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 fatal 2018 Piper Arrow crash was caused by extensive fatigue cracking in the left-wing main spar, leading to in-flight wing separation.
- The cracking developed prematurely due to the severe and frequent stress experienced in flight training operations, including maneuvers, low-altitude flights, and numerous landing cycles, which exceeded loads anticipated by existing inspection criteria.
- These critical fatigue cracks were undetectable by visual inspection, requiring specialized nondestructive testing methods.
- Although the NTSB urged the FAA to mandate inspections for aircraft used in flight training, an Airworthiness Directive specifically covering the accident aircraft type in this operational environment had not been published by the report date.
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