Final Report issued in the crash that killed Russ Francis and Richard McSpadden

[NovaScotiaPatsFan]

The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident to be: A partial loss of engine power for undetermined reasons. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s inadequate preflight weight and balance planning and his aggressive low altitude maneuvering, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and loss of control.

Full Report: https://www.flyingmag.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/McSpadden-FINAL-NTSB.pdf

Video on the Accident

 

[n1997y]

Thanks for posting that. I was surprised how much my perspective changed from experiencing my own inflight engine failure since that crash. It’s ironic that McSpadden was AOPA’s SVP of 5he Air Safety Institute and still fell victim to the “Impossible Turn”. Truly a very tragic incident.

 

[BennyBledsoe]

Just a reminder to everyone... your goal, as a pilot transporting others is to be as boring as ****ing possible. Everything checked, maintained, even beyond regulations.

HINT: if your pilot ever says LET'S HAVE SOME FUN! ... stay on the ground

If the plane doesn't look SPARKLING, stay on the ground.

 

[n1997y]

Just a reminder to everyone... your goal, as a pilot transporting others is to be as boring as ****ing possible. Everything checked, maintained, even beyond regulations.

HINT: if your pilot ever says LET'S HAVE SOME FUN! ... stay on the ground

If the plane doesn't look SPARKLING, stay on the ground.

I disagree. My reason for flying is to have fun, not to experience boredom.

Fun does not necessarily mean excitement btw.

 

[Triumph]

Thanks for posting that. I was surprised how much my perspective changed from experiencing my own inflight engine failure since that crash. It’s ironic that McSpadden was AOPA’s SVP of 5he Air Safety Institute and still fell victim to the “Impossible Turn”. Truly a very tragic incident.

The turn caused the aircraft to lose loft?

Would the wind facing Francis and McFadden have made it the landing easier or it is better to have the wind at their back providing more speed?

 

[Bill Lee]

It’s ironic that McSpadden was AOPA’s SVP of 5he Air Safety Institute and still fell victim to the “Impossible Turn”. Truly a very tragic incident.

Agree, although McSpadden was not flying at that time so we don't know what his approach would have been.

From the video:



I wonder how this would translate into actual instruction. As the video mentioned, Russ took a flight with a CFI right before the accident flight. I wonder if that CFI had some more concrete guide lines for his students.

I am a no-longer-current glider pilot and when we were students we were given some very clear instructions: if below a certain height AGL do NOT try to turn back to the airport, even if it means landing into trees. Mushing into trees is often survivable, spin-stall is rarely survivable. For my particular training glider, it was 200 feet AGL.

We often would survey the local area for the best place to land under various unwanted circumstances. We'd even label them 'Crash Site 1', 'Crash Site 2' etc on our maps. The idea was to be prepared to accept a (hopefully) survivable crash rather than insist on going back to the airport.

I wonder if pilots at Lake Placid do this i.e. project where to point the aircraft and attempt a landing if the engine quits below the height where you can realistically expect to make a 180 degree turn.

In one case our alternate was a nearby roadway, luckily without much road traffic on it. That road did end up getting used at least once that I know of, and perhaps more times than that.

 

[Patjew]

I completely forgot about this.

 

[Bill Lee]

I completely forgot about this.

To be honest I only noted the crash when it happened because I had watched a few of McSpadden's videos in the past. It is only this thread that informed me that it was Patriot Legend Russ Francis that was not just in the plane with him, but also the pilot flying the plane. It makes me even more sad for both of them and their families. IMO both were valued members of their communities and deserved to die of old age in their beds. Also sad that they could not figure out why the engine was not delivering power which makes their deaths seem even more senseless. One reason I quit glider flying was that the risk factor was always present and the enjoyment factor began to level out so I decided to sell the glider and spend the time and money on other things.

 

[Thunderhead]

No mini airplanes or helicopters for me, ever.

 

[NovaScotiaPatsFan]

The turn caused the aircraft to lose loft?

Would the wind facing Francis and McFadden have made it the landing easier or it is better to have the wind at their back providing more speed?

Forgive me if this is overly simplistic since I'm not an engineer and I don't know your level of knowledge, but lift on an airplane is generated by air flowing over the wing. If you'd like to see this effect in action take a piece of paper, hold it on each end and blow over the top of it and you'll see it start to float.

When a plane turns, it tilts or “banks” to one side. That tilt means the lift that normally pushes the plane up is now partly pushing it sideways. So the plane doesn’t get as much upward lift and can start to lose altitude.

