Pilot Debrief

Champion 7ECA near Pembroke Pines, FL — 2019-10-05

Final reportERA20FA003
Sign in to save
Date
2019-10-05
Location
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
Aircraft
Champion 7ECA
Registration
N2561G
Category
Airplane
Highest injury
Serious
Fatalities
0
Phase of flight
Maneuvering

Probable cause

The pilot’s failure to relinquish the airplane controls to the instructor during a power-off stall maneuver, which prevented the instructor’s recovering from the stall.

NTSB narrative

During a training flight, the pilot receiving instruction “froze on the controls” during a demonstration of a power-off stall. He did not respond to the flight instructor’s commands to release the controls, and the instructor was unable to overpower the pilot’s control inputs. The airplane remained in a stall condition, descended, impacted marshland, and sustained substantial damage to the wings and forward fuselage. The airplane’s altitude at the start of the descent was not captured by radar data; however, the airplane had previously been flying at altitudes of 100 to 500 ft mean sea level in the practice area about 1.5 minutes before radar altitude data was lost.

Analysis

Primary failure mode
Human factors
First missed decision gate
Instructor could have aborted the stall demonstration before it became unrecoverable.

NTSB coding

Evidence available

  • ADS-B / radar
  • Photos
  • 8 docket documents
View NTSB final reportView NTSB docket

Docket documents8

Related mishaps