A flight to celebrate a dad earning his private pilot certificate ends tragically. What can we learn from it?
aviation accidents
Water in fuel brings down Piper
Probable Cause: The pilot’s improper preflight inspection which resulted in a loss of engine power due to fuel contamination (water).
Inadequate 100-hour inspection leads to in-flight fire
Probable Cause: An in-flight fire that resulted from an inadequate 100-hr inspection, which failed to detect and correct improper electrical cable routing in the engine compartment.
Forced landing fatal for pilot
Probable Cause: The pilot’s failure to maintain control during a forced landing following a loss of engine power. Contributing was the pilot’s failure to feather the left propeller following the loss of engine power.
Poor planning, inadequate training cited as main reasons for loss of control accidents
The study, published in the latest issue of the Journal of Air Transportation, “is the first rigorous survey to ask surviving pilots why they experienced inflight loss of control and document the human factors that led to the incidents,” university officials said, adding nearly 200 pilots completed the survey.
Pilot encounters wind shear
Probable Cause: The pilot’s delay in performing a go-around after a likely encounter with low-level wind shear, resulting in a hard landing. Contributing to the accident were the pilot’s failure to recognize the severity of the actual and forecasted weather near the airport and his continued approach to the airport with a thunderstorm and associated convective activity.
Loss of control on takeoff fatal for Piper pilot
Probable Cause: The pilot’s exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack during initial climb, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall/spin and loss of control that the pilot did not recover from.
Oil starvation brings down homebuilt
Probable Cause: Oil starvation of the propeller speed reduction unit which resulted in a total loss of engine power.
Monotony, fatigue bad combination for ag pilot
Probable Cause: The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from a power line during a low-level aerial application
flight. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s fatigue.









