4 fatal - crash nw of Waterloo ON Aug 24 2012

[cdnpilot77]

3. I do not understand why people get their knickers in a knot over spin training. An intentional spin in a properly loaded aircraft that is certified for spins is just not that dangerous. It is certainly a long way from the most dangerous thing that is done in ab initio flight training.

If they are entered and exited correctly in/from an actual spin, correct. What about the times, as Doc pointed out earlier, the entry isn't executed properly and a spiral dive ensues. I guarantee it happened to everyone here during their initial training, and, as laws of percentages would guarantee, 49% of pilots are of below average skill, How do you know it wasn't one of these guys yanking themselves out of these spirals 2-3-4 times in the flight prior to yours and stressing the aircraft beyond it's design limits just before you go out to do your spin training?

[mcrit]

How do you know it wasn't over stressed before you go out and do your spiral dive recovery?

[Beefitarian]

The problem is that students are being taught they can recover from spins,

This is where often the lesson is being taught incorrectly. Part of it should be a long discussion on how while we're going to train you so you know what it looks like and a recovery technique, Heaven forbid you get into one by accident, they are to avoided in the course of all normal flight parameters since its possible that recovery may be considerably more difficult, or impossible, than what they will see in the utility category spin. Lots of discussion should be had about the most probable causes of accidental spins and where they happen.

Yeah, I think this helps me see some of the problem. I don't know why, I presume it's because I'm 1/8th German but I just figure. POH says not to spin out side the utility category, good enough, I don't.

Having read this though I understand a bit better why other pilots might. I don't know how many hours have been wasted with instructors riding around while I tried to get a 172N to spin but far too many.

Sure I would go through the book motions to help recovery as the thing sort of did an incipient spin, but sometimes I'd go a bit slower knowing it was recovering by it's self anyway. It doesn't make sense in a way to think of the silly things actually spinning. However, I know they can because earlier on in my PPL training I did it once.

I had been away for a while and my instructor asked for a stall. I started to pull back with a bit of power still on. He said, "Oh, he's going to try one with power." I confidently claimed it would be no problem. Nearing the stall one wing decided to get ahead of me and the rest of the plane. (I suspect it was probably that thing where if you don't fly enough you treat the yoke like a steering wheel. I didn't know about that back then.) Fourtunately I had lots of height because I had to work out how to recover on my own because my instructor was laughing too hard to do anything else.

So at least my dim light lit up a small bit here.

What the HELL'S wrong with flying under bridges??

Nothing, hitting a truck coming the other way could take the fun out of it and ruin a lot of people's day though.

[Shiny Side Up]

Shiny Side Up, you're obviously an instructor. Who trained you to spin, and in what?

Would any qualifications I told you here convince you or otherwise change your mind? Being the internet, unlikely, so irrelevant to the discussion. You don't know me and I don't know you so I can only speculate that you realise your position in the arguement isn't as strong as you originally thought so wish to attack my experience instead. Let that go and let us reason together instead.

If I owned an airplane, and somebody spun it, I'd have the wings pulled and a full inspection would follow....and the jerk who spun it would get the bill. These airplanes are NOT designed to spin.
Why don't FTU's grow a pair, and stick up to Transport Canada over the wear and tear this BS puts on their airframes?

I would hardly say that spinning puts the most abuse on the airframes, circuit practice certainly does that. I'll let you in on a bit, if some fellow is unwise enough to go out and spin your airplane for kicks, they probably also don't give a crap about how else they treat the airplane, so it would be your own fault for being so foolish to let them fly it.

In theory, a "proper" spin wont hurt an airframe. Or so I'm told. BUT what about all the spins that turn into spirals and the ham fisted yoyo in the front seat over-stresses it on the pull out? Next poor slob gets to fly a damaged airplane. You guys (FTU's) have to be able to sell that??

How many overstressed airplanes have you seen out there? According to you they should be rampant. We should be having in flight break ups of airplanes every other day, but I don't see that in the accident record either. You're arguing against yourself here - people who screw up spins to that point are hitting the ground first before they do any airframe overstressing. After all, If this was indeed a stall/spin accident we should be finding its tail feathers in another field if such was the case, but they seem remarkably intact.

