Where Do Spin Accidents Occur?

Slow flight and stall training helps you prevent a stall – the predecessor to a spin. Spin training teaches you to recover from a spin. But to recover from a real-life, unintentional spin, you’ll need both the time (altitude) and skill to recover.

Analysis of NTSB accident investigations from January 1, 2012 through December 31, 2015 found 53 accidents in that data set, and then broken down by phase of flight.

By far, most of the spin accidents occurred at low altitude, below or near 1,000′ AGL – during takeoff, landing, go-around or maneuvering. Only a few spins, 17%, clearly started above 1,000′ AGL.

Determining the entry altitude for each accident was difficult and the NTSB wasn’t able to reliably determine entry altitude for many of the accidents. But, by considering the phase of flight, you can get a rough idea of altitude. You’ll find the NTSB identifiers in parentheses.