PILOT CRASHES and INSTRUCTOR REACTS. Airplane crashes on landing, instructor break down - pilot tips 

I remember when this video first came out. Still can’t get over the fact that the first thing he does when he crashes is to grab his GoPro, not hit the master, not hit the mags off, not switch the fuel off. Some flight schools and their CFI/CFIIs need to be audited.

Not a comment about your video. Just wanted to say it was interesting to see N714SW in your intro. I delivered that 152 in 1978 from Cessna.

I tended to land a little fast and would be a little “squirrelly” on touchdown, amazing how much smoother and more controlled landings were when I slowed another 5+knts!

I'm loving these reaction videos as a new CFI. They really hone in on what I need to drill into my students and what I should be looking for pre-solo and beyond.

I had trouble with landings up until I asked my instructor to show me a soft field takeoff.... I know this sounds super weird, but it helped me establish visually what "ground effect" looks like and how you need to keep the plane right over the runway until vx. Then when coming into land you can use that same reference to flare and bleed off all the remaining energy from the wings. That and managing airspeed have tremendously improved my landings!!

When it finally soaked in that airspeed is in my left hand and glide slope is in my right hand, things started clicking a little better for me. Timing the flare is still troubling me. Good thing I have a really patient instructor.

Had a similar thing yesterday. Flew a new airplane yesterday (with an instructor since it was new) and was landing on a 2,800 ft runway. I was more than halfway down the runway and still not touched down - full power and went around. It took 3 tries to make that landing!

My favorite part of the original video is when the pilot goes for the camera immediately after the planes stops moving neglecting things like the master and mags, I always tell my students your not done flying until the airplane is in the hangar.

Love your channel by the way! I’ve learned a lot!

These lessons are so helpful!!

Jason, you are so kind! : ). I’m still a student and I’ve made some silly mistakes. But my face hurts from smiling watching this one! How did this guy wind up in a solo situation?

That high speed taxi is very helpful trick. When I did my tailwheel training my CFI always make me do the high speed taxi using the full length of the runway. And with crosswind when you are fast enough, you will taxi with only one upwind main wheel touching the ground. This is exactly the opposite procedure when you land, and also make you to remember keep flying the plane until it fully stops.

Great lesson! From now on - I'm going to demo an approach made at 20 knots too fast to all student pilots so they can see what having all that energy can do firsthand.

Even though he was coming in hot, was totally doable by maintaining directional control with some right rudder and more cowbell.

Hey love the channel, I’m becoming a cfi in Canada, I was wondering if you could make some videos on how you like to teach your exercises.

I can hear my instructor's voice in my head as I watch this: "Centerline! Centerline! Centerline!"

My airspeed control tightened up when I got into my instrument training. Life interfered and I didn't finish it but 20 years later it's still in the muscle memory. It pains me to see another aircraft wrecked :(

Thats in North Perry where i did my training.

Sick nose wheelie at the end though!

Airspeed control was definitely an issue here, but it sure looks to me like he also just stepped on the left rudder for some reason. He starts drifting to the left and you can see the slip/skid indicator start indicating a skid to the right just before touchdown. I've had plenty of students who will inexplicably put in increasing amounts of rudder in the wrong direction on landing. I'm wondering if he was trying to put in some wind correction (right aileron/left rudder) and just screwed it up. He's definitely putting in right aileron at the same time.

Was this in north perry ? Pembroke pines?

That guy was hauling ass while diving for the numbers, lol. Glad he was OK.

Your videos are always educational. Wish I lived closer to you so I could get some instruction from you.

I dunno, just seems good checklist and airspeed discipline is the answer. Landing is a process as well as a feel. Hit the target points such as airspeed, altitude, and throttle settings on downwind, base, final, and (in some models) chop the power over the numbers. Adjust power as needed to stay on a good glide path but hold the proper airspeed. Don't over correct during porpoise or ballooning or go around immediately. Yea? (Been a while since I flew, think that's right.)

He was coming in hot but I see no mention of the flaps setting. If I am in a windy gusty scenario, I too would come in hot flaps 0 so I could maintain the stable approach until ground effect kicks in.

The problem is that there should be SIX phases of landing: Approach, Roundout, DECISION, Flare, Touchdown, Rollout. This guy NEVER decided whether it was safe to land. He's doing 95knots and is off centerline when he crosses the threshold. He should have DECIDED it's not safe and went around. DECISION should be one of the final steps while still 50-75 feet off the ground.

