Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
By Mike Charlie
#1617868
How many of us check, and I mean really check our P1 seat is correctly latched before take off? More of a problem for those renting club aircraft I guess, with regular changes, my seat is permanently at maximum rear travel being 6 ft, but I still check its locked tight.



A sad event
By Maxthelion
#1617869
Sad indeed. I almost never fly aircraft with sliding seats, so it's likely this is something I would forget to check. I fly with a specially made seat base that is located using the aircraft seat back structure and if I'm properly strapped down then it can't move at all, but if I have some slack in lap belt it can move very slightly in knife edge flight. I'll be modifying it soon to remove this 'feature'.

I know there have been STCs or whatever they're called promulgated by Cessna that are supposed to address the fallibilities of their seat rails, but I believe they don't solve the problem entirely. It would be great if Cessna could address this more fully, as it seems that there is one of these accidents every few years.
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By ivor.phillips
#1617874
It Happen twice in my training just after rotation, luckily i released the controls and the instructor took over, Both aircraft went to engineering for modified seat rails,
I consider myself very luck because the last one was one flight before my solo cross country nav ex,
the type i fly now has fixed seats so not a problem, but just back from New Zealand where i rented a cessna 172 and carefully checked the rails before flying,
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By Flintstone
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1617885
Mike Charlie wrote:How many of us check, and I mean really check our P1 seat is correctly latched before take off?


Learned my lesson when this happened to me. Luckily my student was handling and only had to deal with a minor (ahem) weight shift.

Now whenever I've adjusted a seat Igive a bum-shuffle fore and aft to make sure it's set.
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By KingJames
#1618005
How incredibly unfortunate.

That web cam looks mighty familiar, pretty sure I saw a video of a load of aircraft having a forced take off due to a weather squall coming through. Is the seat not being latched the only cause or could there be a weather / vortex thing going on as well? It just looked like such a violent manoeuvre.
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By Flintstone
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1618007
I can see how ‘just’ the seat sliding back could cause this.

Most people, when flying from the left seat, have their left hand on the yoke and their right on the throttle. When the seat slides aft the yoke would be pulled back and down/left. To make matters worse the throttle would be pulled out/closed.

The aircraft pitches up, rolls left and stalls (although even with full power it would end the same).
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By Irv Lee
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1618010
Compton Abbas fatality, 1990s sometime. I was a minor hole in the cheese in a very obscure way... the guy killed nearly always flew with a friend (also pilot) in right hand seat (and vice versa) for social company, not for need. I had offered said friend back seat to Calais so accident pilot was alone (he would not have been). Accident was a poor approach and therefore Go Around at CA after flight from Bournemouth, seat went back, no one in RHS to take controls.
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By Rob L
#1618011
riverrock wrote:There was an AD many years ago on this, which I assume should have been applied to all Cessnas some time ago, then a service bulletin more recently, recommending fitting of a secondary seat stop:
https://ad.easa.europa.eu/ad/CE-09-10


Quite right, RiverRock. **** design, fixed by an "AD" at the owner's expense (and then the log book probably signed off by an FAA-approved IA). I own an FAA aircraft in the US, and I think the FAA oversight of maintenance organisations there is Carp.
By Dominie
#1618069
Mike Charlie wrote:How many of us check, and I mean really check our P1 seat is correctly latched before take off?

If you are flying a Cessna, I would guess "most of us". The seat in the 152 I used to get my licence back last year was particularly prone to coming loose even after checking it carefully. I was certainly glad that I was flying with an instructor...!
By Cessna57
#1618075
Although in a PA28, I grab the coaming and push back and forwards to ensure.

I also get my passenger to do it, it reasserts in their mind where they can grab on to if they want to grab something.
rats404 liked this
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By Gertie
#1618087
Mike Charlie wrote:How many of us check, and I mean really check our P1 seat is correctly latched before take off?

I check the passenger seat too. Even if I haven't got a passenger.
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By Genghis the Engineer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1618148
I've had a seat go on me in a C152, whilst flying a stall test from the LHS. I shot to the back, the aeroplane stalled as I was already slow and pulling back and the seat movement before I let go exaccerbated it.

Fortunately I had somebody with a PPL in the RHS so was shouting "You have controooooooooooolllll Mike" as I shot to the back of the aeroplane.

He brought it back under control and I clawed my way back forwards - but I can absolutely see the problem and can only guess at the outcome if that had happened, say, on final.



I did once approve, as an airworthiness engineer, an aeroplane with a similar seat mechanism. I insisted on a backup strap as a mandatory component that would allow the seat forwards but not backwards if the seat pin failed. The designer when I talked him through Cessna problems accepted my argument and it's still mandatory across that particular fleet I believe. I'm good with that bit of "gold plating" that we're so famous for in Britain: the material cost per aircraft was probably less than a tenner.

G
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1618154
We are such disparate sizes in our group that flying after another member almost always means a seat adjustment: All the more reason for scrupulous checking of the pin positions.

Peter :wink:
By Pudnucker
#1618836
I always brief my pax about seat sliding and not grabbing controls - also get them to give it a wriggle..

I also put my flight bag behind my seat - would stop a full slide back..

Horrible accident..