Students tend to view their CFIs as the final authority on everything in aviation. It’s only natural. You come to your first lesson knowing nothing, and over the months that follow your instructor imparts the accrued wisdom of a century of powered flight, answering your questions, soothing your jitters, even anticipating your mistakes. But CFIs are human, too, and even they slip up occasionally. Asking questions when something doesn’t make sense is crucial to the learning process. It can also help you avoid bending an airplane—or worse.
On April 6, 2008, an American Aviation AA-1A departed Shelby County Airport in Alabaster, Alabama, on a dual instructional flight. After practicing ground reference maneuvers, the CFI and his student returned to the airport for pattern work. They did three touch-and-goes without incident. Midfield downwind on the fourth circuit, the CFI pulled the power back to idle to demonstrate an engine-out approach. He opened the throttle after touchdown, only to have the engine die as he rotated.
He was unable to stop the airplane on the remaining runway. After running off the end, the airplane hit a ditch, collapsing the nose gear. The canopy and vertical stabilizer were damaged when it nosed over, but both student and instructor escaped serious injury.
The NTSB noted the CFI never applied carburetor heat, although conditions were “conducive to serious icing at glide power,” and determined that this probably caused the accident. It did not mention the airplane’s touchdown point was too far down the 5,000-foot runway to allow a safe stop if the takeoff had to be aborted. (Performance figures in the AA-1A pilot’s handbook specify a total landing distance of 1,065 feet to make a full stop after clearing a 50-foot obstacle.)
Some airplane models are so susceptible to carburetor icing that they require carb heat any time they’re operated at low RPM; others use it only when icing is suspected. The before-landing checklist for the AA-1A is a bit vague on this point. It reads, “Check, leave ON if icing conditions exist.” The CFI apparently never performed the check. Was either he or his student following the checklist?
The instructor was 50 years old with more than 1,800 hours of flight time, but only seven in the AA-1A. Lack of time in type may not worry an experienced pilot flying a simple two-seat trainer—but every model has its quirks, each with the potential to bite you.
Checklists are there for a reason. Use them. Engines can fail on takeoff; is there room to stop if yours does? It’s the instructor’s job to keep simulated emergencies from becoming real ones by making sure there’s another way out—and to teach students a healthy skepticism that extends even to questioning the CFI when something doesn’t seem right.
David Jack Kenny is manager of aviation safety analysis for the AOPA Air Safety Foundation, an instrument-rated commercial pilot, and owner of a Piper Arrow.
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