If one looks at the statistics on Stall/spin accidents, removing spins from training, really only removed stall/spin accidents from training. Essentially it took away the few ham-fisted instructors from doing spins, but it hasn't changed the ammount of stall spins that happen outside of training. Interesting read here:

http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/to ... _spin.html

One can draw a lot of conclusions from the article, I hate to say it but eliminating the stall spin training has really only eliminated the accidents directly related to the training of spins itself, but has not eliminated people getting into stall/spin accidents entirely. An alarming ammount of them still happen in training. Essentially I think the elimination of them there has just put them off for later in some pilot's flying careers. The article especially highlights why there are still stall/spin accidents happening in training:

Obviously instructors must be proficient in stall recovery, and if not current in spins, prevent the aircraft from entering the spin regime. Many instructors have not practiced a spin recovery since receiving their spin endorsement, which may have been many years ago. On the other side of the cockpit, instructors should monitor students closely when they are practicing stalls. If the student inadvertently spins the aircraft, can they safely recover?

Now this is in reference to FAA CFIs. TC's approach ahs been slightly different but it is worth reading their conclusions here:

http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/p ... 5-6201.htm

I tend to agree with the executive summary on the subject. I would say though in a lot of cases that from that point it hasn't always been followed well by FTUs out there, and I would say that advanced pilots are often lacking substantially in some of the regards. You're right in that in a lot of cases spin training is hazardous since we have people with poor training doing it. My opinion would be that we should be striving to bring them up to a higher standard. Or when does it get so that we don't even let pilots see a wing drop ever, just in case they might get into a spin. Maybe we should not let people see a stall either and strictly talk about the idea of the whole thing? From experience I can't say that I think a less stick time, more class time on the subject has been entirely beneficial.

[piston12]

Why was this guy flying around in the flight center's practice area when the flight itinerary he submitted in the rental agreement was 40nm (at the very least) east of the crash site?

Very regretable accident. And probably very preventable as well. With the training he had, he should have known better. I happen to have rented that airplane over the years, and I am very familiar with the maintenance program of that aircraft. Structural failure within the normal operation limitations will be ruled out as a cause very early in the TSB investigation.

YOU NEVER SPIN A C172 of ANY MODEL WITH WEIGHT BEHIND STATION 1 and 2 !!!!!!! I don't care what you think spin training or avoidance training is at in Canada.

And if you try it with passengers, you are an idiot and should thrown in jail if you live to tell about it.

Be careful who you trust with your life, especially if your pilot friend says "don't worry, I'm building time for my COMMERCIAL. I know what I'm doing".

[piston12]

Sulako says: "No Personal Attacks"
Sulako says "Strike 1"

[piston12]

Shiny says....and I would say that advanced pilots are often lacking substantially in some of the regards.


I would ask you to define "Advanced"

[Rookie50]

Aside from all this, someone -- or someones -- indicated they hadn't read their entire POH and it's limitations. And you are a licensed pilot? Do you have a death wish or are trying out as a test pilot? How could you fly an aircraft without knowing all the limitations in the POH! Scary. Do you think this is all your CfI's job to teach you? You should think hard about who is responsible to know their aircraft and enagage in some self study. Seriously.

[piston12]

If you've had any CRM training yet, you wil start to realize where the chain of events to this unfortunate accident started. Look at the small details that we already know.

Flat, nonrecoverable spin. Vertical trajectory......look at the media pictures. It's obvious.

Why did our pilot in question go to the practice area after filing a completely different route?
Why did he put it into a spin?
Was he a certified TC instructor who is authorized to demonstrate spins?
If not, was his acrobatic rating current? Did he actually have one?
If so, does his acrobatic rating cover the Cessna 172 SP?

I would like to extend my deepest condolences to the families of the passengers. Let's hope that this case study saved lives in the future!!!!

//Minor content removed by Sulako. Let's wait until the report comes in before pointing "First-Degree Murder" fingers.

[CpnCrunch]

Aside from all this, someone -- or someones -- indicated they hadn't read their entire POH and it's limitations. And you are a licensed pilot? Do you have a death wish or are trying out as a test pilot? How could you fly an aircraft without knowing all the limitations in the POH! Scary. Do you think this is all your CfI's job to teach you? You should think hard about who is responsible to know their aircraft and enagage in some self study. Seriously.

