L2012-04 Aircraft accident at Alastaro racing circuit on 8 May 2012

28.1.2014

An aircraft accident occurred at Alastaro Circuit on Tuesday 8 May 2012 at 18.32 Finnish time. A Cessna FA152 Aerobat aircraft registered OH-CKB, owned and operated by the Finnish Aviation Academy based at Pori Airport, collided with the ground. The aircraft caught fire on impact and was completely destroyed. The pilot, who was alone on board, was killed immediately. The pilot had departed for a VFR cross-country flight (under visual flight rules) from Pori in accordance with the flight training syllabus. The meteorological conditions were good at the time of departure. According to radar recordings, the pilot had flown at a height of about 1000 feet to the village of Yläne, from where he intended to fly to Huittinen via Alastaro. He followed the planned route quite roughly. About 13 km before Alastaro he reached road no. 9 leading from Turku to Tampere. Alastaro Circuit is located along this road, and the next turnpoint at Huittinen follows after it. When the pilot reached the road, he started to follow it towards Huittinen without flying to Alastaro. The circuit is located about five kilometres from the point where the pilot started to follow the road towards the north. After reaching the circuit the pilot began circling above it at a height of about 600–1000 feet (180–300 m) from the ground, as a result of this he lost control of the aircraft and crashed onto the circuit. People who saw the crash reported the accident immediately to the local emergency response centre.

The investigation showed that student pilots sometimes regarded the daily cross-country flights as tedious and not challenging enough, especially as there could be three to five successive flights on the same day. On such cross-country flights many students had been performing activities that were not included in the flying exercise, such as aerial photography. It also came out that the requirements for spin avoidance training in PPL instruction were partly unclear, and the flight schools’ training instructions were inadequate in the same respect.

The probable cause of the accident was a sudden asymmetric turn stall which developed during the climbing, steepening turn. It caught the pilot by surprise and led to a complete loss of flight attitude control. The stall developed because the pilot failed to sufficiently monitor the aircraft’s attitude and flight data as he was circling above the motor circuit and paying too much attention to the events on the circuit.

Because of the pilot’s short flying experience and the low flight altitude, he was unable to make the correct recovery manoeuvres quickly enough and the aircraft collided with the ground.

A contributing factor to the accident was that the pilot decided to divert from the planned route to look for Alastaro racing circuit, which he had previously not found. After he located the circuit and noticed that there was an event going on, he started circling above it.

Safety Investigation Authority, Finland (SIAF) issued seven safety recommendations, two to the European Aviation Safety Agency, four to the Finnish Transport Safety Agency and one to the Finnish Aviation Academy. The recommendations emphasised the need to clarify instructions for spin avoidance and recovery from other unusual attitudes. SIAF also recommended that the Finnish Aviation Academy improve the planning of flight instruction so that students would not need to repeatedly fly several successive flights on the same day.

L2012-04 Report (pdf, 0.77 Mt)