Early Analysis: Flight Training Accident October 6, 2022 Newport News Williamsburg, VA

let's take an early look at the Cessna 172 crash in Williamsburg Newport News Virginia the crash was a training flight with an instructor and a student on board and by some reports another student in the back seat the media and police reports have the aircraft departing Runway 2-0 with the student flying the report stated that the student pitched the aircraft up aggressively the engine stalled and then the aircraft plummeted the instructor on board died the two students on board sustained Serious injury first of all the media and the police reports are a little bit confusing it's unclear how they knew the student was flying the airplane according to Communications from liveatc.net we can hear the instructor call for takeoff and the instructor acknowledged takeoff clearance on Runway 2-0 right turn on course with foolproof [Laughter] a minute and 26 seconds after she acknowledges her takeoff clearance we next hear the tower report a crash has happened on the field so the NTSB should be able to determine who was flying the aircraft during the actual event secondly the description that the aircraft pitched up in the engine stalled and then plummeted that description is a little bit out of sequence and a little bit unusual that an aircraft would pitch up and then the engine would stall oftentimes we hear such a description from the non-flying public who is not quite certain on what a stall is and how a stall affects an aircraft performance so the NTSB should be able to determine whether or not the engine was operating throughout the entire sequence so let's take a look at the potential issues that the NTSB will likely investigate to make their determination first let's suppose that the police and the media reports were correct that the aircraft pitched up and the engine stalled if that is the case then an aircraft in an excessive pitch attitude with an engine that then stalls wouldn't have the power to sustain enough AirSpeed to sustain flight so that could be the cause of a stall it's unlikely that it happened in that sequence but the NTSB should be able to determine whether or not the engine was operating through the sequence the next potential cause is a student freeze up and we last heard about this potential as an aircraft accident cause in Santa Monica California in this scenario if the student was in fact flying and pulled too aggressively on the stick and the instructor just simply didn't have enough force and enough time to be able to push the Yoke forward to reduce the angle of attack and get the aircraft and keep the aircraft flying then the aircraft certainly could have kept climbing and stalled and a crash ensued the third potential is this Cessna and many sessions up to about 1996 Cessna 172's have an issue with seats and seat rails there's an aircraft directive that requires the seat and the seat rails to be inspected every year at annual inspection when those get too loose or too worn we have seen situations where a seat will break loose and slide back during the takeoff roll and the pilot with their hands on the Yoke pulls back on the Yoke and that causes an accident we haven't seen one of those in a while the ad seems to have corrected most of those issues but that's also an issue the NTSB will likely look at and the final issue is of course some kind of flight control malfunction it's possible that during the takeoff role as they pitch forward there's some kind of flight control malfunction that caused the aggressive pitch attitude out of the Cessna 172. that is something also that the NTSB should be able to determine fairly quickly so regardless of what the NTSB determines as the cause there are a few things that this crash will highlight that we can learn from the first is with three people in a 172 or really anytime an aircraft like a 172 loses power on takeoff the pilot will need an immediate push forward on the Yoke to keep flying air speed so in this case if there was an aggressive attitude and the engine had problems especially with somebody in the back seat the instructor or somebody would have had to push aggressively on the Yoke to push the nose down to keep flying air speed so that's the first thing that we can remind ourselves in this scenario is untake our phone to 172 if the engine burps or has any problems at all the immediate reaction is to push forward on the Yoke to keep flying air speed next let's look at the potential that the student froze during the accident that the student was flying and pulled back too aggressively on the stick and the instructor couldn't overcome it we reached out to two organizations that were involved with flight instructors the National Association of flight instructors and the Society of Aviation and flight Educators safe and we asked them about this and what kind of tips they might have for instructors safe reported that they did a survey and found that 65 percent of their members who are all cfis had experienced some kind of student freeze up where they had to forcefully overcome the flight controls in Cessna 172's that may not be well known but we learn from safe that there's a bar connecting the two yokes and instructors can put their foot on the bar that connects the two yolks and push forward and overcome the force of a student pilot pulling back with their arms legs have more strength in arms and one instructor we talked to had used this technique three times to overcome the force of a student pilot another technique we've heard is to cover the eyes of the student pilot it's a natural reaction that when someone covers your eyes in a panic you will want to move away the covering of your eyes so you can see so they may take their hands off the controls to to move your hand away from their eyes and the third technique we've heard is excessive physical Force if it came to it to use whatever force was necessary to startle them and get their hands away from their controls those are all techniques for instructors to think about how they would regain control of an aircraft when a student is under Panic the next is the potential for a seat failure or a seat rail problem there are products out on the market seat blockers like the one pictured here that are cheap and easy to install that prevent a seat from rolling back that in addition to conducting the airworthiness directive that's required every year to make sure the seat and the seat rails are within tolerance the final issue is a potential of a flight control malfunction so one final check before you take the runway after all flights are done to make sure your flight controls are free and correct and your flaps are set and your trim is set is always a good idea just for an added buffer of safety in general aviation we experience about 15 to 16 fatal accidents a year from training that's relatively small given the number of flight hours that we conduct safely we fly some six and a half million flight hours a year in training flights that equates to over 10 million operations takeoffs and landings from training scenarios in a few days the NTSB should have their preliminary report out and that may answer some of the questions that we've addressed here stay tuned to our channels on aopa and we'll keep you posted on what we know thanks for watching and thanks for supporting aopa

Channel: Air Safety Institute

Views: 118,743

Keywords: institute, aopa, aviation, pilot, fly, flying, flight, plane, airplane, airport, air, safety, asi, air safety, training, aircraft, owners, pilots

Id: GaIt7izehJM

Length: 8min 31sec (511 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 11 2022