Champion 7ECA N2561G accident near Pembroke Pines, Florida

Probable cause

The pilot’s failure to relinquish the airplane controls to the instructor during a power-off stall maneuver, which prevented the instructor’s recovering from the stall.

NTSB analysis

During a training flight, the pilot receiving instruction “froze on the controls” during a demonstration of a power-off stall. He did not respond to the flight instructor’s commands to release the controls, and the instructor was unable to overpower the pilot’s control inputs. The airplane remained in a stall condition, descended, impacted marshland, and sustained substantial damage to the wings and forward fuselage. The airplane’s altitude at the start of the descent was not captured by radar data; however, the airplane had previously been flying at altitudes of 100 to 500 ft mean sea level in the practice area about 1.5 minutes before radar altitude data was lost.

Text from the NTSB. Open the NTSB docket for ERA20FA003 for the full record.