For a crop duster, 1.3 at the fence is way too fast at the fence and sort of sets up this problem. Wolfgang saw the round out and hold off as the easier landing technique because carburetors were not so good in 47 and the engine would gasp when the throttle was moved too quickly. That is why he called the stall down landing the more difficult and thus used only by the more experienced pilot. Now that we have better carburetors, I think the stall down or what the Army called the apparent brisk walk rate of closure technique is much easier to learn and is actually safer with modern engines. First, the stall down from page 302 of Stick and Rudder with Wolfgang's son's permission, "The stall-down" landing requires that you blend the approach glide, the flair-out, and the slowing up of the airplane all into one maneuver so that, when you arrive at ground level, you arrive in three-point attitude, all slowed up and ready to squat." When we decelerate, as the stall down requires on short final, we don't have to fine tune the deceleration, glide angle, and rate of descent with elevator only. We can use the best glide angle and rate of descent control, now dynamically active by the speed reduction, the throttle. We can use rudder only (no need to turn, no need for adverse yaw, only rudder, only correct yaw) to bracket the centerline. If we do not allow the nose (between our legs) to come off target, we do not turn. If we do not turn, we do not introduce wing wagging where the adverse yaw takes the nose a bit the wrong way before being roped back in by rudder. If we use the "apparent motion" (page 305) or closure with apparent rate of the desired touchdown spot to make elevator airspeed reduction and nail the centerline by walking the rudder and nail the touchdown spot with power all the way to the spot or at least to the flair, we don't have to make a perfect spot landing without power to arrive at the spot in a three point attitude all slowed up and ready to squat. How do I know this is easier. My own data, having used it as my default landing for 50 years is bias. I know it is easier because my students all soloed, most in tailwheel airplanes, in less than ten hours by landing slowly and softly on the numbers all three times because they had not learned the more difficult round out and hold off technique.

Every pilot should have the opportunity to fly an a/c with an Angle of Attack display to see and feel the difference in desired AOA landing speed vs. the POH.

The 3 most important things in a successful landing ... (1) airspeed control; (2) airspeed control; and (3) airspeed control.

TERRIBLE AIRMANSHIP. Lack of good decision making. Lack of control authority Lack of situational awareness. No go around…. He had so much energy on final, he could have flown that to Disney World. That was adorable.

In piston-cessnas (thats only what I have experience in) I find that 1.3x the stall speed of my chosen landing configuration is really the magic number to be at by the time I'm established in a stable approach on final. If I'm faster than this and have nice long runway I'll bleed off speed before trying to land, if I don't have a long runway and I'm over the numbers above this speed its a go-around.

Do schools even emphasise to students the Vref and the Threshold crossing speeds for student first solos besides just demonstrating it in flight and not pointing them out?

An instant classic

Genuinely don’t know how someone can come in so fast. Holy cow

My way is to sit high to have a good forward visual. Use a seat cushion and make sure you just see the cowling. Too much high sitting position could also interfere with controls. In this video I don't think he could see comfortably outside , he was leaning at one point.

My first thought is go around. He lost vertical control and drift.

The other big issue here was his centerline control. Even if he’d had great speed control he was rounding out way over to the left. That should have been a huge cue for him to go-around. No margin of error!

The part of the video left out was when the pilot grabbed the go pro camera..instead of shutting down the mags, master power, fuel...

A lot of people are really scared of going too slow out of fear of stalling the aircraft on final. If you're very particular about your speeds, you will NEVER stall your aircraft unless you do a seriously wide bank, get severely uncoordinated or forget slats/flaps. Go to 2500 feet agl and pretend you're doing a landing. Set yourself up as if you're doing a traffic pattern. Doesn't have to be perfect. For best results, you can do it over a road so you have something to physically visualize (Don't think too hard that you're 1500 feet above pattern) Do a downwind, add a notch at your pretend abeam and have the speeds you normally would have. Then add another notch at your pretend base and...same speed you'd do base. On final, add the final notch (Or however you do this) and start with your normal speed, and then trickle speed down a bit. You'll notice that you'll have to reduce speed quite a bit before you actually start hearing that stall horn. Maybe 10+ knots and even then, you're still not stalling. It's quite a bit of speed. You should fly at recommended speed, but do know that you have quite a bit of buffer room even if you get 5 or so knots under. I'm NOT endorsing being reckless, I'm simply endorsing people to stop flying fast on approach and landing. Unless you're dealing with winds/turbulence, you are NOT helping yourself. A perfect landing starts with respecting your aircraft instead of being scared of it. If you still want to improve your landings, I recommend trying out gliding. The essence of gliding is flying a little above the stall speed and...you get used to that until you find something worth soaring on. Granted, you also learn that best glide doesn't mean anything as it is quite variable and such. It teaches not to fear being really slow and embraces pure pilot skills of stick and rudder.Also teaches you not to be scared of landing on grass as you'll probably be doing that a lot. Some pilots have made it to ATP without ever actually touching a grass strip and that figure is getting scaringly higher...

