The Piper PA-28 entered airspace under a Temporary Flight Restriction and was escorted to the airport near Philadelphia by military aircraft.
Pilots at the airport who witnessed the accident described the airplane’s approach as “long, slow, and unstable” and stated that the wings were “rocking.”
They each described the airplane experiencing an aerodynamic stall where the airplane “dropped sharply” from about 50 feet above the runway surface.
The pilot told an FAA inspector that there were no mechanical deficiencies with his airplane that would have precluded normal operations, and that a vibration he detected before ground contact was “the stalled wing.”
Probable Cause: The pilot’s exceedance of the wing’s critical angle of attack, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and loss of aircraft control.
To download the final report. Click here. This will trigger a PDF download to your device.
This September 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.
I was trying to land at Oceanside airport and screwed up and started to land at camp Pendleton Marine Corps base. I was still over the ocean but was in a long final when 2 Cobra attack helicopters intercepted me and escorted me out. I am so embarrassed. I waved at them….they were literally less than 100 feet off my right wing. They waved back but I was just sure I was going to lose my license. I think I didn’t because I was flying an aero club airplane from MCAS El Toro. I never heard a word about it but I was horrified. That was the days before GPS but bottom line the “private effed up sir”! Lol. ..
I’m not a pilot. Can someone explain exactly what a stall is and how it occurs?
A stall in this case is when there is insufficient airflow over the wing, to create enough lift to keep the plane in the air.
The pilot probably needed to add a bit more power to prevent the stall. I make that statement having NOT read the report from the NTSB, but having several hours under my belt as a pilot, including a solo flight.
A Stall occurs when the air moving over the wing or airfoil is not sufficient to provide lift and simply stops flying and falls back to Earth like a rock.
Hello, the answer to your question regarding what a stall is, quite simply a stall is the point at which a lifting surface of a aircraft, usually the wings, looses its ability to lift because lack of airspeed, incorrect angle of attack leading to vortexes disrupting smooth airflow over the wings or not anticipating adverse atmospheric conditions such as hot air at high altitude. There are others such as disruption of airflow over the wings due icing but generally a stall is caused by anything that causes one or both wings to loose their ability to lift. And especially at low altitudes can be deadly and also the leading cause of fatal aircraft crash deaths. Except of course for flying itself.
Maj. Tamre’ Colby USAFE/NATO CAS/AS
Imagine the stresses of being a military pilot…… then talk about a “stress stall”
Lawsuit
Funny, I’m being followed by F-16C’s everyday and it doesn’t bother me. What what scares the crap out of me is when they aren’t. I’m their wingleader.
AMEN
Man who fly plane upside down have crackup.
Slow down to just above stall, the military plane will either leave or start laughing.
Yeah, tell me about it. And to think I wanted to be a bus driver when I was growing up but I heard that driving was more dangerous than flying and I didn’t want a stressful job.
Honori Majorum Nostroum,
Maj. Tamre’ “Vixen” Colby
Cmdr. 347th Bravo CAS/AS, USAFE/NATO EPAF
I had a 46 J3 cub. Installed vortex generators on the wings reducing the stall speed to 24
mph. If a military jet was escorting me to an airport, I could fly at 25 mph and the jet would probably run out of fuel before we got to the airport. With a 50 mph headwind you can actually fly backwards at 20 to 25 mph and maintain altitude.
I doubt he was “followed by an F16…..” The min (stall speed) of an F16 is higher than the flat out downhill speed of any PA28 ever built.
Agreed
That’s a bad day. Hope that pilot is ok and that he gets back in the air to fly again soon.
My instructor always told me to Aviate, navigate,communicate and fly the plane until it stops rolling on the tarmack. I concur with the conclusion that he was very distracted and forgot the rules.
Bravo, and loss of situational awareness also leads to an increase in aluminum recycling and mortuary home stocks prices.
As a military flight instructor with 1000s of instructor hours,
Rule.1 Fly the Airplane, all else is secondary. Rule 2, See rule 1.
Rule 3. Get your head and eyes out of the cockpit and off the gages, look at the horizon and where you are in relation to it, nose and wings.
Rule 4. You’re a student and not good enough to think about anything else other than flying the plane.
Rule 5. The quickest way to die is to let God fly the plane, He’s usually way too busy to help, so fly the plane get to the airport, land safely and go to church next Sunday..
That’s not true. God does a great job getting you to a safe landing. It’s up to you to make a good, safe landing..
A more accurate headline would have been: “Piper pilot stalls over runway AFTER being escorted by military aircraft.”
I agree; sounds like he was pretty rattled & maybe a bit distracted.
OTOH…according to a credible witness: “The pilot appeared to be oblivious (to) the fact that there was a TFR and that he had been intercepted and that he had been followed by F-16’s for a number of minutes while he was transiting the TFR.”
Stress…or maybe he just tubed it, regardless?
The AIM has a good discussion of what to expect if you’re intercepted: Chapter 5, Air Traffic Procedures; Section 6, National Security and Interception Procedures.
Have to say I like the stress induced stall. That should be in the training books, next to fly the plane first and the emergency second.
The poor guy probably needed clean undershorts after being escorted by military aircraft.
And his License, revoked
That’s a stress induced stall from being escorted by a military jet. I can only imagine how bad I’d be shaking if I was being escorted back to an airport for violating a TFR by the military.
Then you should quit flying. Imagine the stress of an engine failure. Been there, done that.
I indeed agree with You, Mr. Lionel Mandrake.
It is a different type of stress. With an engine failure you just fly the plane, the shock event is over. With an intercept the stress is anticipated stress of “what is happening”. It is different. Yes I have done both, you have not seen big until you have an F-4 Phantom on your wing!
I would have loved to have an F4 on my wing at 70 kts.
Capt Mandrake, it was due to the loss of previous bodily fluids