This Russian training flight goes horribly wrong after a botched landing results in a poorly executed go-around. The graphic ending is a sober reminder that even with an experienced flight instructor on board, that primary training cannot be taken lightly.


One the the very first lessons a student pilot learns how to perform and recognize departure stalls. Here's what happens when a plane stalls and why pilot's practice them. In short, airflow can no longer flow over the wing and it stops producing lift. This can even happen at full engine power and is most commonly encountered when departing shorter airfields with obstacles like trees or buildings to clear at the end of the runway or when slowing a plane on approach to landing.


There are a number of clues to warn the pilot when a wing stall is imminent. The most obvious is a warning system built into most airplanes that detects airflow separation on the wing and sounds a horn or alarm in the cockpit. The second sign is buffeting and turbulence felt through the controls and a slight loss of maneuverability. The only way to recover from this condition is to lower the nose and regain airspeed and airflow. Typically lowering the nose, especially a low altitudes, goes against one's natural instinct to pull up which is reinforced when facing trees that are rushing up to greet you.

The botched landing in itself was not a problem and are even required to perform on your pilot's test. The correct procedure on a go-around is to maintain a straight track down the centerline of the runway to ensure clearance from any obstacle near the runway and allow for ample time to accelerate to an appropriate climb airspeed. This seems to be the first issue in a quickly escalating series of maladies that led to the crash. For whatever reason, the aircraft drifted to the left which is an inherent tendency for most propellor driving airplanes due to engine torque and other factors. If this left turning tendency isn't overcome by proper coordination of rudder and aileron then outcomes as severe as a spin can follow a full power stall as demonstrated in the video.


Once the runway centerline was lost and an impending impact with the trees was imminent, the hardest but safest effort would have been to fly the plane into the crash, instead an impossible climb was established resulting in loss of control and a fatal crash.

According to this Russian news outlet, the pilot/ instructor did not survive and the copilot is in intensive care. We are not told if the copilot was in fact a student or who was at the controls at the time of the crash. There were reports that it was a training flight.


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