Collision with terrain involving a Grob G-115C2, VH-ZTE, Hyden North, Western Australia, on 18 February 1998

The student was briefed by his instructor for a solo flight as part of the CPL training Block. The published route is Merredin - Wagin - Hyden - Merredin. The planned landing point for this exercise is Wagin, which has an adequate runway for the purpose. To meet the operational requirement of a 2.5 hour flight, students are permitted to divert en route Wagin to Hyden, direct to Merreden, after considering such factors as ground speed and fuel remaining.

This student elected to divert in the Merredin to Wagin leg, and proceeded to Hyden where he then conducted an unauthroised landing at a private airfield to the North of the town, not the Shire strip as published in the WA Country Airfield Guide. The student later reported that on his final approach for a landing to the South he was distracted by something close to the threshold, possibly a fence, which prompted him to change his original aiming point.

This action lead to a bounce on touch down followed by an attempted go around, during which the aircraft departed the runway centreline to the left towards some trees. He then tried to manoeuvre the aircraft back to the runway and then could not remember hearing the stall warning prior to the impact of the nose and right wing into the ground. The aircraft came to rest 10m from the runway edge sustaining considerable damage to the propellor, engine, nose and right undercarriage plus sundry damage to the airframe including the tailplane.