Surprising stalls

Even worse was trying them solo. Although we’re all expected to perform them solo prior to the checkride, lots of pilots never got close to a full stall before “recovering” and confidently telling their instructor it wasn’t as bad as they thought it would be.

We shouldn’t have been worried. There are very few mishaps when practicing stalls. In fact, an AOPA Air Safety Institute analysis of all stall and spin accidents over a 15-year period found only four that could be directly attributed to intentional stall practice. But unintentional stalls—the thing we’re training to avoid—those are shockingly common.

In Stall and Spin Accidents: Keep the Wings Flying, ASI found 2,015 accidents involving stalls between 2000 and 2014, nearly all of them in personal general aviation flying. For a maneuver that we supposedly practice routinely in all phases of training, that is a stubbornly high number. We unintentionally stall airplanes on takeoff, go-arounds, landing, maneuvering, and virtually all other phases of flight.

The report also found some surprising facts that contradict many of our long-held notions about stalls and stall avoidance.

Most stalls happen on takeoff

Every instructor is paranoid about the dreaded base-to-final stall and spin, the monster that happens typically when we overshoot final approach and crank it around to get back on the extended centerline. Or when we slow down looking for traffic and begin that turn to final. The preoccupation makes sense; we’re generally slower, the turn increases stall speed, and the potential for distractions is large.

Maybe that focus has been a good thing, because only 3.8 percent of stall accidents happened on the downwind, base, or final turn. Add in another 6.1 percent during final approach, and you are left with only about 10 percent of all stall accidents occurring during the last half of the pattern. That shows that we are either doing a good job by continuing to hammer on this problem, or it’s not as much of a problem as we imagined it to be.

A much bigger concern, and where we should be spending more of our energy, is during takeoff. More than 26 percent of all stall accidents occur on personal flights, and half of traffic pattern stalls happen on takeoff. While it’s impossible to say for certain, this speaks to a deficiency not necessarily in stall recognition and recovery, but in decision making, stall aerodynamics, and situational awareness. Departure stalls may be more frightening for new pilots to practice, but all pilots have successfully demonstrated their ability to recognize and recover from a departure stall the same as they have an approach stall. It seems reasonable that if technique were the issue, the accident numbers would be similar. But they’re not even close.

It also can’t be chalked up to the underlying flight condition. Pilots master takeoffs long before they master landings, and most would agree that taking off is generally easier than landing. Takeoff technique is largely marked as complete after the first few lessons.

What’s more of an issue is that most instructors don’t talk about the risks of taking off, except for the risk of engine failures while low to the ground. Traffic conflicts, short and confined runways, strong crosswinds, poor takeoff technique, and inattention could all be at play on a stall during takeoff. Getting a handle on the skills—and more importantly, good decision making—is our biggest opportunity for lessening stall risks.

We’re getting better

In 2000, there were 160 accidents involving stalls or spins. In 2014, there were just 61. During that time, the overall accident rate dropped only slightly.

It’s not clear why this happened. Angle of attack indicators became cheaper and easier to install toward the end of the study period, and the FAA had an increased focus on maneuvering accidents, but nothing fundamentally changed in the types of airplanes we fly or how we train.

Training has different risks

We may say to train how you fly, but stall risks in training and personal flying are different. In personal flying, stalls happen most often on takeoff. In training, it’s while maneuvering. Accidents involving landing stalls are nearly twice as common in training than during personal flying. In fact, landing stalls and takeoff stalls happen at a nearly consistent rate on training flights, which further underscores that decision making likely plays a large role in the takeoff stall problem among private flights.

Given that around a quarter of all stall accidents on training flights happen during maneuvering, it makes sense to look there for some improvements. ASI found that engine-out practice dominated the maneuvering category in terms of accidents and fatalities. Instructors should be carefully monitoring these low-altitude, distraction-prone practice sessions. Take a cue from helicopter pilots and carefully recon the area from above to look for obstructions, including clear approaches and exits, and emergency landing sites in case the engine quits.

With stalls clearly being safe to practice and dangerous to experience unintentionally, we shouldn’t have any hesitation working to master them as much as possible in training and beyond.

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