My first (and I hope last
) accident was when I was instructing a low hours PPL student for the muti-rating on the schools Seneca. We had finished our upper airwork and were on final for the briefed full stop when I looked at my watch and saw we we still had a bit of time in our booking, so I told the student to do a touch and go instead of a full stop. The tower was quite busy so we were only re-cleared at the last moment but told us to expedite as there was crossing traffic. As soon as the wheels touched I said "lets go" and the student raised the gear instead of the flaps
This accident was entirely my fault, first as I was the PIC, but more importantly because I failed to treat the operation of a complex aircraft with the respect and the discipline it deserved. The student was devastated, but fortunately continued on and is still flying.
There is an amusing side to this story. After shutting down and vacating the aircraft, hastened by the big pool of fuel spreading under the wings, I waited for the crash trucks (it happened at a medium size commercial airport). After about 5 minutes
the trucks finally showed with a very red faced fire chief. It seems they were doing a major dog and pony show for the big wigs and could not come and rescue me until they had put out all the demonstration fires they had set
