In 2006, I was living and working in the Melbourne, Fla., area. On March 23, there was a crash at the Melbourne Orlando International Airport: A Cessna 340A was on final and was asked to slow, and it did. Too much. The result was a stall/crash as described in Tom Turner’s article, “Stalls In The Pattern” (August 2022). After a few days waiting for the formal, onsite investigation to finish, I went to the crash location to take a look for myself.
The aircraft came down near the edge of a grove of trees that all appeared to be 25-to-30 feet tall, and I was absolutely amazed at how vertical the aircraft’s descent appeared to be. I saw zero indication of any forward (toward the runway) velocity. That really impressed on me that airspeed was critical while in the pattern.
