenarios in which using the radio will help. Sure, getting lost or trying to find better weather come to mind, but most emergencies depend on the pilot or crew to resolve them without external help. Failure of a single-engine airplane’s powerplant is an […]

It’s always been curious to me how the lion’s share of GA training emphasizes landings over takeoffs. Smoothly returning to Earth certainly requires some skill and practice, and often serves as a common yardstick for non-pilots of how good the pilot is. But takeoffs also require skill and practice, and come with some different challenges. […]