Solo student pilot in Cessna crash at Parafield walks away. 05/01/26

[red750]

A student conducting a solo flight in a Cessna 172 at Parafield Airport crashed into the runway. The plane caught fire, which spread to a grass fire, but the student walked away without a scratch.

 

[Moneybox]

I've been told any landing you walk away from is a good one. Did he pass?

[red750]

Says he plans to continue to get his licence.

[onetrack]

He mightn't be so lucky next time he hits the runway like that! - so I hope he's learnt what he did wrong!

[Blueadventures]

1 hour ago, Moneybox said:

I've been told any landing you walk away from is a good one. Did he pass?

As Chuck Y says;- "If you can walk away from a landing, it's a good landing. If you use the airplane the next day, it's an outstanding landing."  Therefore not an outstanding landing I'd say.

[Jabiru7252]

It was a probably a bit lumpy for a first solo - but I'm no instructor.

[red750]

There was no mention of whether he attempted to flare the landing, he just told the reporter "It just kept going down".

[pmccarthy]

That’s one of the most flared landings I have  seen.

[440032]

Quite a flareup, at least.

 

[danny_galaga]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, we need a 😲 reaction 

[Moneybox]

He could have just been awfully unlucky. I had one attempt at landing at Jandakot where we dropped dramatically just after crossing the fence. We pulled up in ground effect over the grass. My instructor slammed the panic button and shouted go-around but it was too late to panic because we were setup for a perfect landing, just about 100m too early. We executed a go-around but I'd have just applied enough throttle to reach the runway. It all happened to quickly for either of us to react in time to prevent to rapid decent.

[rgmwa]

6 hours ago, Moneybox said:

I've been told any landing you walk away from is a good one. 

A really good landing is when you can use the plane again afterwards.

 

Edit: Just saw that Blueadventures beat me to it but I can't delete is now. Still, worth repeating.

Edited Monday at 02:51 PM by rgmwa

[Rotorwork]

Another C172 with Afterburner 🔥

[red750]

Video this morning shows the aircraft attempt to climb with insufficient speed, drop the left wing and fall to the runway.

[BurnieM]

Yep, for some reason the elevators do not work too well with insufficent speed.

 

[facthunter]

What a lot of rubbish, Generally. It's not something to joke about but always seems to happen with Pilots. It could have been a willy willy. Nev

[BurnieM]

I was always paranoid about final speed to the point I was being repeatedly told 'eyes outside'.

I remember being told that as long as the nose is down your risk of stalling is low.

At an early point I understood that just pulling the stick gave a small increase in height immediately followed by a significant decrease in speed.

 

I know it is not a joke but if you did not laugh you would cry. And this will happen again.

 

[facthunter]

Be better IF you Put your mind to WHY it happened. Nev

[Neil_S]

I love the way the Channel 7 reporter said the pilot was "going to do loops" - I think she meant "circuits"......

 

Cheers,

Neil

[BurnieM]

1 hour ago, facthunter said:

Be better IF you Put your mind to WHY it happened. Nev

We know why it happened.

 

Insufficient speed.

Taking too long to recognise this.

Applying too much elevator without applying enough power.

 

In short lack of understanding of several forces at play and lack of understanding of multiple inputs required to recover.

ie inexperience.

 

We could argue about the instructors judgement of the students skillset/decision making but I accept this is very difficult with some low skilled students appearing fine but exhibiting poor decision making when it is all up to them.

 

Edited Tuesday at 12:22 AM by BurnieM

[danny_galaga]

3 hours ago, red750 said:

Video this morning shows the aircraft attempt to climb with insufficient speed, drop the left wing and fall to the runway.

Link?

[Blueadventures]

47 minutes ago, danny_galaga said:

Link?

Was on channel 7 news this morning, shows high AOA before stall.

[red750]

The video was shown on Sunrise this morning but has not been uploaded to the news page on the internet, and has not been uploaded to 7plus streaming, even the Adelaide News version. Other video, of the student pilot being interviewed by the Ch 7 reporter, and vision of the fire and burnt out plane are shown, but not the stall/crash. That may be uploaded later.

[red750]

A report posted on Facebook...

 

A transport safety boss has said a trainee pilot is “a very lucky young man” after his light aircraft crashed into the runway and caught fire at an airport.

 

The 21-year-old was conducting just his third solo flight when the incident occurred at Parafield Airport in Adelaide’s north at 12.30pm on Monday.

 

 

The ATSB has revealed the student was conducting circuit training and attempting a touch-and-go manoeuvre when things went wrong.

 

“They’ve bounced heavily on their first go of touching down the runway. Then, in that sequence of trying to then lift off and apply power, there’s been insufficient airspeed,” Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) Chief Commissioner Angus Mitchell explained.

 

“That’s caused the left wing to stall and to come down and impact with the runway there.”

 

The pilot managed to extract himself from the aircraft and move to safety around 30 seconds after the collision with the ground. The aircraft then caught fire and was destroyed.

 

Despite the dramatic incident, the young aviator, who was unhurt, says he’s keen to get back in the air.

 

“I feel lucky,” he told reporters of the incident.

 

“I just want to practice more and fly better and next time will be better.

 

“It’s a bit sad to lose the plane I’ve been flying like 20 hours (in), but I just want to move on, just want to learn more.”

 

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has confirmed it is investigating the crash.

 

“Very fortunate student pilot, less so fortunate owner of the aircraft,” Mitchell said.

 

Mitchell said investigators would examine the aircraft itself and gather more details about the pilot’s experience and what led to the loss of airspeed that caused the collision.

 

“We see around 20 incidents and accidents every year with student pilots doing solo flights,” he said, noting that student pilots on solo flights present a certain level of risk.

 

The ATSB is still gathering information to determine the full extent of the investigation.

 

The video accompanying the report concentrated on the fire, pall of smoke and burnt out aircraft, and did not show the stall and crash.

[kgwilson]

I assume he had flaps deployed when landing. If full that would be 40 degrees. If it was a T&G it should have been full power, yoke forward to keep the nose down, raise flaps & as speed builds, bring the yoke back to climb pitch. Simple enough but with other things like turbulence and the fact that this was an inexperienced pilot things get mixed up or forgotten & then the excretia hits the fan