The pilot reported that he was flying the Piper J3F-60 in formation inbound for landing at the airport in Herlong, Nevada.
During the base leg to final approach turn, the airplane in front of his slowed down too much and he had to maneuver to give the airplane room to land.
During the maneuver, the accident airplane encountered the preceding airplane’s wake turbulence and subsequently entered a spin at about 100 feet above ground level.
The pilot was able to recover from the spin and collided with the ground hard in a wings level attitude. The wings and fuselage were substantially damaged.
Probable Cause: The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate separation during a formation flight, which resulted in an encounter with wake turbulence, an aerodynamic stall, and collision with terrain.
To download the final report. Click here. This will trigger a PDF download to your device.
This October 2022 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.
The video doesn’t have much to do with the accident except to show a trailer on fire. Airborne planes aren’t in much danger from a ground fire, unless somehow hovering over it.
No, not much danger to airborne aircraft, but it can be incredibly distracting in a very busy area with a lot of aircraft arriving to the fly in and coming back from day flights to have a huge smoke plume and very large visible flames in the middle of the camp while dealing with traffic on what is essentially an off airport landing. I didn’t see this happen as I was touching down, #2 in a flight of 2 when the J3 crashed behind us. But I can easily see how it happened.
This occurred at the 2022 High Sierra Fly-In.
The linked video was produced on the Fly-In and includes discussion of this accident starting at approximately 01:00.
https://youtu.be/UQblNQiQV
A complete debacle: As the pilot states on his NTSB Form 6120 Narrative History; there was no reason to try and make a bunch of airborne planes land because of chaos (an explosion/fire) on the ground.
Why he was #2 in a “briefed formation” of 5…is a mystery. Lucky he wasn’t seriously injured.
If the link doesn’t work:
It’s easy to find. It’s an AOPA Pilot video; the title is “Way out in the desert, skills grow-High Sierra Fly In 2022.”
Just Google; “2022 High Sierra Fly-In”.