The pilot was conducting power-off aerodynamic stall recoveries about 3,000 feet MSL near Monee, Illinois, in the Glasair II FT.
He told investigators that the first three stall recoveries were unremarkable.
However, before the fourth stall, the airplane’s deceleration rate and pitch attitude were greater than the previous three stall entries.
The airplane snapped to the left and rolled inverted. It continued to roll and settled into an upright left spin with a relatively flat nose-down pitch attitude between 10° and 20°.
Multiple attempts to recover from the spin were not successful.
The airplane made about six complete rotations before it hit the terrain.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to both wings, the fuselage, and the empennage. The pilot sustained serious injuries in the crash.
The pilot told investigators that initiating recovery at the first indication of the stall might have prevented the loss of control.
Probable Cause: The pilot’s in-flight loss of control while practicing aerodynamic stall recoveries.
To download the final report. Click here. This will trigger a PDF download to your device.
This June 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.
So, this article led to discussion that uncovered a situation with a specific aircraft that could be very dangerous.
The NTSB report did not , or could not, mention the potential spin danger of the Glasair.
Hopefully, this info will save a Glasair pilot … maybe don’t do stalls, just slow flight, just above stall speed. ?
I was over the beach in a Cessna 152 practicing power on stalls at 1500’ solo. I didn’t have good rudder coordination and put myself into a spin. Recovered at 500’. I learned a lot about flying that day.
Why were you only at 1500 feet? The POH states much higher.
Guess it’s wise to bone-up on the factory data before climbing on the wild stallion and bolting out of the corral. Why bother checking the factory stuff when you’re over-confident of your own capabilities and skillset? I realize practicing stalls and dead sticks is intended to have a training purpose, but doing it repeatedly is simply tempting fate. And fate always wins. Glad the pilot survived. Question: Is there anywhere a comprehensive compilation of home-brew airplane fails?
Regards/J
The company test pilot spun the Glasair 2 and what shocked him was that it took non-standard recovery techniques.
see; https://glasair-owners.com/glasair/flying-glasair/spinning-the-glasair/
The test pilot started at 13,000 ft and recovered at 9,000 ft.!!
They don’t recommend spinning the aircraft.
So, this guy doing stalls at 2,200 agl, was not very wise.!!
Also, the aircraft does not appear to have the recommended stall strips, making a stall less benign.?
So, more experimental aircraft stuff, and a destroyed aircraft.
I’m a bit surprised that the pilot only had a broken leg.!!
Lesson to be learned: Make sure you have had spin training before you get into that regime in an Experimental in other than a docile plane such as a C152.
Reading what was said in that link was an eye opener!! In the PA32s I have flown, intentional spins are prohibitted. So we would go to at least 4000 AGL to do slow flight, and if we had accidently spun, that may not have been enough room to recover as the recovery is controls neutral, pull power and yoke full forward to the stops and opposite rudder until it breaks. Much worse than a C152 arobat. And like Avflyer, I did something similar, solo, practicing for the PPL checkride when I put it in a spin. Took me a while to stop shaking so I could land.
Stall strips were mentioned in that article as well. That also is very interesting how important their placement is.
Being a test pilot really requires a lot more knowledge of how an airplane flies than what most of us are taught.
Now think about this relative to a twin and the mass outside of the centerline of the plane. Wow (Thanks to Blancoliria for that info). You need a much larger rudder than most twins come with!!