The flight was the pilot’s first flight in the Glasair 1.
He told investigators that during the landing at the airport in Greenville, Texas, there was no forward visibility.
About 10 feet above the runway, he was unable to arrest the descent rate, even with the control stick full back. The airplane touched down hard and he added power for a go-around.
He felt the airplane accelerate and he maintained a level attitude, however the airplane began an uncommanded left roll.
He couldn’t regain control of the plane. He did reduce power to idle prior to the airplane touching down a second time, this time off the edge of the runway. The main landing gear dug into the soft ground and the airplane spun around backward.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage during the landing, while the pilot sustained minor injuries.
Prior to the flight, the pilot adjusted the linkage of the elevator to match design specifications. During the flight he tested the stall characteristics of the airplane. Each time, the airplane stalled around 40 knots. At the time of the accident, the pilot reported the airplane was around 60 knots.
The circumstances are consistent with the pilot’s failure to maintain control of the airplane during a go-around following a hard landing.
There were no mechanical anomalies with the airplane that would have precluded normal operations.
Probable Cause: The pilot’s failure to maintain a proper descent rate, which resulted in a hard landing, and his subsequent loss of airplane control during an attempted go-around.
To download the final report. Click here. This will trigger a PDF download to your device.
This January 2020 accident report is provided by the National Transportation Safety Board. Published as an educational tool, it is intended to help pilots learn from the misfortunes of others.
Thank God that these Pilots were able to walk away w Life in their hands & minimum injuries, in spite of human errors / plane-malfunction! But, we live in Richardson,(Dallas County), TX, only minutes from Greenville, TX & Ft. Worth, TX, where recently, in the News, we came to learn of the harrowing experience of flight crews of a Navy Training aircraft that crash-landed in a Residential neighborhood of Ft. Worth, setting homes on Power-outage & landing the pilot & co-pilot on Trees & Powerlines, setting off billowing smoke, observed from miles away! Not too recently, we have been experiencing Enormous Noise & Jet-streams & dropping of liquids from all types of Aircrafts flying mostly from Dallas Love Field Airport / Addison Airport, of all different Sizes, Makes & Models, flying at all different altitudes, sometimes at such dangerously low altitudes as to almost ‘Scrape the top of tall trees’ in front yard & Hovering close to Roof-Tops, as if doing Aerobatic-maneuvers, that look almost Crazy! These include SELs, Twin Turbo Props, Multi-engine 6 Seaters, & Airline-Passenger Jumbo Jets like many from “South-West Airlines Jets” w their Red-Yellow-Blue markings, some Delta & American & United & many in Blue-White & Red Colors. We have also witnessed Drones & Helicopters & have some Documentation of these Events. These fly at all different times of Night & Day from Super fast speed to Very Slow & Low & Deliberate speeds & sometimes make U-turns over this Residential neighborhood of Richardson & go back to the airports they came from, anytime from 1a.m. in the morning to 12 mid-night ! Thought, FAA & NTSB had Strict Guidelines & Regulations regarding Noise & Safe flight paths & Altitudes over Residential Neighborhoods & Towns! Are these Planes Exempt from that?? A Couple of times the Tall Trees over which these Huge Aircrafts & Helicopters flew so close that for no other apparent reason, the trees have even, suddenly dropped some of their Heavy-limbs. As more days go by, the pattern of flights of these Multi-aircrafts seem to be getting increasingly Dangerously Reckless : Dallas-Love, Dallas-Executive, Addison & some from Mesquite airports seem to be their more frequent Source. Who is Responsible for all these going on for So Long ? Wonder if someone in Authority would take note before, God-forbid any Fatalities/Mayhem happened !! In the very least, someone needs to know,: Who is/are involved in these “Illegalities that Endanger Others” ??? ( since this has happened as late as today i.e. Jan 26, 2022 ).
It would be a great courtesy if people would read the NTSB report first before firing away.
This pilot did stall testing after having adjusted the elevators (“rig” issue), to check at what indicated speed the plane would stall from clean to full flaps and he did this at different “magnetic” angles to check the ground speed vs. air speed using the GPS.
So because this is a tail wheel plane, he did the approach to maintain a shallow angle to the runway, I’m assuming to do what is called a thee point landing (I’m not a tail wheel pilot).
The NTSB person had to have read the whole thing, yet makes this statement “The circumstances are consistent with the pilot’s failure to maintain control of the airplane during a go-around following a hard landing.” I could accept this, if they had said the pilot failed to verify correct rigging of the ailerons. But having flown it with another pilot, it seems this pilot did not detect this particular problem — in the non-solo flight.
Here is my question: He reported verifying stall at 40 full flaps. if clean, stall is at 60, but he stated that indicated was 50 when initiating the go-around.
” full back stick and applied power for a go around. Kept the plane over the runway as power kicked in and the plane leveled and seemed to accelerate. I only attempted to maintain altitude, not climb. Once settled I would ease off the flaps and climb. Felt I was going around then experienced an uncommanded roll to the left. ailerons unresponsive and as the ground approached I pulled power.” [sic]
So he is in ground effect, has leveled the plane, added power– maintaining altitude, “settled” (whatever that really means) and then eased off the flaps.
Did he get rid of the flaps too quickly so he did not get above the clean stall speed as he exited ground effect? Because he did state that when it would stall it had a decided roll to the left. It seemed he was methodical in what he did. So, I’m trying to figure out what actually went wrong.
Slippery little buggers! Seems a lot of pilots are having trouble with sleek, complex and high performance aircraft these days. I think less than stellar CFIs, which the FAA has finally acknowledged, and money getting many pilots into more plane than they can handle.
Seems like these types of crashes happen about once a month. Isn’t anyone taught how to do a go around anymore? He had full aft stick, and the plane began to roll to the left. Instead of unloading the elevator, maintaining a proper pitch attitude, and using rudder to arrest the roll, he tried to use right aileron at a high AOA to counter the roll. So the left aileron came down, the left wing stalled, and we all know, or should know, what happens after that! We had a student pilot on his first supervised solo do the same thing a few months ago at my home airport. He only suffered a bloody nose, but the crash and ensuing fire totaled the plane. No wonder the prices of used planes is skyrocketing, there are fewer and fewer each day.
Ya know these sort of reports are kinda useless. Obviously he did something that caused this plane to what seems like land too fast??? bounce??? What was it? What can he and the reader learn? It seems like he stalled at a high AOA, but why was in that position in the first place? I
For one, maybe don’t fly solo on an initial flight in a new airplane.