Lost Stability and Control

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 152, 30 June 1938, Page 6

Lost Stability and Control

BOARD’S INQUIRY INTO MANGATAHI TRAGEDY Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Judo 29. The board of inquiry which investigated the flying accident in which Miss N. Amott and Mr R. B. Arnott were killed in Hawke’s Bay, found that while flying in cloud the pilot lost stability and control, a condition which is likely to deyelop when the pilot has no specialised training in blind flying, and where cloud is sufficiently dense and extensive to obliterate effective observation. A dive is one of the results arising from this lack of control, and recovery from it necessitates, inter alia, careful use of the elevator control. In the view of the board the pilot erred in her judgment in entering, instead of avoiding, cloud, and finds that the effective cause of the accident to be that in attempting to recover from the resultant power dive the pilot used the elevator control so harshly as to subject the main planes to such exceptional strain that portion of the starboard main plane structure was damaged, culminating in complete failure of the aircraft and its crash to earth. The board recommends that aero clubs be communicated with, and the dangers associated with flying into clouds bq reiterated and stressed.