This July 2008 accident report is provided by the National Transportation Safety Board. Published as an educational tool, it is intended to help pilots learn from the misfortunes of others.
Aircraft: Piper Cherokee. Injuries: 2 Fatal, 1 Serious. Location: Middletown, R.I. Aircraft damage: Substantial.
What reportedly happened: A CFI, a student pilot and the student pilot’s wife were in the airplane. The student was practicing touch and go landings on the 2,999-foot runway. During the approach prior to the accident, the airplane was high. It touched down long, then lifted off again. During the next approach, the airplane touched down about 2,000 feet from the runway threshold and lifted off again. According to witnesses the wings were rocking during the climb-out. The airplane turned left, never rising above the trees. It crashed in the trees.
Probable cause: The flight instructor’s failure to initiate a go-around during a high approach, and his inadequate remedial action during an attempted touch-and-go.
For more information: NTSB.gov
Another outstanding example of Mother Nature’s use of “Natural Selection” at work.
This is one Flight Instructor who will never again pass along his bad habits, poor judgement and flight instruction techniques to students that will then be “placed at risk”! Any flight instructor, whose techniques and methods allow a student to consistently attempt to land two thirds of the way down the runway, is teaching very bad habits and dangerous practices! Any Flight Instructor who cannot see the problem coming, as soon as “Base Leg”, needs to have his certificate revoked! It is understandable to permit it once, to demonstrate to the student the “eventual dangerous outcome”, it’s another to allow him to repeat his former mistake, time and again! This “type” of Flight Instructor is responsible for most all (90%) of aviation accidents, sooner or later. It’s a matter of “odds” before the “snow-ball” gets big enough to “do in” the unsuspecting student/new pilot, should he/she progress that far.
I must admit to being “hard and fast” on procedures and rules in the cockpit. As a former military I.P., I drilled speed, altitude, position and attitude, particularly in the traffic pattern, into my students, unswervingly, because the “final outcome” is predicated upon these factors. Anything less and you become a statistic, as in the article above!