As far as I can remember, I did my entire PPL training without looking at a POH once! Not my fault - I never even knew such a thing existed. The first time I read one of the things was when I bought my own plane, and then I read the thing cover to cover many times and digested all the info. That was in the UK, but I'm not sure it's any better in Canada. You would think that studying the POH (and other related documentation) should be part of the PPL syllabus.

[wan2fly99]

Had a tear in my eye for those four young people who lost there lives. They could have been my kids.

Just thinking of the poor parents now who lost something very precious to them.

I call this hell on earth for the parents

It was a such a beautiful day to end in tragedy like this. I hope they find out what happene

[pilotuser]

I wonder if it makes people feel smart to come up with conclusions before they have any real information? Suddenly we are all accident investigators, showing people how smart we are by looking at a handful of pictures taken after emergency crews worked on the plane to get the bodies out...

Listen I have no problem with people talking about possible causes... but too many people here have come to a conclusion. If it turns out that this was say an unintentional spin or not even a spin, will the judgemental people be rushing back here to apologize for their conclusions?

This kid has been flying since he was 16, glider pilot licence, PPL at 17, a commercial pilot licence that he did in his spare time while going to University. He was an absolutely wonderful person, not a hot head at all. It is still possible he made a mistake, it is still possible he made a bad decision -- the investigation will hopefully tell us -- and no matter what the reason is, hopefully we will all learn from it. Great pilot, which I don't say from speculation -- I have done a number of his currency flights over the years.

As to the speculations, wondering why he was off his intended path, etc... its ridiculous... if you rent a plane and say I am going to fly local, taking some friends up, just want to show them what flying is all about... night or day.. most clubs are going to say have fun, fly safe. You don't have to come up with some elaborate plan to fly to Toronto and Niagara Falls and then sneak out to the practice area to do spins. Maybe one of his friends wasn't feeling well - but started feeling better, maybe they decided they would rather look for someone's house, maybe they decided they didn't want as long a flight... whatever... plans can change when you are on a sightseeing flight, and there are mechanisms to change them in the air -- doesn't make him a rogue pilot.

There was even someone who said he may have squawked 7700... if that's the case why is some guy sneaking off to do spins squawking a code that will draw attention... why would someone even try to change the transponder code while in an intentional spin that went bad?

I don't know what happened, you don't know, while people seem interested let's all learn more about aviation and accident causes -- lord knows I don't want to hear about any more of our friends in aviation passing away, but please don't drag his name through the mud. Please don't make this harder on his amazing family who might be reading anything they can hoping to find something that might help them through this terrible time in their lives.

Simply... have some respect.

[pilotuser]

Aside from all this, someone -- or someones -- indicated they hadn't read their entire POH and it's limitations. And you are a licensed pilot? Do you have a death wish or are trying out as a test pilot? How could you fly an aircraft without knowing all the limitations in the POH! Scary. Do you think this is all your CfI's job to teach you? You should think hard about who is responsible to know their aircraft and enagage in some self study. Seriously.

As far as I can remember, I did my entire PPL training without looking at a POH once! Not my fault - I never even knew such a thing existed. The first time I read one of the things was when I bought my own plane, and then I read the thing cover to cover many times and digested all the info. That was in the UK, but I'm not sure it's any better in Canada. You would think that studying the POH (and other related documentation) should be part of the PPL syllabus.

It's better here (at least now)... student are typically required to purchase a copy of the POH during their training, and schools usually have some sort of a POH pre-solo test. An open book exam is often the case. As part of the planning for the nav portion of your flight test, you need to use the POH to do some weight and balance and take-off / landing distance calculations, etc.

[Gogona]

You never read everything in the POH? Why not? Why would you expect your instructor to tell you everything that's in that book? Did you not feel any responsibility on your own to learn what's in there?

Did I ever say that? Of course I read! And not only POH, I have read (and still do) a lot of alternative sources other than the books in my school kit.
But you didn't get my idea, sorry

A good flight instructor should always MAKE SURE, the student knows his POH and realizes why he should never practice certain manoeuvres. And that's what my instructors were never bothered about. The only thing my FI said to me: "You should never spin the airplane solo, because it is very dangerous". And that's it.

