Experienced instructors may be surprised—or may not!—to learn that their worst enemies aren’t student pilots. More than 60 percent of all fatal accidents in fixed-wing training take place during advanced instruction—flights on which the “student” already holds some pilot certificate in the airplane category. Advanced instruction also accounts for more than half of fatal training accidents in helicopters.
Even more surprising, instruction toward some future checkride—seaplane, instrument, commercial, multiengine, or CFI—is not the major problem. Less than 40 percent of advanced fixed-wing accidents occur while pursuing any of these curricula. Thirty percent come during various kinds of recurrent training (flight reviews, IPCs, line checks, and non-specific refresher flights), slightly more than twice the share while seeking high-performance, complex, or (mostly) tailwheel endorsements.
Of all the different types of advanced instruction, however, the one that wrecks the single largest number of airplanes is make-and-model transition training. New-model checkouts account for more than one-sixth of all advanced instructional accidents, and more fatalities than anything except instrument training.
What makes them so perilous? In theory, having someone who knows how to fly other models learn from someone who knows how to fly this one doesn’t present obvious risks. In the real world, though, both ends of that equation can break down. Some instructors’ lack of familiarity with the aircraft almost certainly played a role: The CFI who attempted a no-flaps takeoff from a 1,840-foot grass strip in a 180-horsepower Piper Arrow had just two hours in the make and model. Students’ basic airmanship can also leave something to be desired, as with the new partner in a Piper Comanche who came up 90 feet short of the threshold attempting a simulated engine-out.
The Comanche accident illustrates two other recurrent themes: Instructors who are too slow to intervene, and emergency practice gone wrong. A fatal spin during a Bonanza checkout was precipitated by an instructor who liked to teach the “impossible turn” by pulling the throttle at 900 feet agl. Apparently he was able to make it work until the day it didn’t.
More typical—and fortunately less catastrophic—was the case of the pilot getting acquainted with an Aeronca Chief. An unstabilized approach caused him to touch down too fast, shimmying from side to side, while his instructor apparently didn't do enough to prevent the ensuing ground loop.
Related Articles
