Skip to content

Atlas / NTSB / ATL89DLT02

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event ATL89DLT02

1988-10-15 BENTON, Tennessee, United States None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Factual narrative

AS THE STUDENT PILOT WAS ATTEMPTING A DUAL AERIAL TOW FLIGHT AT 100 FEET AGL, HE EXPERIENCED DIFFICULTY IN STAYING BEHIND THE TOW PLANE. THE INSTRUCTOR TOOK OVER THE CONTROLS AND WHILE APPLYING FULL RIGHT AILERON NOTED NO AILERON MOVEMENT. AT 300 FEET AGL THE STUDENT RELEASED THE GLIDER FROM THE TOW PLANE. THE INSTRUCTOR SUBSEQUENTLY STALLED THE AIRCRAFT WHILE ATTEMPTING TO LAND IN AN OPEN FIELD AND SETTLED INTO TREES. EXAMINATION OF THE AIRCRAFT DISCLOSED THAT THE PINS CONNECTING THE AILERONS AND PILOT CONTROLS WERE NOT INSTALLED. THEY WERE NOT LOCATED AT THE ACCIDENT SITE NOR IN THE STAGING AREA. THE INSTRUCTOR STATED THAT HE HAD FLOWN THIS AIRCRAFT 3 TIMES EARLIER THAT DAY. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1988_ATL89DLT02.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (stall). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