Grunau Baby III stall during landing approach at St. Gallen-Altenrhein, pilot injured
On August 3, 1961, a Grunau Baby III was involved in an accident at St. Gallen-Altenrhein Airport in Switzerland. During a training flight, the student pilot initiated a landing approach and entered a left slip. The aircraft stalled at approximately 40 meters altitude and entered a spin, impacting the ground after one and a half rotations. The pilot sustained serious injuries, and the aircraft was heavily damaged. The investigation concluded that the accident was likely caused by a stall during the slip maneuver.
- Winch launch circuit: During a training flight the student pilot winch-launched from Altenrhein grass runway 28 and flew a standard left-hand circuit for landing.
- Tendency to fly slow: On two prior flights that day the instructor had observed the student’s tendency to fly at too low an airspeed on approach.
- Low approach altitude: The student turned onto final at about 80 m above ground, leaving limited height margin for correcting errors on approach.
- Improper slip initiation: While slightly right of the intended final path, the student attempted to initiate a left slip from a shallow angled approach using right rudder followed by left aileron instead of the recommended aileron-then-rudder sequence.
- Stall and spin entry: At about 40 m above ground the glider’s airspeed dropped below stall speed during the slip entry, causing it to drop over the right wing and enter a right spin.
- Crash - serious injury: After about one and a half turns of spin the glider impacted the ground roughly 20 m right of the runway centerline and 500 m before the threshold, seriously injuring the pilot and heavily damaging the aircraft.