This is episode 42, and we’re diving into a particular category of aviation accidents — those that happen right at the beginning of a pilot’s journey. We’re talking about ab initio training mishaps.
Ab initio, Latin for “from the beginning,” refers to a training path designed for aspiring pilots who start with zero flight time. Nothing. Not a minute logged, not a system diagram understood. These courses take students from ground zero to the right-hand seat of a commercial flight deck — through a tightly structured mix of theory, simulator time, and real-world flying.
They’re intense and sometimes quite fast. And they aim to do two things: produce skilled, airline-ready pilots and identify those who should probably find another career.
Many of these programmes are tied directly to airlines, which means you’re taught from the outset to fly their way — their SOPs, their ethos, their cockpit culture. That brings clear advantages. The pathway is laid out: from the classroom to the cockpit, without the detours of fragmented, school-hopping training. For many, there’s financial backing too — covering tuition, even living costs — opening doors for those who’d otherwise never afford to fly.
There’s also the camaraderie. Like a military intake, you form close bonds under pressure, guided by seasoned instructors and surrounded by peers. And at the end, a job may be waiting — conditional on success.
But it’s not all lift and no drag.
Freedom? Limited. You’re often bonded to the airline for years — and leaving early can come with steep penalties. Career flexibility? Not much. Your training is airline-specific, and if you decide to fly charter or head bush, you may be back at square one.
Contrary to the doomsaying of many veteran aviators, the accident rate during ab initio flight training in the United States has fallen by close to 50% — measured per flight hour - it shows between 2000 and 2019, the number of fatal training accidents almost halved. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association’s Air Safety Institute has the data to back it up.
In the early 2000s, the accident rate hovered around 0.49 per 100,000 flying hours. By 2009, that fell to 0.39. By 2019, the rate dipped to 0.26 per 100,000 hours — a substantial decline.
The top three causes of fatal training accidents haven’t changed much over time. They are, in order:
1. Loss of control in flight
2. Midair collisions
3. Controlled Flight Into Terrain — CFIT — the old nemesis flight into the granite cloud.
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This is episode 42, and we’re diving into a particular category of aviation accidents — those that happen right at the beginning of a pilot’s journey. We’re talking about ab initio training mishaps.
Ab initio, Latin for “from the beginning,” refers to a training path designed for aspiring pilots who start with zero flight time. Nothing. Not a minute logged, not a system diagram understood. These courses take students from ground zero to the right-hand seat of a commercial flight deck — through a tightly structured mix of theory, simulator time, and real-world flying.
They’re intense and sometimes quite fast. And they aim to do two things: produce skilled, airline-ready pilots and identify those who should probably find another career.
Many of these programmes are tied directly to airlines, which means you’re taught from the outset to fly their way — their SOPs, their ethos, their cockpit culture. That brings clear advantages. The pathway is laid out: from the classroom to the cockpit, without the detours of fragmented, school-hopping training. For many, there’s financial backing too — covering tuition, even living costs — opening doors for those who’d otherwise never afford to fly.
There’s also the camaraderie. Like a military intake, you form close bonds under pressure, guided by seasoned instructors and surrounded by peers. And at the end, a job may be waiting — conditional on success.
But it’s not all lift and no drag.
Freedom? Limited. You’re often bonded to the airline for years — and leaving early can come with steep penalties. Career flexibility? Not much. Your training is airline-specific, and if you decide to fly charter or head bush, you may be back at square one.
Contrary to the doomsaying of many veteran aviators, the accident rate during ab initio flight training in the United States has fallen by close to 50% — measured per flight hour - it shows between 2000 and 2019, the number of fatal training accidents almost halved. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association’s Air Safety Institute has the data to back it up.
In the early 2000s, the accident rate hovered around 0.49 per 100,000 flying hours. By 2009, that fell to 0.39. By 2019, the rate dipped to 0.26 per 100,000 hours — a substantial decline.
The top three causes of fatal training accidents haven’t changed much over time. They are, in order:
1. Loss of control in flight
2. Midair collisions
3. Controlled Flight Into Terrain — CFIT — the old nemesis flight into the granite cloud.
Episode 40 is about maintenance blunders. Aviation is littered with a long list of these, sometimes it the failure of unofficial parts, sometimes its poor management, sometimes engineers who cut corners - and believe it or not, all three.
Because the topic is vast, I’m going to return to this subject in future podcasts.
In this episode we’re going to focus on ground crews replacing important components with non-certified parts and what happens to aeroplanes when you do that.
Our first nomination - the 1949 Strato-Freight Curtiss C-46A crash into the ocean 10 kilometers west of San Juan-Isla Grande airport in Puerto Rico which killed 53 of the 81 people aboard. The plane was en route to Miami and what happened was not just a story of bad maintenance.
