Pilots Must Be Prepared for ‘Unacceptable Stall Behavior’

Routine post-maintenance check flight turns catastrophic.

Peter Garrison

Tuesday, July 21, 2026 at 08:00 AM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Travis Tingle

Even a slight alteration in the position of a stall strip can change the stalling behavior of an airplane. [Credit: Adobe Stock]

Key Takeaways:

An experienced flight crew fatally crashed a business jet during a post-maintenance stall check by performing the test in probable icing conditions and at an altitude outside the aircraft's operating handbook parameters.
The unexpected, asymmetric stall led to a flat spin, during which the pilot-in-command instinctively held the control column back, a known "startle-driven" reaction overriding training to push the nose down.
The NTSB cited the crew's disregard for safety protocols and the manufacturer's inadequate training and experience requirements for pilots performing these critical stall tests as principal causes of the accident.

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It is a truth universally acknowledged that when an airplane stalls, the pilot must push its nose down. And yet it sometimes happens that even quite experienced pilots do the opposite. That was the case in February 2024, when two airline transport pilots, who had a combined total of more than 23,000 hours in their logbooks, conducted a post-maintenance stall check on a Hawker Beechcraft 900XP.

The stall check is required after the leading edges of the wings have been removed for a routine, every-four-years inspection. The purpose is to confirm that some subtle, perhaps invisible distortion of leading-edge contour or change in the position of a stall strip has not changed the stalling behavior of the airplane.