What happened
During the final approach phase of flight, the aircraft type was noted to be traveling at an extremely low speed. The pilot appeared to struggle with overcontrolling the aircraft as it approached the threshold. At an altitude between 50 and 80 feet, the plane leveled out, transitioned into a nose-high attitude, and subsequently entered a right spin.
Prior to the accident, the crew had traveled to Memphis two days earlier to retrieve the STOL-equipped aircraft. During the return flight to Houston, the vendor's chief pilot conducted a check-out of the pilot who was occupying the right seat during the accident. On the day preceding the event, both pilots completed a local flight lasting approximately two hours, followed by an additional 1.3 hours of flight time to Dilley.
Findings
The investigation concluded that the accident was caused by a loss of control in flight during a VFR pattern approach because the pilot failed to maintain sufficient airspeed. Several contributing factors were identified regarding the crew's experience and training:
- The co-pilot had received inadequate transition and upgrade training.
- There was a lack of total experience with this specific aircraft type for the co-pilot.
- The pilot-in-command lacked sufficient experience with the aircraft type.
- There was insufficient supervision provided by the pilot-in-command.
- The sequence of events led to an inadvertent stall spin.