The private pilot said his approach to land at the airport in Stockbridge, Georgia, was unstabilized.
When the Cessna 172 was about halfway down the 3,000 foot-long runway and about 150 feet above the ground, the flight instructor took control of the airplane, added full power, and attempted to go-around
The CFI said he retracted 10° of flaps once he thought the airplane established a positive rate of climb, however the stall warning horn sounded.
He lowered the nose of the airplane to gain airspeed, but the stall warning horn continued to sound.
To avoid power lines and trees located off the end of the runway, the flight instructor turned to execute a forced landing on a road.
He fully retracted the flaps and the airplane clipped the power lines and hit the road.
The private pilot, who was an aviation maintenance technician, said the engine was operating normally and that the airplane just did not have enough airspeed and altitude to clear the power lines.
Probable Cause: The flight instructor’s delayed remedial action during an unstabilized approach, which resulted in an impact with powerlines and a subsequent loss of control.
To download the final report. Click here. This will trigger a PDF download to your device.
This April 2022 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.
The idea of a stable approach was gotten from Jet aircraft where idle to full power took something like 11 minutes. So you needed to make sure you were at the correct power setting and configuration from about 5 miles out to threshold to get a good landing.
Piston powered aircraft respond nearly immediately from idle to full power to idle. See a problem here? But if we take this principle of a stablized approach and apply it to this situation (cross winds), they needed to come across the threshold at a certain altitude and airspeed, so they could pull power and land in the landing zone. If the runway is long enough (say over 4000′) you have room to land long. But in cross winds, and crabbed and you aren’t close to the runway and the runway is 3000′ or less, and you are contrained, TOGA!! This is not the time to save that landing.
And I think that this was the real mistake by the instructor. He should have told the pilot in the left seat to go around at the threshold point and help him get to full power, positive rate, THEN reduce flaps one setting, positive rate again, reduce flaps, etc.
This enforces the go around training of full power, positive rate, milking the flaps off (and gear up for complex) and why we do this in the order we do it, so that in a situation like this it is just automatic.
That is an interesting collection of misunderstandings of airmanship, approaches, and landings.
Another instructional error accident…..
The only airport in the U.S. that has 24 hangar door murals painted with WW11 airplanes can be found in Prineville,Or.
People need to see this….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ovmq9XBdfg