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Atlas / NTSB / BFO89LA042

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event BFO89LA042

1989-06-05 SUFFOLK, Virginia, United States Airport · SFQ None 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

AN INADVERTENT STALL DUE TO FAILURE OF THE STUDENT PILOT TO OBTAIN ADEQUATE FLYING SPEED AND INADEQUATE SUPERVISION BY THE INSTRUCTOR PILOT (CFI). THE INOPERATIVE STALL WARNING SYSTEM WAS CONSIDERED TO BE A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR. THE INTERMITTENT INTERCOMM PROBLEM WAS A POSSIBLE CONTRIBUTING FACTOR.

Factual narrative

THE CFI AND STUDENT WERE PERFORMING A SIMULATED SOFT FIELD TAKEOFF FROM A PAVED RWY WHEN THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED. THE CFI STATED THAT FULL PWR WAS APPLIED WITH 75 PERCENT FLAPS AND FULL BACK STICK WAS USED. ONCE AIRBORNE, BACK PRESSURE WAS RELEASED AND THE ACFT SETTLED TO THE RWY. BACK PRESSURE WAS AGAIN APPLIED AND THE ACFT BECAME AIRBORNE. ONCE AGAIN, BACK PRESSURE WAS RELEASED AND THE ACFT SETTLED TOWARD THE RWY. TO PREVENT THE ACFT FROM CONTACTING THE RWY, THE CFI APPLIED BACK PRESSURE AND THE ACFT ENTERED WHAT HE DESCRIBED AS A LEFT YAWING TURN. SUBSEQUENTLY, THE ACFT CONTACTED THE TERRAIN IN A LEFT WING LOW ATTITUDE AND SKIDDED TO A STOP OFF THE LEFT SIDE OF THE RWY. THE CFI REPORTED THE REAR COCKPIT STALL WARNING WAS INOP AND THE INTERCOMM SYSTEM HAD AN INTERMITTENT PROBLEM. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_1989_BFO89LA042.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 ↗