The pilot reported that, while on approach to landing at the airport in Rochester, N.Y., the Cessna 172 was hard to control, so he elected to troubleshoot the control issue in the air and initiated a go-around.
The airplane lifted off the runway and began a climb, but rapidly rolled to the right, then left, then hit terrain.
The pilot added that the right rudder pedal was not functioning properly prior to the flight during taxi and that he had difficulty maintaining directional control during the approach.
In addition, he told investigators he lost directional control due to a rudder anomaly during a flight in the airplane several weeks prior.
An FAA inspector examined the airplane after the accident and confirmed that the wings had been substantially damaged during the accident.
A post-accident examination of the rudder control system revealed no evidence of a pre accident mechanical failure or malfunction that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable Cause: The pilot’s failure to maintain airplane control during a go-around. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s decision to take off after perceiving a rudder issue during taxi operations.
To download the final report. Click here. This will trigger a PDF download to your device.
This February 2020 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.
I’m with Wylbur on this… I’ve seen it.
It’s hard to be empathetic after reading his “Narrative History of Flight” and “Recommendations”.
Trying to shift the blame to the Owner/Operator may be a viable strategy to highlight shady business practices, but it doesn’t mitigate the really bad decision he made as PIC to take this plane up.
And we wonder why insurance rates are skyrocketing.
Not only did this pilot know about the “rudder” issues, but noted that the main gear was not pointing correctly due to a prior hard landing. The flight school had to know about it, but apparently didn’t log it. However the “RAC” line guy knew about it. The more one reads the accident report as filed by the pilot, the more one sees that this pilot confessed to using an airplane that he did not feel comfortable with. In my opinion, just from reading this, the aircraft was not airworthy given all the discrepancies he noted about this airplane.
So why would you get in it and fly it?
I would think the FAA and NTSB should have filed a different report about inspecting this flight school, and that report might be very instructive.
In my opinion, this guy needs the equivalent of a 709 ride, not to penalize him, but to get him to see what constitutes a NO-GO situation. I get the impression that the CFIs at this school over-looked problems that should have grounded aircraft and so taught others to overlook things and “fly it anyway.”
Loose nut Imho