To stay level during a turn, the pilot has to pull back on the controls or speed up to make more lift, neither of these options is available to a plane that has either lost engine power, or in this case has reduced engine power, just after takeoff. (and thus at low altitude)

As for taking off and landing you always want the wind blowing at you from the front to generate as much lift while using as little power as possible. That's why airports have so-called "active runways" so they can have planes taking off and landing into the wind.

 

[n1997y]

The turn caused the aircraft to lose loft?

Would the wind facing Francis and McFadden have made it the landing easier or it is better to have the wind at their back providing more speed?

It’s more that the turn made it require more lift. Same net effect. Or a more complicated explanation would be that more speed was needed to generate the required lift. If the speed needed became more than the aircraft speed it would in fact lose lift. That’s what happened. I haven’t looked deeply into the details but off the top of my head they got hit with a double whammy: aircraft speed decreased and required lift increased (so more speed was needed not less)..

One nuance, there are two speeds: airspeed and ground speed. Or actually three, also wind speed. The speeds involved in generating lift are airspeed, the speed of the aircraft through the surrounding air. Once an airplane is aloft the wind really does not affect airspeed; that’s purely the result of aircraft performance, drag, power, etc. Winds matter more for ground speed, as they carry the airplane along with them over the ground. If the plane is flying upwind, wind on the nose for a headwind, wind speed subtracts from airspeed to give groundspeed. Flying downwind with a tailwind it adds.

So taking off into the wind shortens ground roll, attaining flying airspeed at a lower ground speed. Landing with a tailwind lengthens rollout on the ground, winds trying to blow the airplane along the runway.

But they weren’t far enough along for the winds to be a major factor IMO. They were dealing with the immediate problems of keeping a crippled airplane flying and getting it turned around and safely on the ground, and #2 of those defeated #1. They didn’t keep it flying. Airspeed decayed and they ended up asking for more lift than it had, so it fell out of the sky.

Forgive me if this is overly simplistic since I'm not an engineer and I don't know your level of knowledge, but lift on an airplane is generated by air flowing over the wing. If you'd like to see this effect in action take a piece of paper, hold it on each end and blow over the top of it and you'll see it start to float.

When a plane turns, it tilts or “banks” to one side. That tilt means the lift that normally pushes the plane up is now partly pushing it sideways. So the plane doesn’t get as much upward lift and can start to lose altitude.

To stay level during a turn, the pilot has to pull back on the controls or speed up to make more lift, neither of these options is available to a plane that has either lost engine power, or in this case has reduced engine power, just after takeoff. (and thus at low altitude)

As for taking off and landing you always want the wind blowing at you from the front to generate as much lift while using as little power as possible. That's why airports have so-called "active runways" so they can have planes taking off and landing into the wind.

Greatly simplified, but generally good enough for purposes of this discussion. One quibble though, most lift is generated by the bottom of the wing not the top. Bernoulli’s Principle is well known but mostly makes a minor contribution to creation of lift. More significant is deflection of the air downward by the wing moving through it. You can demonstrate this in a moving car, by sticking your hand out the open window holding it flat and parallel to the road surface. Twist your hand slightly and you’ll feel the air pushing it down or up against the flat surface.

Great explanation of lift vector btw. At the risk of complicating things, there’s more to it. Not only is the lift vector no longer purely vertical but there are also G forces created by turning that increase the total amount of lift required.

Another complicating factor, for the pilots not just complicating the explanation, is that there are some asymmetries between the inside wing and the outside wing. These frequently result in one wing losing lift before the other. If that happens bad things ensue. Very bad if it happens at low altitude with no time to recover.

 

[n1997y]

Agree, although McSpadden was not flying at that time so we don't know what his approach would have been.

From the video:



I wonder how this would translate into actual instruction. As the video mentioned, Russ took a flight with a CFI right before the accident flight. I wonder if that CFI had some more concrete guide lines for his students.

I am a no-longer-current glider pilot and when we were students we were given some very clear instructions: if below a certain height AGL do NOT try to turn back to the airport, even if it means landing into trees. Mushing into trees is often survivable, spin-stall is rarely survivable. For my particular training glider, it was 200 feet AGL.

We often would survey the local area for the best place to land under various unwanted circumstances. We'd even label them 'Crash Site 1', 'Crash Site 2' etc on our maps. The idea was to be prepared to accept a (hopefully) survivable crash rather than insist on going back to the airport.

I wonder if pilots at Lake Placid do this i.e. project where to point the aircraft and attempt a landing if the engine quits below the height where you can realistically expect to make a 180 degree turn.

In one case our alternate was a nearby roadway, luckily without much road traffic on it. That road did end up getting used at least once that I know of, and perhaps more times than that.

