Accident Analysis: Now that's a crosswind
How much is too much?
By David Jack Kenny
In the August 2015 issue of Flight Training, I noted some pilots’ tendency to blame landing accidents on crosswinds that were negligible to nonexistent (“Advanced Pilot: The Dreaded Five-Knot Crosswind”). At the opposite extreme are landing accidents in crosswinds far beyond the airplane’s (or pilot’s) capabilities. If the former is a lapse in technique, the latter arises from poor judgment, and often a lack of flight planning.
Most are more embarrassing than dangerous, but the consequences can be severe. All four occupants of a Cessna 172 were killed during an attempted go-around at Wendover, Utah, in 2011. The go-around was necessitated by the pilot’s attempt to land in an 80-degree crosswind of 24 knots with gusts to 28. Witnesses saw the airplane skipping sideways down the runway before the pilot powered up to try again. He began a right crosswind turn—opposite the published pattern—at about 300 feet. As the 24-knot left crosswind became a 24-knot tailwind, he stalled it in.
Landing accidents in crosswinds far beyond the airplane’s (or pilot’s) capabilities are often more embarrassing than dangerous, but the consequences can be severe.Going somewhere else would have seemed like the better option, but the nearest airport with better runway alignment was 90 nautical miles away and the pilot wasn’t sure he had enough fuel. It was low, in part, because he’d gotten lost, radioing Salt Lake Center to request that they identify his position. He hadn’t gotten a weather briefing, the airplane was 300 pounds overweight with its center of gravity 2.3 inches aft of limits, and the direct route from his point of departure penetrated six restricted areas. “Lack of flight planning” is an understatement.
That was an extreme case, but hardly isolated. In 2017, a CFI ground-looped a Cessna 170 in a 100-degree crosswind of 21 knots gusting to 24. (He blamed a soft left brake and stuck tailwheel that seemed just fine afterward.) Earlier that year, a solo student struck both wing tips and collapsed the nose gear of a 172 on his ninth landing—in a 60-degree crosswind of 14 gusting to 20. The gusts, at least, exceeded the Skyhawk’s demonstrated crosswind component—something of a handful for someone whose 50 hours were all logged in the preceding month. One wonders whether his instructor knew he was out flying. FT
David Jack Kenny is a freelance aviation writer and owner of a 1967 Piper Arrow.
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