A small plane that crashed into a lake east of Edmonton in 2023, killing two men on board, had entered a spin at low altitude moments before impact, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada has ruled.
Flight instructor Alex Lanovaz, 35, and his student were on a standard training flight when their plane crashed into the waters of Beaverhill Lake, about 65 kilometres east of Edmonton, shortly before sunset on Aug. 11, 2023.
When the plane was located in the shallows of the lake hours later, Lanovaz was dead. His student, a 24-year-old man from Leduc, Alta., was taken to hospital but died of his injuries two days later.
On Wednesday, the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) published the findings of its investigation into the crash, which involved a DA20-C1 aircraft, operated by Cooking Lake Aviation Academy.
Investigators ruled that the plane's low altitude during a training flight contributed to the crash. The plane, which took off from the Cooking Lake airport, lost control while practising a spin recovery and suffered a "fatal loss of control," the TSB found.
Investigators described the accident as unsurvivable.
The timelineThe DA20-C1 aircraft, a single-engine two-seater built specifically for flight training, set out from the Cooking Lake airport shortly after 5:30 p.m. MT.
It was the student pilot's 13th training flight toward obtaining a private pilot licence, the TSB said. The purpose of the day's training was to practice slow flight and stalls, and then introduce spins and spiral dives.
For the next 21 minutes, the aircraft conducted upper-air work. At 6:05 p.m., it recovered from the first of two spin manoeuvres the men attempted that day.
A photo of the plane wreckage. Investigators say the pilot was attempting a practice spin when it crashed into the lake. (Transportation Safety Board)The second spin, shortly after 6 p.m., proved catastrophic.
The aircraft entered the second spin at 1,440 metres above sea level, which was approximately 771 metres above the ground, investigators found.
The aircraft remained in the spin until it collided with the surface of Beaverhill Lake.
"For reasons unknown, the flight instructor and student pilot were unable to accomplish the recovery," the TSB report stated.
Little margin for errorInvestigators could not determine exactly what went wrong but noted that such spin manoeuvres must be undertaken no lower than 2,000 feet, or around 609 metres, above the ground.
Entering the second spin at around 771 metres may not have afforded enough "room for recovery" for an aircraft to level out, the TSB found.
"If spin training is initiated from a height that does not provide a pilot a wide enough recovery margin, there is an increased risk of collision with terrain."
"Student pilots are not expected to perform flight exercises perfectly in their first few attempts," TSB investigators wrote.
"Planning to recover from spin manoeuvres at heights lower than those recommended leaves less time to recover from less than ideal flight control inputs that student pilots may make while learning the techniques for spin entry and recovery."
The investigation did not identify any issues related to the airframe or the engine that could have prevented a recovery from the spin.
The plane involved in the crash was a Diamond DA20-C1, like the one in this photo. The low-wing, single-engine aircraft is primarily used for training. (Cooking Lake Aviation Academy Inc.)The aircraft was not required to have a flight data recorder or a cockpit voice recorder; its flight-path data recorder, meanwhile, was damaged in the crash. As a result, it wasn't possible to determine the actions of the flight instructor and student pilot, or determine why a spin recovery was unsuccessful.
Transmitter issues impacted searchThe TSB also found that, due to suspected issues with electrical wiring, the aircraft's emergency locator transmitter failed to automatically activate upon impact, which complicated search and rescue operations.
The aircraft was declared missing at 8 p.m. but without a signal from the plane's transmitter, search and rescue crews were forced to search with no precise location for the crash site.
Instead, emergency officials had to assume the aircraft was somewhere in the vicinity of the Beaverhill Lake practice area, which covers more than 360 square kilometres.
A map, supplied by the Transportation Safety Board, of the final flight path and accident site. (Transportation Safety Board)First responders, including RCMP and military personnel, began searching a massive expanse of forest in the dark. The search continued for more than four hours after sunset, until the plane was eventually found shortly after midnight on Aug. 12.
It was about 200 metres offshore.
The investigation found that the transmitter on board was serviceable but the wiring was not connected and investigators believe it had never been installed.
Following the crash, as the investigation began, the plane's manufacturer, Diamond Aircraft Industries Inc., issued a mandatory service bulletin urging its customers to complete inspections and necessary repairs on their transmitters.
The crash has also resulted in changes to Cooking Lake Academy's flight practices.
The school has since revised its flight operations manual, integrating emergency response procedures and formalizing a minimum altitude for upper-air work such as practice spins, the TSB said.
The new flight operations manual was approved last spring.