The private pilot reported he had recently returned to flying after a lengthy period of inactivity and that this was his first solo flight after completing a comprehensive flight review.
According to the pilot, after completing the traffic pattern, he landed the Cessna 172 at the midpoint of the 2,400′ runway at the airport in Factoryville, Pennsylvania, with 10 knots of excess airspeed and a slight tailwind. Despite maximum braking, the airplane overran the departure end of the runway and hit dense brush, which resulted in substantial damage to the engine firewall.
Probable cause: The pilot’s failure to attain the proper touchdown point, which resulted in a runway overrun.
NTSB Identification: ERA17CA250
This July 2017 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.
Years ago, on my first cross country flight after soloing, I flew from my home base (Ukiah, Calif.) To Willits, Ca., a little farther north. I asked my CFI how the Willits airport was. She only said, ” Stay focused and think about what you’re doing.” After a short flight, I looked at the airport and couldn’t believe my eyes. At the end of the runway (landing end) was a cliff that went down about 400 ft into a canyon. The runway started about 50ft. beyond the cliff! This story brought me back to that moment in 1966. I landed a little too far up the runway, but had plenty of room. I would like to think that tho it was my first cross country, I’d have sense enough to abort if I overshot the runway too far, but my knees were knocking together and I might have done the same thing.
He just had a flight review…didn’t anyone notice his lack of skills/judgement for stabilized landing approaches? Make ya wonder what flight reviews are actually for….
Obviously anxiety lead to poor judgement. A go-around was called for, even on the landing roll. But panic causes errors.
It looks like 4 hours of instructional flight wasn’t enough to unsure stabilized landings. A 4kt tailwind isn’t a big problem, but touching down 1,200 ft past the approach end should have been a go-around, especially on a short runway.!
I see a lot of pilots coming over the numbers at 30-40 ft and land about 1,000 ft down the runway.
I prefer to land 500 ft down, or less for a short field landing and not need brakes to slow and turn off…retract the flaps and full nose up elevator to use aero-braking..
Then there’s those guys flying ‘bomber’ patterns more than 1/2 mile abeam on downwind and turn base 3/4 mile past the approach end, then drag it in on a very long final…. try a power-off 180 and see how far from the runway you’ll crash.?