Now assume, that wasn't me, but some other student pilot, who is neglecting with his flight training, and his only concern, is how to get his PPL shortly. So this student may think: "Okay, my instructor says that is dangerous, because I'm inexperienced pilot and gonna put him into troubles, cause he is responsible for me. But when I get my license, I would like to try that again!". Oh, don't tell me you have never heard the reasoning like this

So my question is – how flight instructors could know, if this particular student is smart and responsible enough or he/she is dumb, and his/her knowledge and attitude should be verified again and again? Meanwhile, reminding and explaining the most crucial subjects at least ONCE is not such a hard job to do, isn't it? But again, that's what I never got from my CFI's and that's what I consider as a lack of training. Simply because they didn't know who I'm and what is my actual attitude.

YOU NEVER SPIN A C172 of ANY MODEL WITH WEIGHT BEHIND STATION 1 and 2 !!!!!!! I don't care what you think spin training or avoidance training is at in Canada.
And if you try it with passengers, you are an idiot and should thrown in jail if you live to tell about it.

Hey, not so tough! Please, be respectful.
We have no proof yet that was an intentional spin. I should remind you, that's a SPECULATION only and not the actual fact. But there are still a lot of reasons, why C172 may stall and spin even in the perfect weather conditions.

[Ivan42]

A minor update here...WWFC still closed till Wednesday at least:

http://www.therecord.com/news/local/art ... d-by-crash

[Gogona]

The problem is NOT that recovery is not HAMMERED into students. The problem IS that you spin at all!

Doc, I understand you. And all of your arguments make sense to me.

Briefly, we should avoid the spin training for sake of those idiots, who entertain themselves spinning in the non-aerobatic airplanes.
But exactly the same we could say about VFR-into-IFR accidents. People get their basic 5-6 instrument hours and some of them believe, they are skilled enough to continue the flight in the marginal weather conditions. And in the same time, just a very few people get into the clouds flying day VFR accidentally. Does that mean, we should exclude instrument training from the PPL syllabus? I don't think so, because it's a very important skill for everybody.

Next, take a look at the night VFR accidents in USA. Unlike Canada, they are very common there just because Americans don't have any special night rating as we do. 5 (five!) hours of night dual circuits and you are legal to fly at night. And people fly! That sounds ridiculous for me, but some of the brand new private pilots in U.S. go for a complete night solo x-country right away.
Does that mean, FAA should ban teaching that? Again, I don't think so! But they might PROHIBIT all intentional night flying unless the pilot got an extended night training (like in Canada) or holds IFR rating. So pilot can only use his 5 hrs experience to find an airport and perform a safe landing in case of delays.

Therefore I believe, that adding the similar restriction on performing aerobatic manoeuvres in non-aerobatic aircraft (if you get caught doing that you may temporary or permanently lose your license) may cool these hot heads down.

And here is a perfect example why removing the spin training is not a solution, if the pilot is stupid himself: http://youtu.be/Ebzuox4nq7c Poor aircraft - http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1148354/ They don't practice spins in UK, don't they?

And after all, I DO NOT INSIST we really need in spin recovery training. Maybe you are right and we should avoid it. However, I trust to TC and would like to listen to their arguments/reasons as well.

[boogs82]

After reading the article it's clear that some of the information used to write it mighthave come from this forum. Be mindful about what you post because it's not only us reading here. I'm involved in another discussion forum where articles have been written with usernames quoted in the article.

My thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends involved. RIP.

[Bede]

I find this accident forum quite interesting and have been reading it and the TSB reports for sometime. What is particularly interesting is that AvCanada posters are able to, by and large, identify causal factors of most accidents long before the TSB, without engineering analysis, without a budget, and without access to all the information the TSB does. Furthermore, we are able to learn from mistakes months or years before a report is issued. I can't stand public speculation in the media because the reporters have no idea what they're talking about, but as professionals on this forum, we do a pretty good job. Of course, we often can't identify root causes (fatigue, company culture, etc).

Try it: Go through this board and compare the speculation from some of the more trusted members and then read the TSB report.

[pilotuser]

I find this accident forum quite interesting and have been reading it and the TSB reports for sometime. What is particularly interesting is that AvCanada posters are able to, by and large, identify causal factors of most accidents long before the TSB, without engineering analysis, without a budget, and without access to all the information the TSB does. Furthermore, we are able to learn from mistakes months or years before a report is issued. I can't stand public speculation in the media because the reporters have no idea what they're talking about, but as professionals on this forum, we do a pretty good job. Of course, we often can't identify root causes (fatigue, company culture, etc).

Try it: Go through this board and compare the speculation from some of the more trusted members and then read the TSB report.

