NTSB CAROL · Event
Event ERA21LA215
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
Both pilots’ failure to maintain control during the landing flare and the flight instructor’s failure to maintain control during an attempted go-around, in gusting quartering headwind conditions, which resulted in the exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack and an aerodynamic stall at low altitude.
Factual narrative
The flight instructor and a private pilot receiving instruction stated completed commercial pilot training maneuvers uneventfully and were returning to the airport for a full stop landing. The flight instructor advised the student to fly a higher approach speed due to a right quartering headwind at 10 knots, gusting to 18 knots. As the airplane entered ground effect, the nose was pointed 45° right of runway centerline. The instructor then took control of the airplane, along with the student, and tried to correct; however, the airplane drifted left of the runway. The instructor initiated a go-around, but the airplane pitched up, yawed left, and impacted a grass area consistent with an aerodynamic stall. It sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and both wings. The instructor added that she lost control of the airplane and that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12
NTSB Findings
Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).
- — Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Instructor/check pilot
- — Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Student/instructed pilot
- — Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Angle of attack-Capability exceeded
- — Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Pitch control-Not attained/maintained
- — Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Wind-Gusts-Effect on operation
- — Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Altitude-Not specified
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2021_ERA21LA215.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
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Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (stall, go-around). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Conference Paper
Crash Testing and Simulation of a Cessna 172 Aircraft: Pitch Down Impact Onto Soft Soil
During the summer of 2015, NASA Langley Research Center conducted three full-scale crash tests of Cessna 172 (C-172) aircraft at the NASA Langley Landing and Impact Research (LandIR) Facility.
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Technical Memorandum (TM)
Simulating the Impact Response of Three Full-Scale Crash Tests of Cessna 172 Aircraft
During the summer of 2015, a series of three full-scale crash tests were performed at the Landing and Impact Research Facility located at NASA Langley Research Center of Cessna 172 aircraft.
- NASA NTRS 2026 · Conference Paper
Computational Analysis of Steady State Aerodynamics of Transonic Truss-Braced Wing Configuration in Deep Stall
This study presents a computational investigation of steady state aerodynamics of the Subsonic Ultra-Green Aircraft Research (SUGAR) Transonic Truss-Braced Wing (TTBW) configuration over a wide range …
- NASA NTRS 2025 · Conference Paper
A Training Study to Improve Monitoring During A Go-Around
As part of an FAA program to improve go-around (GA) safety, we were asked to determine if we could improve the performance of the Pilot Monitoring (PM) during a GA maneuver.
- Flight Safety Foundation 2024 · FSF / AeroSafety World
Go-Around Safety Forum Findings
Foundation Go-Around Safety Forum technical findings — examines why pilots fail to execute go-arounds when criteria are met (stabilized approach gate not met, energy state out of envelope, traffic con…
- arXiv 2023 · arXiv preprint
Automating Bird Diverter Installation through Multi-Aerial Robots and Signal Temporal Logic Specifications
This paper tackles the task assignment and trajectory generation problem for bird diverter installation using a fleet of multi-rotors.
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