During a cross country flight, the pilot of the experimental amateur-built Mustang II encountered thunderstorms along his route. This added an additional 45 minutes of unanticipated flight time.
He was concerned that night conditions were present, his airplane was not equipped with a landing light, and his destination airport was not lighted. As a result, he decided to divert to an airport in Palatka, Florida, that was equipped with lighting and had a longer paved runway.
During his first attempt to land at the diversion airport, he was too fast on final approach and elected to go-around.
During his second attempt to land, he misjudged his rate of descent and landed hard. The airplane then bounced twice. After the second bounce, he attempted to recover and go-around by adding full power and right rudder, but the airplane entered a left roll, struck the ground with its left wingtip, and then cartwheeled, separating the engine before coming to rest inverted.
During his exit from the airplane, the pilot received minor injuries. Examination of the airplane revealed that it was substantially damaged.
Probable cause: The pilot’s failure to maintain airplane control during a balked landing and attempted go-around in dark night conditions and without a landing light, which resulted in collision with terrain.
NTSB Identification: ERA15CA264
This July 2015 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.
The diversion was a good decision. But basic pilot skill or maybe just time in type matter. Too fast is perhaps the most common pilot landing error followed by being too slow. Adding 10 knots for the added control is the wrong thing to do, always. Adding speed when there is ice on the wing or adding a small factor for strong gusts, may be correct. But if a flare takes a float of hundreds or even thousands of feet is proof of way too much speed.
That is an indication of weak skills and low time in type.
In this case it seems the plane stalled and rolled so the wing hit the ground. Another indication of low time in type, an excessive pull up before power had increased the air speed.
Glasd the pilot was not killed. Hope he gets some instruction from a qualified instructor.
My husband ran into serious headwinds in our already-slow C-150D during a solo cross-country while learning to fly in the early ’70s. He landed after dark, never having had instruction in this phase of flight. After touchdown at our home airport, an uncontrolled field, he couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t see to taxi. Turns out, he’d never turned on the landing light! He still laughs at his stupidity…
Did they bring in an expert to examine the plane and determine, after cartwheeling, the engine separating from the plane, and coming to rest upside down, that there was substantial damage? I would have never thought it!!
During my primary training (44 years ago) I was taught landings without a landing light. They burn out at the most inconvenient times, you know. Also, landing on unlit runways was another element that was taught. Are instructors not teaching these aspects of flight safety these days?
NOPE, its dangerous. We don’t do dangerous any more.
Also did spins, too, although it was no longer required. An overweight CFI and I (200#+) in a Cessna 150. Fun!
And general aviation just gets safer all the time as pilots become more and more proficient while taking fewer risks in training and telling the DPE what’s risky and what’s not on a check ride while expecting him to sign off their competency.
See previous thread on this network.
There are many ways to fly unsafely. Lacking the proper equipment is a prime one. A few examples include flying at night without position/landing lights, flying in or near IMC without the required equipment including a radio, flying without ADS-B in/out.
Lights never burn out, radios never fail and ADS-B will save us all. Thanks again for your solid insight Geebiggs I’m sure we’re all thankful for your help since most of us are too dumb to assess risk for ourselves.
The most common way to fly an airplane unsafely or drive a car unsafely is to have you head up your a$$. The equipment is an aid but is not the be all end all. If there’s a short between the headset and the stick/yoke it won’t matter how many bells and whistles the airplane has. It will still likely end up at some point like this one, a pile of junk.