Something Happened: Wind Shear Takes Down a Grumman Trainer

Remember that an airplane does not instantly recover airspeed that's lost in a wind shear.

Peter Garrison

Thursday, February 22, 2024 at 12:45 PM ET

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Always favor airspeed over climb rate and, if the nose and airspeed drop at once, push, don’t pull. [Adobe Stock]

Key Takeaways:

A pilot was killed when his Grumman AA-1B Trainer crashed shortly after takeoff in severe, gusty wind conditions with an AIRMET in effect for turbulence and potential low-level wind shear.
The article suggests the NTSB's stated probable cause was insufficient, positing that the accident was likely due to the aircraft encountering significant wind shear, leading to a sudden airspeed loss and an unrecoverable stall or spin.
Contributing factors included the extreme wind conditions, the aircraft's light weight, and the pilot's relatively low hours in that specific aircraft type.
The incident serves as a cautionary tale, advising pilots to add extra airspeed ("grandma's knots") in gusty conditions, prioritize airspeed over climb rate, and consider staying on the ground when wind shear risks are high.

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On a cloudless April afternoon a Grumman AA-1B Trainer lined up on Runway 16 at Dodge Center, Minnesota (KTOB), for takeoff. The wind, 27 knots gusting to 34, was coming from the right, 50 degrees off the little airplane’s nose. Three people had seen the pilot board the airplane and taxi out. One of them watched as it took off.

When the airplane was, he thought, 500 feet above the ground and three-quarters of the way down the 4,500-foot runway, he returned to his work. A few minutes later, one of the others, who had not watched the takeoff but perhaps heard an impact, alerted him to what turned out to be the wreckage of the Trainer in a farm field not far from the end of the runway.