Maybe they were anticipating the dubious EASA NPA 2015-13 about “upset recovery training” which would become part of every PPL or LAPL training.
Peter wrote:
Sadly, what isn’t known is the “condition” of the survivors… their lives might never be the same again.
I had a hefty motorbike accident when I was 16 with severe injuries and a hanycap left. Nonetheless I’m (still) happy to be alive, let alone my parents….
In a plane crash like this you cannot expect to walk away from the wreck, but I guess all survivors will celebrate this day as an additional birthday and in a few years they (probably/hopefully) will have made their arrangements with their new lifes.
Peter wrote:
Sadly, what isn’t known is the “condition” of the survivors… their lives might never be the same again.
The passenger was apparently in good enough shape that he expected to be flying again in a couple of weeks to complete his training and then begin working as a professional pilot. The article said that they had trained in the US and that their present training was a conversion to a European license, so presumably they had FAA CPL/ME/IR and wanted to get the corresponding EASA papers.
The second student appeared to be hurt the most, he had open fractures in both legs.
AnthonyQ wrote:
It seems there is some suggestion that this was a deliberate spin or incipient spin manoeuvre….where did that come from?
There was no such suggestion in the article I referred to above.
Aviathor wrote:
It is more than a suggestion according to the statement from the back-seat passenger in the article referred here
My interpretation of that is that the spin entry was accidental.
Airborne_Again wrote:
My interpretation of that is that the spin entry was accidental.
Sorry. Of course it was. What I meant is that they voluntarily put themselves in a situation where a spin was a definite possibility, at night.
That means they stalled it, because you can’t spin (any normal plane) until you have stalled.
You can stall accidentally, e.g. on autopilot, climbing at a constant VS and not notice the IAS bleed away. I’ve done it a few times, around FL190-210, but I was expecting it, plus you get the stall warner.
Or they had a loss of power, which is presumably possible via induction icing (in IMC), and if they were on autopilot in ALT mode then the IAS would also bleed off, and it would happen pretty fast (10-20 seconds perhaps). I’ve had that too…
Obviously it’s also possible they were just demonstrating a stall and mismanaged it. Or even demonstrating OEI flight and mismanaged that (got too slow).
They might have been training “unusual attitude recovery”. It’s part of the IR syllabus.
I have seen crazy stuff, both during training and exam:
During my initial IR exam I had to demonstrate a stall. We were flying VFR at that time at 1300ft.
I objected as I found it unsafe to do a stall that low. The examiner insisted with “Go ahead,It is my responsibility!”.
A friend of mine had to do an unusual attitude recovery during this exam. He said that the aircraft attitude was so bizarre that it scared the #@$ out of him.
It turned out that his examiner was an enthusiastic aerobatics pilot.
I did spin recovery in a Katana during PPL training.
Spins are prohibited in a Katana.
He said they entered a flat spin after an accelerated stall. That sounds somewhat unreasonable, but not improbable. They were falling straight down in a tree, which is what saved them. This also means they could not have had much velocity, neither vertical or horizontal which fit a flat spin.
