The flight instructor was conducting the 16-year-old student pilot’s first instructional flight. After completing several takeoffs and landings at the airport in Ray, Michigan, they “taxied around the airport multiple times,” during which they experienced “light to sometimes moderate” rain.
At the conclusion of the lesson, the rain became heavy enough that visibility was reduced, and the instructor decided to taxi the Flight Design CTLS into its open hangar to avoid getting wet.
As they approached the hangar, the instructor noted a set of wheel chocks on the ground, and with the engine still running, he instructed the student to exit the airplane, walk around the propeller arc, and move the chocks so that he “could taxi the airplane nose-first into the hangar…then turn it around once inside and shut down.”
He stated that he repeated the instructions to ensure that the student understood.
The student subsequently got out of the airplane and walked forward into the spinning propeller, resulting in serious injury.
Probable Cause: The flight instructor’s improper decision to direct the student pilot to exit the airplane with the engine running, which resulted in serious injury when the student walked into the propeller arc.
To download the final report. Click here. This will trigger a PDF download to your device.
This June 2021 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.
It’s propeller…and chocks not chalks…hangar not hanger
CFI should get 14CFR91.13 (careless and reckless)
Safety is the most important thing to be taught period.i hope that instructor considers another job. The FAA should pull his or her ticket to teach. Safety wasn’t the first thing on their mind . 2, YOU don’t taxi into a hangar. Last part of my comment you can fix the aircraft or buy another one but can’t fix a Dead person. Folks I have been flying since 1972 . Have a safe day and wonderful day. John.
Not to be missed in the narrative of this episode is the mention that after the take offs and landings, the CFI and student “taxied around the airport several times.”
I’m thinking that the CFI is also greedy, as the Hobbs meter is running during this seemingly-needless taxi time — increasing the rental cost for the airplane, the fee for “dual” instruction and padding the logbook for the time-building CFI.
A terrible and totally preventable accident caused by the complete absence of common sense from this instructor.
I can’t believe a stupid accident like this happened just because the instructor didn’t want to get wet!
I hope the instructor is done with his flying career
That’s why I never allow anybody to exit or approach my plane when the engine is running.
Safety should be paramount in aviation. This was poor risk assessment by the instructor, combined with a little bit of stupidity by the student; but .ostly the instructor’s fault for not adhering to common safety standards (like not taxiing into a hanger, exiting the aircraft while the emgine is running, etc…).
Why not just turn the engine off and push the aircraft into the hanger?
This error in judgment and responsibility for the injury lies 100% with the instructor. It is cut and dry. No matter what the experience level, the plane should always be mixture leaned out for engine cut off, avionics off, master and standby battery off, mags off and keys on the dash before anyone exits the aircraft regardless of experience level. Safety is paramount. Pilots who take short cuts or rush or fail to use checklists are sloppy, lazy and just not good pilots. How hard is it to shut down and restart? How hard is it to push the plane a little further? Compare this with how hard it would be to resurrect the dead. This student was very lucky. This was incredibly bad aeronautical decision making by the instructor and the instructor is solely at fault. No excuses!
Regardless of who you believe to be at “fault” the blame goes to the CFI. They were responsible for the safety of the lesson.
Any comment that would remove responsibility of this very unfortunate incident from the instructor and place it upon the shoulders of a 16-year old student pilot who was acting under the direction and supervision of a CFI, represents a serious misunderstanding of what true responsibility is. Question: Who was the PIC in this situation and therefore the one responsible for recommending an action that placed another person’s life in danger? Geez. I’m not an attorney, or the son of one, but this CFI could face serious legal ramifications by recommending a student do something that was clearly in violation of the law of common sense – not to mention FAR 91 which states the PIC is responsible for the safety of his/her passengers. Truly tragic.
So a 16 year old is mature enough to drive a car but not enough to avoid a spinning prop.
The responsibility lies with both the way CFI and the student the way I see it.
I would have turned the plane away from the path wheel chocks or simply shut down the engine.
But just for the sake of argument here, I remember when I went on a helicopter ride with my dad at a state fair when I was 14.
After the pilot landed the chopper, we got out and ducked our heads under the rotor and we didn’t have to be told by the pilot.
Common sense should prevail in something as simple as that.
I wonder how that student will follow instructions for flying if he/she can’t follow instructions for walking.
Unfortunately student. is spelled with the prefix stu-pid mistakes… That’s why you don’t let a stu-dent solo only after a consistent training.. allot on there mind excitement of the matter. and thinking on there feet is not common.. I can c where the instructor has perhaps made a new Faa regulation… As most errors in aviation write the Regs… Otherwise I don’t think the instructor should be reprimanded. He will have to live with this mistake so will the young eagle…let’s all agree that forgiveness as long as we all learn from this…. Maybe this was his first student?!?!?
A 16 year old is not mature enough yet to realize the danger he was in. The flight instructor should face criminal charges!
I think a 16 year old is well aware of the consequences of walking into a spinning propeller. Could the instructor have been more specific? Yes, but some things go without saying. If my buddy and I were walking down the street and my buddy walks out in front of a moving car, would it be my fault because I did not inform him of the dangers of walking in front of moving cars?
Why couldn’t the CFI just turn the plane off and show the 16 yr old what he meant???? He’s liable for the incident,……it’s not an accident. Lazy kills.