At first as I was reading this I thought you were being sarcastic, then I read the end and realized you were being serious.

Well, within this very thread people have thrown out three or more scenarios... at least unintentional spin, intentional spin, and engine failure have all been mentioned. When we find out what happened, it is likely one of the many possible scenarios will be correct. But then two will be wrong...

[cdnpilot77]

I suspect 1 will be correct, 1 will be half correct and 1 will be completely incorrect because eyewitnesses and media can't differentiate between noises and movements airplanes make in various conditions.

[Doc]

I find this accident forum quite interesting and have been reading it and the TSB reports for sometime. What is particularly interesting is that AvCanada posters are able to, by and large, identify causal factors of most accidents long before the TSB, without engineering analysis, without a budget, and without access to all the information the TSB does. Furthermore, we are able to learn from mistakes months or years before a report is issued. I can't stand public speculation in the media because the reporters have no idea what they're talking about, but as professionals on this forum, we do a pretty good job. Of course, we often can't identify root causes (fatigue, company culture, etc).

Try it: Go through this board and compare the speculation from some of the more trusted members and then read the TSB report.

You are correct. We're pretty good at it. And often correct.

[Doc]

I find this accident forum quite interesting and have been reading it and the TSB reports for sometime. What is particularly interesting is that AvCanada posters are able to, by and large, identify causal factors of most accidents long before the TSB, without engineering analysis, without a budget, and without access to all the information the TSB does. Furthermore, we are able to learn from mistakes months or years before a report is issued. I can't stand public speculation in the media because the reporters have no idea what they're talking about, but as professionals on this forum, we do a pretty good job. Of course, we often can't identify root causes (fatigue, company culture, etc).

Try it: Go through this board and compare the speculation from some of the more trusted members and then read the TSB report.

At first as I was reading this I thought you were being sarcastic, then I read the end and realized you were being serious.

Well, within this very thread people have thrown out three or more scenarios... at least unintentional spin, intentional spin, and engine failure have all been mentioned. When we find out what happened, it is likely one of the many possible scenarios will be correct. But then two will be wrong...

Which is better than TSB's fall back answer to all things they can't pin point, and call it "pilot error". Pussys!!

[howard40]

A 172, flown in compliance with the flight manual, and spun , properly, will suffer no consequences requiring the "wings to be removed and repaired or inspected".It is at a slow airspeed with little to no g loading.
This airplane "likely" has "spun in" for currently unknown reasons , as reported by witness' and by the damage it suffered. A spiral would "likely" have strewn stuff around like a yard sale for yards... and more . this aircraft hardly broke more corn than its own footprint.
Sad....
Respectfully.

[126.7_STFU]

Not to be naive here, but I do have an honest question to those who have lots of experience with aerobatics. I know in theory (somewhat) and by studying specific cases what happens when you spin an aircraft (say a 172 ) , fully loaded. Usually you turn into ...




So that being said, can someone elaborate on why it would be so difficult to stop the rotation? If some sort of Bruce Almighty crap was going on, and you managed to spin your fully loaded CF-172 Skyhawk < (intimidation technique), what would you do? If one was to do the proper recovery procedure, what would inhibit you from regaining control? Intense laughter? Control surfaces not large / strong enough to counter the rotation? This isn't a starfighter after all.

[Doc]

Shiny Side Up, you're obviously an instructor. Who trained you to spin, and in what?

Would any qualifications I told you here convince you or otherwise change your mind? Being the internet, unlikely, so irrelevant to the discussion. You don't know me and I don't know you so I can only speculate that you realise your position in the arguement isn't as strong as you originally thought so wish to attack my experience instead. Let that go and let us reason together instead.

To be honest with you, I thought it was a reasonable question. Are you an instructor? This would generally be a yes, or no answer. Couldn't be much clearer?
The second part of the question was. Who trained you to spin? Another pretty easy answer would ad some credibility to your opinions on the subject.
The third part. In what? Well, in case you're new at this, that would be an enquiry as to the type of aircraft you received your spin training in.
Pretty easy, really?
Would it change my position on spins? Well, if you'd been trained in a Pitts Special with a qualified aerobatic instructor, yes it would go a long way towards me taking you seriously. If, however, you learned at the hands of a 300 hour instructor on your way to your PPL, well then I know you're full of crap. See the difference?