I came to think of this after reading the spin recovery thread.
Recently the final report was released of an accident with a DA42 that belonged to a flight school in Sweden. The report is in english and here is a brief summary(spoiler!) before you read the full report:
Date: 2016-01-22, 7 pm(so it was dark)
Aircraft: DA42 Twinstar
Occupants: One instructor and two students
Weather: Low overcast at about 400 ft up to 2000 ft
They were at 4500 ft and the instructor was demonstrating deep stall. Initially 25-30 degrees pitch up with a 30 degree bank to the left. Before approaching the stall full power was applied and the stick was taken further back.The aircraft inadvertently entered a flat spin which the instructor was not able to recover from despite using differential power. They spun for the 30 seconds before ending up in the woods, initially 10 000 ft/min and then 3700 ft/min descent. And this is the amazing part, they all survived with non lethal injuries!
The aircraft was pierced by a tree and spun around it whilst the wings kept hitting nearby trees in the rotation which slowed everything down. The student in the back was tossed out of the aircraft when the tree pierced it and was the one with least amount of injuries. An amazing outcome of what usually is a lethal accident for all occupants.
Quote from the report:
All in all, SHK is of the opinion that it must be possible to guarantee students
at flying schools the same level of flight safety as afforded to passengers on
commercial flights. This accident shows that both regulations and supervision
are deficient with respect to the identification of areas of risk and hazardous
circumstances in conjunction with flight training
Given how incredibly safe commercial flights are, I find that statement quite ignorant. Inevitably, you have to start training on a small lights aircraft and even with the best procedures in the world, I can’t see how that can come anywhere near CAT. Not even private jets are as safe.
We can all agree probably that conducting a maneuver that can get a DA42 into a spin is not very smart, but I am not sure regulation is the right answer.
Kudos to Diamond for building a very strong airplane, it is amazing that they walk away.
mmgreve wrote:
We can all agree probably that conducting a maneuver that can get a DA42 into a spin is not very smart
…and at night above an undercast, it is almost criminally stupid.
I can think of no good reason to have attempted this at night never mind in those conditions.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
I can think of no good reason to have attempted this at night never mind in those conditions.
I can think only of one: the lack of daylight hours at that time of year 
? On the other hand they are far enough south for that not to be too big of an issue.
mmgreve wrote:
I find that statement quite ignorant
It’s unbelievable ignorant. It shows no concept of reality whatsoever.
Reality is a strange thing. It doesn’t abide to human made laws, theories and agendas, if only as odd exceptions. What this accident shows from a realistic point of view is that a flat spin with a twin is not as deadly as ones thought. That, and doing dumb things in the air is as dumb today as it was before.
Aviathor wrote:
I can think only of one: the lack of daylight hours at that time of year ? On the other hand they are far enough south for that not to be too big of an issue.
There was about 7 hours of full daylight and additional 2 hours of civil twilight.
Fly310 wrote:
The aircraft inadvertently entered a flat spin which the instructor was not able to recover from despite using differential power.
According to the report the instructor tried different power settings but did not attempt differential power.
I would think you need to be really competent to spin-recover at night i.e. using instruments only, especially if they might produce misleading indications during a spin.
All in all, SHK is of the opinion that it must be possible to guarantee students
at flying schools the same level of flight safety as afforded to passengers on
commercial flights.
That shows how clueless some accident investigations are – or at least how one can get strange individuals involved in them. This isn’t the first one and it won’t be the last one. There is one current case where the investigator told somebody a few days afterwards it’s no point in investigating it because nothing will be learnt from it
Multi stall training is to first indication only – entering a deep stall with a multi engine T-Tail seems to suggest a deep desire for the Darwinian award Scandinavian section.
