CASA Reminds Pilots to Check their Seat Rails for Proper Locking Capability 

A reminder from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau brought a classic Cessna bugbear to the fore with a review of a recent incident during takeoff, this time in a Sling 2 taking off for a training flight.

Luckily the incident did not turn out poorly for the student pilot, who was starting off their very first solo flight when the seat locking mechanism unlatched, dumping them backwards upon rotation. The incident highlights a bit of the convenience of a floor-mounted stick, since all it required was the reduction of throttle and some hand braking to bring the Sling 2 back to rest without leaving the runway. As many in the GA community know, an unlatched seat can turn quite deadly when the pilot reflexively pulls on the yoke to stay in position. Such an accident occurred in Queensland in 2014, when a Cessna 206 stalled after takeoff and fatally injured 5. In that incident, the Bureau suspected that the pilot seat’s rear rail stop was not fitted, allowing the seat base to disengage from the rear of the seat rails. 

The problem has been a pretty consistent issue in the Cessna community, with the Aussie FAA equivalent publishing an airworthiness bulletin in line with the rest of the world in 2018. CASA warned all single-engine Cessna operators about the vital importance of “meticulous inspection and timely maintenance to ensure pilot seats, adjustment mechanisms, and seat track locking mechanisms are secured correctly to prevent inadvertent seat movement, particularly during critical phases of flight.”

The occurrence of the same phenomenon in a non-Cessna aircraft, while not quite the first thing that comes to mind, is something to be noted and guarded against, no matter the make and model.

FMI: www.atsb.gov.au