Watching this I heard "MORE RIGHT RUDDER!!!!" Must be a kind of pilot PTSD.

Nice video #01

Aim point, Centerline, Airspeed, Profile

Looks like my sim landings :)

channel should be called "The Limburgh Reference"

right rudder

when in doubt…

Flight 209 now arriving at gate 8. Gate 9. Gate 10…Gate 13…gate 14….gate 15…gate 23….24…25…

Right Rudder might help. LOL

Its beyond me how these pilots are cleared to solo when they pull stunts like this.

im sorry but i laughed so freaking hard when i saw this.

Looked a typical Generalized Aviation landing to me

You didn' explain why he drifted left after he cut power

speed kills!

When its at 5 o clock on short final....

That guy is too clumsy to be a pilot. Some just cant, but they insist.

At least he never took his hand off the throttle!!

he bled off enough airspeed, it looks like he had little experience on cross wind

It would be interesting to see the final report by the FAA..... Can you make a video about that when it's abaiable?

At 1.20 visibly, the pilot was constipated :D

Can’t imagine what that guy was thinking

That’s my training airport khwo

Airspeed management during approach is crucial. A mate at our airfield who owns a Mooney once said you have to be exactly on the right numbers on your ASI. 5 knots faster and you'll end up floating forever

I’ve seen this video before but never noticed the airspeed till now… seeing that needle where it was made my heart sink 😬

What do I need to do as an instructor to prevent this? I’d love to see a video from this frame of reference.

Let's see how many signs we can hit.

Interesting video. Can someone tell what (physically) makes this aircraft turn/yaw left at about 1:25 (a second before the tire screech, and then again and even more after the second screech)? Is it weather vaning, is one of the tires partially deflated or maybe the brakes are partially applied, or a jab of rudder? I don't think the rudder is already in as the turn and bank ball was pretty much centered up to this point. Edit: I guess weather vaning is improbable, as I would expect then to be able to notice rightwards drift over the runway while the wings are held roughly level.

A non-stabilized approach is just a search for the crash site, hopefully on the wheels and on the runway! But why risk $1000's in damage... and your safety! Yet it seems we see it every day! (I forget the number from the DGSB 8)) Peace --gary

Phase 6, the nose over.....

Seems like he chopped power pretty late too? Kinda tells me he didn't even know he was fast.

That's just difficult to watch!

What's all the fuss about? The dude was wearing his epaulets pilot shirt.

man that sucks. looks like he was training to be commercial ... wonder what happened

Clearly the student had no clue what he was doing. Going in hot. Unable to hold centerline. Not even trying to stay on the runway after drifting left. BTW, I use a seat cushion to make sure I have a clear forward view the entire time I land.

...but...wait...he's wearing a pilot's uniform...might be used to land wide body passengers airplanes at 120 knots :) LOL

Had his nose wheel been pointed straight when it contacted the runway, this video would not be up for discussion.

Right Rudder: am i a joke to you?

What I see is a pilot who seems to be missing the ability to decide to go around.

Why was this guy flying solo, without a clue about managing airspeed?

He did land the plane!

Yeah - straight away - too fast !

I noticed that that student pilot was wearing epaulettes, or at least a shirt ready to. Premature?

He kept his hands on the throttle though!

G O a r o u n d

*I used to have facial hair but then it grew up on me*

If you come in that fast you better have a long runway to bleed off your airspeed, the only reason you might be going that fast would be an ILS approach trying to hold a glide slope with no flaps. I would guess he was a student pilot. He didn’t have centerline discipline.

Too much airspeed...and no crosswind correction to speak of.

