CAA ACCIDENT REPORT SUMMARY: PA-28-140
Date of accident: October 31 2000
Time of accident: 0900Z
Aircraft registration: ZS-EXR
Type Of aircraft: PA-28-140
Pilot-in-command licence type: Student
Pilot-in-command flying experience: Total Flying Hours: 44.8
Hours on Type: 44.8
Last point of daparture: Tempe Airport
Next point of intended landing: Tempe Airport
Location of the accident site: S28° 46,473’ E025° 56,798’ @ 5133 +/- 402’ MSL
Meteorological information: Fine weather conditions with little or no wind.
Number of people on board: 1+0
Number of people injured: 0
Number of people killed: 0
Synopsis
The student pilot was on a SOLO training flight in the FABL (Bloemfintein) general flying area, when she observed smoke in the cockpit, smelling like burning plastic. She then decided to carry out a precautionary landing in a ploughed field, directly ahead of the aircraft. Shortly after touch-down the aircraft overturned, sustaining substantial damage to the nose landing gear, nose section, rudder, vertical stabiliser and minor damage to the right-hand wing tip.
During the on-site investigation it was ascertained that all engine - and flight controls were serviceable prior to the accident. It was also ascertained that the circuit breaker (five amp) for the Turn Co-ordinator was tripped. The circuit breaker was then reset but tripped again as soon as the master switch was switched on. No signs of overheating in the electrical wiring of the aircraft were observed during the on-site investigation.
Probable Cause
It would appear that the electrical Turn-Co-ordinator’s circuit breaker caused the smoke in the cockpit as a result of an internal electrical short circuit. The pilot was unfamiliar with Emergency Drill Procedures as the incorrect procedures were followed after she observed smoke in the cockpit.
Jim’s analysis
Flying training is my passion, so when I see something like this it really grabs my interest. A structural failure and an in-flight fire are the two things that most of us put at the top of our list of seriously scary events. There are no emergency procedures for structural failures, and an in-flight fire has so many ifs and buts that most pilots go blank if you ask them what to do when things start smoking.
The trouble is that there are so many things that could cause smoke in the cockpit - a fuel fire, an oil fire, an electrical fire, a cabin fire. Each requires a different procedure.
When a student or low hour pilot does something silly, I am usually on their side. What in their training made them do that? Mostly it’s the instructor.
CAA’s Probable Cause is badly edited and ambiguous. Presumably their last sentense is meant to read, “The pilot was unfamiliar with Emergency Drill Procedures as the correct procedures were NOT followed...”.
Sorry Mr CAA, I have no idea what the Emergency Drill Procedure is for smoke in the cockpit. Of course, I would try to find what was causing the smoke and I would ventilate the cockpit and then I would try to extinguish the source of the problem and I would be looking for a place to land. Surely this is more like common sense than anything that I have ever seen as a drill. And I guess you get better at making intelligent decisions and actions with the more experience you have.
All this puts our poor student in a pickle. There is no cure-all A B C drill for her to follow and she doesn’t have a reserve of experience to draw from.
I would like to know that her ground training had covered the subject of trying to identify the cause of the smoke. They should have taught her how to tell the difference between a petrol fire and an oil fire and an electrical fire and a cabin fire, and then deal with that problem. And how to establish whether you should get on the ground as soon as possible or whether it is okay to keep flying for a while.
In this case she could have simply turned off the master switch and returned to Tempe for a normal landing. But she can’t be blamed for not having the mechanical understanding to do this.
I suspect her lack of knowledge and experience panicked her into throwing the aircraft into the nearest field. Good for her, she did the best she could with her limited knowledge.
What can we learn?
• If your instructor doesn’t teach you how to handle emergencies, get another instructor.
• The more you know the machinery you fly the safer you are going to be.
Jim Davis has 15,000 hours of immensely varied flying experience,
including 10,000 hours civil and military flying instruction. He is an
established author, his current projects being an instructors’ manual
and a collection of Air Accident analyses, called Choose Not To Crash. Visit Jim's website by clicking here.
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