A hazardous attitude of invulnerability

This is an excerpt from a report made to the Aviation Safety Reporting System. The narrative is written by the pilot, rather than FAA or NTSB officials. To maintain anonymity, many details, such as aircraft model or airport, are often scrubbed from the reports.

I was flying with my student pilot in the morning. It was a clear day and I was excited to fly.

We completed the preflight on the DA40 Diamond Star and everything looked good.

I let my student taxi us to the run-up area on the ramp. This was his second time doing it (this was only our fourth flight).

The run-up area was getting closer and I told my student to add 18 MP and step hard on the right brake to turn us into a west heading. However, my student added too much power and did not step on the right brake hard enough. The turn was aggressive/abrupt. It happened so fast and a big thud sound happened.

At that point I took flight controls and stopped the aircraft. My first thought was that we damaged the nosewheel or popped the tire. I also thought we might have hit the yellow poles that are located on the edge of the pavement.

My thought process was first check the nosewheel. So I added power and advanced forward to see if it seemed stable. It was.

Then I kept replaying the event in my head to see if we could have been too close to hit the left wingtip on the yellow poles.

My student asked me if we should go look at it. However, I told myself that there was no way we hit the wingtip because I gave my student enough distance. My thought process was I’ve been to the run-up area before and I know the distance to turn.

This turned into a hazardous attitude of invulnerability. I talked myself out of believing that we could have hit our wingtip.

I thought it was the nosewheel and since I checked it and it was good I proceeded with the flight.

I decided not to shut down the engine and look at the wingtip.

After our flight, we parked on the ramp in our designated parking spot. My student was putting on the tie-down for the left wing when he told me that there was damage and we did hit the yellow poles during our set up for ground check at the run-up.

Looking back at this event, it could have been prevented by shutting down the engine and checking the wingtip before we flew. This would have been the safest choice.

Telling myself it couldn’t have been the wingtip and not looking at the big picture and checking was a contributing factor.

I also think being a new flight instructor had an effect on my actions to this. My inexperience to make my own decision and not stopping and thinking that looking at the problem was a pressure.

Learning from this event, I know going forward that when you talk yourself out of a reality and takeaway the thoughts of “I have done this before and the distance to turn was enough” that is not an answer and checking the aircraft and shutting down the engine is the best action.

Primary Problem: Human Factors

ACN: 2084040