Three days prior to the accident, on 4 June 1949 the Strato Freight C-46 arrived in San Juan from Newark, New Jersey for regular maintenance. Mechanics installed a new flap follow cable, then checked both engines and they noted the right engine was misfiring.
Thirteen new spark plugs were installed, the engines cleared and the Curtiss C-46 D registration NC92857 was sent back to its routes. We’ll come back to the problem with the plugs in a moment.
On 7 June the Curtiss was cleared for a flight to Miami, taxying to the runway at 00:10 a midnight flight. Cheaper flight and strike two was the crew overloaded the plane.
There were 75 passengers aboard, including five infants, babes in arms, and 14 other children aged between 2 and 12. Captain Lee Howard Wakefield was in charge, also on board were Captain Alfred Cockrill — the company chief pilot and vice president of Strato-Freight. Copilots were John Connell and George Cary. Stewardess as they called them back in the day, was Judith Hale.Moving along to example two of flouting maintenance rules A Transat Flight 236 from Toronto to Lisbon scheduled August 24th 2001. Everyone survived this accident as you’ll hear.
The Airbus A330 lost all engine power while flying over the Atlantic Ocean- all because of improper maintenance. This incident became known as the Azores Glider - it was the longest passenger aircraft glide without engines at that point, gliding for nearly 75 miles or 121 km
As you’re going to hear, the flight crew made the situation worse although they apparently appeared to get a bad rap.
Experienced pilot 48 year-old Captain Robert Piché was in command, first officer was 28 year-old Dirk DeJager. Piche had 16 800 hours with 796 on an Airbus, while DeJager had logged 4800 hours - 386 on an Airbus. The aircraft was registered as C-GITS configured with 362 seats and placed in service by Air Transat on April 28, 1999. It was powered by two Rolls-Royce Trent 772B-60 engines.
Leaving the gate in Toronto, the aircraft had 46.9 tonnes of fuel on board, 4.5 tonnes more than required by regulations. So how did it run out of fuel?The third example of poor maintenance involved the British Airways Flight 5390 1990 event which is very well known, when an improperly installed windscreen blew out, causing the Captain Timothy Lancaster to be sucked partially out of the flight deck.
Again, this was a matter of millimetres. First the events of 10th June 1990.
The County of South Glamorgan was a BAC One-Eleven Series 528FL jet airliner, registered as G-BJRT, captained by 42-year-old Timothy Lancaster. He had 11,050 flight hours, including 1,075 hours on the BAC One-Eleven, while the first officer was 39-year-old Alastair Atchison who had logged 7,500 flight hours — 1,100 of them on the BAC One-Eleven.
The aircraft carried four cabin crew and 81 passengers. Atchison flew what was called a routine take-off at 08:20 local time, then handed control to Lancaster as the BAC One-Eleven Series climbed. As was the habit at the time, both pilots released their shoulder harnesses and Lancaster went further, loosening his lap belt.
Plane Crash Diaries
This is episode 42, and we’re diving into a particular category of aviation accidents — those that happen right at the beginning of a pilot’s journey. We’re talking about ab initio training mishaps.
Ab initio, Latin for “from the beginning,” refers to a training path designed for aspiring pilots who start with zero flight time. Nothing. Not a minute logged, not a system diagram understood. These courses take students from ground zero to the right-hand seat of a commercial flight deck — through a tightly structured mix of theory, simulator time, and real-world flying.
They’re intense and sometimes quite fast. And they aim to do two things: produce skilled, airline-ready pilots and identify those who should probably find another career.
Many of these programmes are tied directly to airlines, which means you’re taught from the outset to fly their way — their SOPs, their ethos, their cockpit culture. That brings clear advantages. The pathway is laid out: from the classroom to the cockpit, without the detours of fragmented, school-hopping training. For many, there’s financial backing too — covering tuition, even living costs — opening doors for those who’d otherwise never afford to fly.
There’s also the camaraderie. Like a military intake, you form close bonds under pressure, guided by seasoned instructors and surrounded by peers. And at the end, a job may be waiting — conditional on success.
But it’s not all lift and no drag.
Freedom? Limited. You’re often bonded to the airline for years — and leaving early can come with steep penalties. Career flexibility? Not much. Your training is airline-specific, and if you decide to fly charter or head bush, you may be back at square one.
Contrary to the doomsaying of many veteran aviators, the accident rate during ab initio flight training in the United States has fallen by close to 50% — measured per flight hour - it shows between 2000 and 2019, the number of fatal training accidents almost halved. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association’s Air Safety Institute has the data to back it up.
In the early 2000s, the accident rate hovered around 0.49 per 100,000 flying hours. By 2009, that fell to 0.39. By 2019, the rate dipped to 0.26 per 100,000 hours — a substantial decline.
The top three causes of fatal training accidents haven’t changed much over time. They are, in order:
1. Loss of control in flight
2. Midair collisions
3. Controlled Flight Into Terrain — CFIT — the old nemesis flight into the granite cloud.