The kid was just flying the airplane how does he think it pushed through the air you’ve got to have your head up your anus to walk into a loud motor propeller I can understand the kid was excited but come on does he also reach into the boiling water to take out a hot dog
I read this . was going to comment then said to myself just move on . HOWEVER I felt compeled to revisit this article for my 2 cents worth . YES in todays times I believe the CFI made a bad call on several points …AGAIN HOWEVER as one other commenter made a point about the 16 yr old I TOO believe if he/she whichever it was is old enough to learn to fly then they are old enough to pay ATTENTION to instructions as well as realizing you cant walk through a propella arc .We seem to have arrived at a time in our socieity to where people at this age group need to be MOLLY CODDLED and are un capaable of coherrent thought . Is there a specific age where we think NOW they will learn NOW they will know without having started that training at an earlier age ? This was a VERY UNFORTUNATE accident But I for one believe the 16 yr old bears some of the responsibility DESPITE the cfi,s bad decision making . my 2 cents worth rather anyone else agrees or not. And if one believes 16 yr old is just a baby and had NO RESPONSIBILITY then why are we as a socieity turning them loose with a 3ooo lb weapon called a car with a license on our hiways ? food for thought
Congratulations, this is possibly the dumbest Boomer comment I have read in a very long time.
I realize that nobody today can possibly ever be as good as you were…but be that as it may, people make mistakes. Young people and those who are unfamiliar with aviation make even more mistakes, sometimes incomprehensibly stupid ones.
This is why we have procedures in place to ensure safety, like turning off the engine before letting people out of the airplane.. They’re written in blood and following them is not “Molly Coddling” by any sensible meaning of that expression.
Mistakes in aviation usually end badly.
You really should have went with your first instinct and moved on. What you came up with as a comment for this scenario is so asinine it’s horrifying, This CFI showed so many levels of bad judgement in every phase of this that to suggest that a 16-year old kid on their FIRST lesson should bear any responsibility for this accident is horrifying.
Shame on you.
What scares me most is the remarks blaming the student. Props are invisible when running, it makes it easy to misjudge and misunderstand the danger. This is the one of the most important jobs in flight instruction, risk assessment.
If it is raining hard, there’s no way this kid isn’t going to rush. In a rush, people make mistakes and might have a hard time seeing. A trainee might easily lose situational awareness.
An instructor should know these things and having done their own risk assessment, chose more wisely. Comments-people, please don’t teach.
Accountability!
Let the Lawyers and the insurance companies start the fight.
On my first day in wood shop at Jr. High School the students saw a film showing people having their fingers cut off and worse…IT made an everlasting impression on me….Flight Schools should show a film with people getting Seriously Injured by the propeller even before their first lesson. After 60 years I still remember the name of the film….(it didn’t have to happen).
That’s how it used to be in US Navy aviation technical training. The flightdeck of an aircraft carrier is inherently dangerous, to see the dangers aircraft pose left a lasting impression that serves me well to this day when working on and around aircraft.
Idiot CFI. I never allow anyone to exit an aircraft with the engine runnung. Many bad judgement mistakes occurred during this flight resilting in bodily injury.
I agree, the CFI was extremely careless and thoughtless, not to mention lazy.
I wouldn’t instruct anyone to walk around the prop arc. Either get out and do it yourself, or shut the engine down. If these seemed impractical then at the very least maneuver the plane in such a way that the student will be walking away from the plane perpendicular or towards the rear. I can’t imagine an airport being so packed and tight with airplanes that he couldn’t go past them or turn a bit.
There are so many places where this story makes no sense. One of the students problems was trusting this CFI.
And why he didn’t give the prop plenty of room. Or why the only way to get the chalks was straight forward and not pass them first, or any number of other options that wouldn’t involve walking towards and around a moving prop
I sincerely hope that person is never allowed to impersonate to be a CFI again!
I hope this CFI loses his license for this. He is incompetent and irresponsible. Who tells a brand new student to WALK NEAR A MOVING PROPELLOR? This is unacceptable. You NEVER walk near a moving propellor!
Gen Z instructing Gen Z ?
CFI was 37 years old. From the NTSB Final Report:
“(Estimated) 571 hours (Total, all aircraft), 4.2 hours (Total, this make and model), 46.6 hours (Pilot In Command, all aircraft), 1080.9 hours (Last 90 days, all aircraft), 27 hours (Last 30 days, all aircraft)”
….so, something’s not quite right.
How is your comment in any ways helpful to the conversation?
Well… in response to a previous comment; merely pointing out that a 37-year-old CFI and a 16-year-old student don’t quite fit with a “Gen Z instructing Gen Z” scenario.
Also, the CFI’s hours, as documented by the NTSB…don’t quite add up. Could be a typo? Or maybe there is something more to this event than is apparent in the article.
What in the world was the CFI thinking??? A 16 year old kid on his first lesson isn’t much more than a slightly educated passenger. And the idea of taxiing into a hangar and turning around under power is pure Hollywood nonsense. A basic rule of instruction is to foster safe operations at all times—this instructor clearly violated that rule several times according to this report.
Turning around in a hangar under power?!? Has he no respect at all for the mechanics or owners of other aircraft there…I guess not since he didn’t value the life or limb of his student. Sad.
Besides the comments about walking near a spinning prop, I noticed another issue. I don’t think the instructor showed good judgement by flying in rain, especially in rain heavy enough that visibility was reduced. In another few lessons, when cross country flying is the topic, won’t he be advising his student not to fly in marginal weather?
Dang, walk around the prop arc with the engine running? What the heck was he thinking? Why not shut the engine off or at a minimum tell the kid to walk around the back of the aircraft.
Why on earth take the risk over RAIN? Is this instructor really so delicate that RAIN is worth the risk of hurting a kid, or anyone for that matter?
The instructor obviously does not have a 16 year old kid. My kids are familiar with airplane operations, and I would never put them in that situation. That is a dangerous request for an experienced airplane passenger, let alone a first time 16 year old student.
If he’s old enough to fly the plane he should have known better then to walk into the prop and one would think way before a flying lesson u would know this hmmmmmmm who’s really at fault the instructor ??? Probably not
Jerred, maybe you should book some lessons with this instructor. I hear his schedule is wide open.