We don’t know who was flying at time of the crash. We know Russ was aircraft owner, flying left seat as PIC (Pilot In Command), and was PF (Pilot Flying) for takeoff. As former commander of the USAF Thunderbirds and director of AOPA’s Air Safety Institute McSpadden was exceptionally well qualified and much more experienced than Russ. We do not know whether that led to a transfer of responsibilities after the initial problem manifested. We do know that they had preplanned a transfer of PF responsibilities for the planned formation flight.

That question is part of the bigger picture of CRM (****pit Resource Management) and crew dynamics. We cannot know how those played out during the accident. Both were very experienced, but there was still a big imbalance. It’s impossible to say how that might have affected performance in the moment, but it could well have had significant effects that might have contributed to the unfavorable outcome. Can’t say, will never know.

Last point, re pilots at Lake Placid looking at the airport environment and anticipating where to put it in event of an emergency is almost certainly routine. If it’s not they’re the only pilots who do not do so. Russ being based there would know the environment well enough for that to be second nature. My understanding is that there weren’t many hospitable emergency landing sites nearby. That may well have influenced decision making along with the crew dynamics I mentioned.

EDIT TO ADD: my first paragraph also describes my experience when my engine failed in flight. As aircraft owner I was left seat, PF and PIC. My passenger was the CFI who initially had checked me out in that plane. He’s also an Army officer and command pilot (rotorcraft). When the engine went “POP” and sounded sick his instincts kicked in and he immediately announced “my airplane”. So he immediately became PF when I answered “your airplane” to acknowledge transfer of control. I took over the radio and navigation functions he’d been performing, and he flew a perfect emergency landing on a nearby airport (snow covered and closed for the winter but usable). Our CRM was almost perfect if I do say so myself. Don’t think Francis and McSpadden could’ve done it better.

 

[Triumph]

Forgive me if this is overly simplistic since I'm not an engineer and I don't know your level of knowledge, but lift on an airplane is generated by air flowing over the wing. If you'd like to see this effect in action take a piece of paper, hold it on each end and blow over the top of it and you'll see it start to float.

Yes, I had a friend who was a Delta pilot and 737 instructor. He taught all new Delta pilots how to fly the 737 when it was first debuted.

He told me that air atoms and molecules split because of the front of the wing and when they come back together at the rear of the wing and that causes lift.

When a plane turns, it tilts or “banks” to one side. That tilt means the lift that normally pushes the plane up is now partly pushing it sideways. So the plane doesn’t get as much upward lift and can start to lose altitude.

Exactly what I thought.

In this case they already didn't have enough altitude to play with, but probably had no other viable options to land.

To stay level during a turn, the pilot has to pull back on the controls or speed up to make more lift, neither of these options is available to a plane that has either lost engine power, or in this case has reduced engine power, just after takeoff. (and thus at low altitude)

As for taking off and landing you always want the wind blowing at you from the front to generate as much lift while using as little power as possible. That's why airports have so-called "active runways" so they can have planes taking off and landing into the wind.

I suppose in this accident if the wind was directed at them while trying to land without power wouldnt have helped or at best it would have been a 50 - 50 shot for a positive outcome.

I was just thinking that if I was a pilot would I ask to have the wind at my back taking off in case there was the loss of engine power.

 

[Triumph]

It’s more that the turn made it require more lift. Same net effect. Or a more complicated explanation would be that more speed was needed to generate the required lift. If the speed needed became more than the aircraft speed it would in fact lose lift. That’s what happened. I haven’t looked deeply into the details but off the top of my head they got hit with a double whammy: aircraft speed decreased and required lift increased (so more speed was needed not less)..

One nuance, there are two speeds: airspeed and ground speed. Or actually three, also wind speed. The speeds involved in generating lift are airspeed, the speed of the aircraft through the surrounding air. Once an airplane is aloft the wind really does not affect airspeed; that’s purely the result of aircraft performance, drag, power, etc. Winds matter more for ground speed, as they carry the airplane along with them over the ground. If the plane is flying upwind, wind on the nose for a headwind, wind speed subtracts from airspeed to give groundspeed. Flying downwind with a tailwind it adds.

So taking off into the wind shortens ground roll, attaining flying airspeed at a lower ground speed. Landing with a tailwind lengthens rollout on the ground, winds trying to blow the airplane along the runway.

But they weren’t far enough along for the winds to be a major factor IMO. They were dealing with the immediate problems of keeping a crippled airplane flying and getting it turned around and safely on the ground, and #2 of those defeated #1. They didn’t keep it flying. Airspeed decayed and they ended up asking for more lift than it had, so it fell out of the sky.

I'm guessing that there were no options to land other than turning the plane around.

No long fields or highways.