Pitts Spinning Accident report G-ODDS

Indeed, great sorrow.

It would be interesting to know the instructors typical approach to this type of sortie.

In my experience and from others I have heard of various approaches; the instructor initiating the spin, and the student being pre-briefed to recover, the student both intitiating the spin and the recovery, and the instructor unexpectedly intiating the spin and the student recovering.

As the report highlights time is relatively short, and there is a danger that when things go wrong that interupt the flow of command actions, there can be confusion as to who is doing what. In some ways the most challenging is when the insructor is demonstrating, because the student’s expectation is the instructor will complete the manoeuver. Is the student adequately prepared and alert to take over? The safest is perhaps the student both initiating and completing the manoeuver, in that the student is in charge of the complete flow of actions and mentally prepared, with the more experienced instructor ready to interceeded if needs must.

I sometimes wonder the benefit of intitiating an unexpected spin. In the real world in one sense this never happens. When you are performing aeros and reasonably on your game there is an expectation you might spin, so you are already mentally atuned and prepared. Whenever I start any aeros for example I always do a quick mental self brief that should a manouever result in an uniniated spin I will perform the following actions. It is the same in the twin. While I dont do it everytime I find it helpful to occasionally run through the actions I will take in the event of an engine failure. In both instances I think you need to be mentally ready for a smooth flow of command actions and movements. I think it is different from having some fun “surprising” another pilot with an engine failure, which I think is quite a good drill. In contrast engine failures often dont happen when you are expecting them, and, at a sensible height, time is your friend.

If the maximum pilot weight really was 89 kg and that was the reason parachutes were not used, then my conclusion is that a Pitts S-2A is unsuitable for dual aerobatic instruction.

Fuji_Abound wrote:

It would be interesting to know the instructors typical approach to this type of sortie.

I agree to your general thinking about who should initiate. In this specific case, however, I think the problem was a different one:

The practice flight was performed in an airspace where the maximum height to start the practice was 3000ft. As the accident report states, there are 17 seconds between the start of the practice and the latest point in time where correct actions to end it need to be applied. That is not much time – but clearly enough in situations where the instructor hands over at some point in time with “your controls” as briefed. In this case the instructor seems to have suffered from kind of a cardiac arrest – so he never could say “your controls”.
Most likely cause of action in this case to me is simply that by the time the student realized that there is something wrong with the instructor these 17sec have already passed…

Really sad, indeed a brief for instructor incapacitation is something that is omitted in these flights

I have flown the aircraft, yes you can’t have big instructor & student and load of fuel for trip to 8500ft class A airspace shelf, so you do dual spins at 3000ft which really does not give much room for errors and keeps you in busy airspace, while it’s manageable for solo flights it’s not a healthy setup to teach ab-initio aerobatics or “I have control/you have control” sequences….

Yes the ceiling was far from ideal. I am not for one moment questioning the instructor because we dont know. The general observation is a very clear and precise brief in the circumstances is probably critical along the lines of if a recovery has not been initiated at x feet then .. ..

Having very clearly defined catch points gives both pilots a clear focus and a cause for immediate actions.

I suspect as well that for anyone in an instructor role there is an understandable tendency to ignore the possibility of your own incapacity. You are there to retrieve the situation as needs must and simply dont anticipate or consider that you may be incapicated, and for that matter, nor does the student. It is the worst possible scenario and the most unexpected. I mean how many instructors brief for their own incapacity?

Airborne_Again wrote:

If the maximum pilot weight really was 89 kg and that was the reason parachutes were not used, then my conclusion is that a Pitts S-2A is unsuitable for dual aerobatic instruction.

Have you ever tried doing W&B for a C152 with 2×90Kg adults?
Is this an unsuitable primary training aeroplane?

Our aeroclub Robin DR400s use “2×78Kg front & 2×70Kg rear” in its example W&B…

Regards, SD..

I dont think this was primary training.

The student already held an AOPA aerobatic rating (I think, only read the report through once) and was preparing for competition aerobatics. The AOPA course is very solid and the student would have been prepared and able to recover from a spin in most normal circumstances.

FTAOD, I wasnt associating this flight with primary instruction, but making a point about W&B.

Why use AOPA training program instead of FAI? For competitions, there is only FAI in any case, no? At least in Norway (and I think this is standard FAI, but not sure), all aerobatics training shall be done above 2000 feet AGL. We normally use a “box” of 2000-5000, and do most of the flying at approximately 3-4000 feet.

But, if the instructor gets incapacitated in a tandem, what can you do anyway, how would you know in a spin? Something to think about.