The private pilot was conducting a night visual flight to the airport in Clear Lake, Minnesota, which had dim runway lighting. During the base turn and final approach, he told investigators his attention was focused inside the Bellanca’s cockpit as he rechecked the landing gear, mixture lever, and propeller lever positions.
He noticed a sink rate had developed as the airplane’s landing lights illuminated a row of 50-75 foot trees on the final approach.
He pulled back aggressively on the yoke to clear the trees. The airplane continued to sink and hit the ground with a high descent rate short of the runway, which damaged the fuselage and firewall.
Following the accident, the pilot reflected that his attention should have been focused more outside the cockpit during the base turn and final approach.
He added on the accident report form that there were no mechanical anomalies with the airplane that would have precluded normal operations.
Probable Cause: The pilot’s focus inside the cockpit during the base turn and final approach, which led to a high sink rate developing and a subsequent hard landing short of the runway.
This November 2019 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.
Pilot notices a high sink rate only after his landing lights illuminated the trees? What exactly was he looking at inside the plane? He never looked at any instruments? Never looked at the altimeter? Rate of climb goes both ways! Why did he develop a high sink rate? Was he fixated inside? He should have been able to see from any number of instruments and visually outside he was sinking. Sounds like a very incompetent pilot flying in conditions way over his head. How many hours night flight did he have? How much training?
I never quite made it to my ticket, but even I know that “yoke back” is slow. Fortunately, when I was in CAP, many excellent pilots and instructors shared best practices on safety – a hallmark of CAP – and the importance of stabilised approaches, eyes outside. Maj. J. Friel, who I got to log 3.1 hours of IFR time with, taught me that if your approach is right, you should almost be able to land the plane with your arms folded. Most of the instructors that I flew with also let me experience what it was like to fly behind the airplane. It was an important lesson that made me realise I wanted to fly “lazy”: Easy, prepared, ready – ahead of the plane. The importance of checklists, done is done. Don’t be jockeying with controls and radios.
But my best early on experience, from STG, was certainly the day I “almost” soloed. The approach was fine, but I didn’t let the 152 land, kept holding it up – why I don’t know. Maybe I was trying to land it like a helo, who knows? He kept yelling, “You’re dangerous! You’re dangerous!” It seemed fine to me, but we only had about four knots of airspeed left.
We parked the airplane and debriefed. He told me he let me continue, one hand at the power (which I couldn’t see) and the other at the yoke. If I had lowered the nose a bit, added a little power, gone around – some decision at all – I’d have been allowed to solo that day at 15 hours. That’s just a number.
He called it the “100 hour mistake” and I realised what a great gift I had been given for my “seat of the pants” flying. Poor Steve probably needed to change his. Needless to say, I never landed like that again.
If your still looking at instruments on final approach, your not a very good pilot. The airplane should be ready to land once you turn away from down wind, maybe add flaps, my instructor always ground into me, that the airplane should be ready to land and configured, you shouldn’t be doing anything but landing the airplane once you have left down wind… This is what happens when your still fumbling making changes on final..
You’re conflating two issues. Configured to land and shared attention (inside and outside the cockpit). If you stop looking inside the cockpit because you are unable to properly share attention through cross check and scan, THEN you are a bad pilot and need a lot more practice before you fly at night and especially in IMC.
“….attention should have been outside instead of triple final checking of GUMP etc…”
Yep-that about covers it. It’s usually that 3rd time, staring inside the cockpit to check something that you could probably do with just your hands…mixture, prop, throttle…all full forward…that bites you.
The glow from the green “gear down & locked” lights are also pretty visible with your peripheral vision, unless one of your iPads is blocking it…
Oh well, another gorgeous used Super Viking that I won’t be getting for Christmas.
(Did you guys know that the accident airport, Clearlake/8Y6, was the inspiration for “Propwash Junction” in the Disney “Plane“ movies!?)
Oops-Change 1:
Forget my ‘throttle full forward’ part; I thought he initiated a go-around at the end, but he just yanked back on the yoke.
Pretty much poorly trained and incompetent sums it up. CFIs, A&Ps, IAs, CPAs, Attorneys, Physicians…all are necessary in some capacity but you better be ahead of their game.
Reflecting on hours is the same logic and mentality as insurance use on aging.
Reminds me of meeting with my bonding underwriter. Turns out he gauged my company capacity based on our depreciation schedule, which is nothing short of stupid. To his surprise through a little conversation we were about eight times bigger than he thought. So much for higher education and opinions vs facts.
Basics for a stabilized approach from traffic pattern altitude – line of flight proceeds toward the proper aiming point (at night about the fourth runway edge light where the VASI is or would be) at the recommended airspeed.
A ” black hole” approach. You can’t tell distance to a lighted sport with no visible points around.
Fly over the spot ( runway) and get all cockpit checks done at altitude. Then timed turns for a close approach.
Yet another low time, 250 hrs, pilot with 30hrs in this aircraft.
Then attempting a landing, at night, to a poorly lighted runway….what could go wrong ?
So, another wrecked aircraft . will the pilot change his risk attitudes.?
Memorizing control layout and ambient noise levels in different configurations can do a lot to free up time that can be spent looking outside. 30 hours in the same cockpit should have been enough time to acclimate to the bird, but I doubt “cockpit fam” is taught or tested much anymore. Once upon a time…