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The Air Safety Institute recently published an outstanding video discussing the aftermath of a back-country supercub crash. This video is a stark look at the factors that the participants encountered immediately after the crash. The thing that resonated with me was that in the heat of the moment your ability to think through your actions prior to or immediately after the crash is frightening low.

Key lessons learned: Planning and briefing - are you ready to make this flight? Recent experience - are you where you need to be? Slow down and think through critical decision points. Be proficient with recognizing stalls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGt6TmkYdUw

I think this video drives home the idea that we need to think through the possible outcomes and our actions in advance. In the stress of the moment where we need to act precisely and correctly, if we haven't thought through our actions in advance, we won't get it right (that's reality, and we need to accept that). A common trend in Sonex accidents is that some thing or event causes a big distraction to the pilot (engine trouble or outright stoppage, or perhaps poor climb performance at high density altitude), and that distraction leads to a loss of control. I think we need to ingrain into ourselves the ability to NOT lose control of the airplane, to NOT stall by recognizing when that potential is coming up fast, and to react instinctively and without conscious thought. We all need to get out and build the muscle memory to keep the plane flying. If we can do that, we're going to generally be OK no matter where the plane finally comes to rest, but if we stall then it's going to end badly, if not fatally.

It's easy to sit around and tell ourselves "don't stall", but what we all need to do is FORCE ourselves to get out and PRACTICE the skills, in our planes, in a meaningful way. Watching a video or reading an article isn't going to cut it. Each one of us needs to take control over our own level of proficiency, and train ourselves to act instinctively. Our accident rate won't really improve until we all take this responsibility to heart. let's each commit to being part of the solution, not a potential problem waiting to happen.

Jeff

Excellent post Jeff, and a great topic. I've watched this video a couple of times, and it is well worth everyone's time to watch it at least once. I have personally been very close to a couple of accidents that would probably not have occurred at all, or would have been much less severe, if a little bit of, or a little bit MORE of, pre-planning or contemplation would have taken place. In one instance the pilot survived and was able to articulate how instinctual, in a very primary way, his reactions became. His situation was an engine failure on takeoff over some very unforgiving terrain. He said that the engine quit and at first he did everything right, but as the trees started to get close he couldn't stop himself from pulling back on the stick. He said he actually can remember thinking that he shouldn't be doing that, but just couldn't stop himself. the result was a stall/spin rather than controlled flight into the trees. He knows and admits that controlled flight into the trees would have resulted in much less serious injury to himself and probably to the aircraft as well.

That's a powerful lesson. We really need to THINK and overcome those primal instincts that will sometimes, maybe often, lead us to take the wrong actions in critical situations. Training helps, A LOT, but mental exercise is very important as well.

Here is another excellent video from this series focusing on an intermittent engine failure (as opposed to a total engine failure) emergency, and the particularly deceptive aspects of thinking you can limp it to the runway versus committing to an off-airport landing.

https://youtu.be/BBpqvPujZgM