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Atlas / NTSB / WPR22LA145

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event WPR22LA145

2022-04-06 Palo Alto, California, United States Airport · PAO Serious 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot’s failure to maintain pitch control during a go-around maneuver, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and impact with the ground.

Factual narrative

The student pilot reported that, he departed on a solo flight, but decided to turn back to his departure airport after he encountered turbulence. During his return to the airport his altitude indication and some engine instruments were appearing intermittently on the glass panel displays. He flew the airport traffic pattern uneventfully and complied with the instructions he received from air traffic control. The student pilot decided to perform a go-around during his first landing attempt after the airplane bounced. He felt that his approach was stable during his second attempt, but the airplane bounced again during touchdown. The student pilot initiated another go-around, but pulled too far back on the yoke, which resulted in a stall and impact with the ground. The wings and fuselage were substantially damaged. The pilot reported that other than the intermittent instrument indications, there were no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. 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-Student/instructed pilot
  • Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Pitch control-Incorrect use/operation
  • Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Angle of attack-Not attained/maintained

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2022_WPR22LA145.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, go-around, turbulence). 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 ↗