First thing he does after the crash is grab the go pro. not secure the aircraft. Watch the full video. SMH. 😡

I kinda disagree with the root cause analysis here. The aircraft will land when it runs out of enough energy to fly. The flare is the phase of landing when you’re shedding the excess energy you’re carrying on approach, to reach that point. So if you’re carrying too much energy on approach, the symptom should be that the flare takes longer, and you consequently use more runway during the landing. This pilot had plenty of runway. There was no rush to either get it on the ground or make a go-around decision. They could have floated until the airplane was ready to land. It wouldn’t have been a perfect short field landing, but we don’t know that this was a short field exercise and maybe that’d just have turned into a debriefing item to focus on next time, rather than a crash. I think the actual root causes here were two-fold. The primary one was that the pilot failed to maintain directional authority, and drifted outside the lateral boundary of the runway before they’d even touched down. The secondary cause was that they were in a hurry to out the airplane on the ground before it was ready. You covered the lateral issue when you referred to the Lindberg Reference. The impatience issue didn’t get mentioned, but was easily recognisable when you see the pilot’s pitch oscillations before touchdown: They were “hunting” for the ground, letting the nose come down then re-flaring when the pitch was all wrong, over and over. During the flare, there are two main priorities. One is to keep the airplane on the centreline (which this pilot failed to do). The other is to progressively ease the elevator control aftwards with the power at idle and the mains a few inches off the ground, with eyes on the horizon to give the visual reference needed to maintain zero sink rate for as long as possible. If correctly executed, the airplane should run out of lift and sink onto the ground at approximately the point at which the pilot runs out of elevator travel, yielding a minimum energy touchdown. If the manoeuvre is initiated at a higher airspeed, it’ll just take longer. That is: to achieve the perfect landing, fly the airplane down close to the runway and then try to avoid landing for as long as possible. With that technique, the approach speed barely matters. This pilot should have been able to land safely even if their airspeed was too high on approach if they had been properly trained and used correct technique. The purpose of training a pilot to land with higher than normal approach speeds is that sometimes, in high wind conditions, the approach speed NEEDS to be higher to compensate for the wind shear effect you get from a surface wind gradient.

That's why never buy a plane that was used for training.

This video is not an accurate description of what really happened with this landing. Excess airspeed had nothing to do with him going off the runway this was an uncoordinated approach the pilot did not have enough rudder input and potentially aileron input to stay center on the runway. I wasn’t able to see the windsock but I can almost guarantee there was a little bit of crosswind. Coming in with extra air speed he’s gonna float down the runway and when you don’t have the correct cross win inputs you will start to drift in the direction of the wind which was aggravated by The P factor. When he bled out his airspeed ballooning he drifted to the left and went off the runway. This has nothing to do with having too much airspeed and everything to do with him not being coordinated and centered on the runway. These videos make me upset because they are spreading bad information no pilot should listen to this video because this guy is completely wrong. Don’t take my word for it ask any experience pilot to look at this video and they will tell you the same thing.

That guy is not a pilot. Thats what went wrong. Not the airspeed, nor the wind ou somenthing else.

To be a pilot you need flying skills mate not everyone can be a pilot full stop.

Flies just like my ex-wife. When she had her ppl and I didn’t, she landed us on a good long grass farm strip, landed too deep and immediately performed a sharp left turn (not a ground loop, it was a Piper 180 tricycle undercarriage) into a harvest ready cornfield ending with the prop in the dirt. Just how she accomplished this I still don’t know. Sheer ineptitude. Last I heard she flunked her commercial ticket but I think it’s for the better. The skies stay friendly and mostly safe.

Not even necessarily looking at the crash itself, there’s no way this student should have been set free. If you can’t land a plane, there’s going to be a problem. He had zero reaction to anything going on. I’m sorry, but someone needs to talk to his Instructor. You could say, well he just damaged the aircraft. Things happen.. my response is bs. If he flipped, fuel caught fire streaming out, he dies, who’s going to be looked at? A bad landing happens. That was beyond a bad landing. That was a negligent landing.

With 3 hours of taildragger training this POS baking tin Cessna would not have been bent.

Talk about attention getter! 😳

This video is rubbish. He repeats 50 times that the guy had to reduce his airspeed, and another 50 times that you should visit his website and donate to patreon or enrol in his courses.

to be honest and the truth, alot of people do not want to hear the truth, however, some places in te world and countries, the population cannot be pilots. As 38 yrs as a DPE it is true!