Narrative:

It was a training flight returning from a cross-country trip. Neither the taf nor metar indicated gust during our preflight briefing. I; the instructor pilot; asked the student to practice a short field landing on runway xxr; more specifically the desired touchdown point was the numbers 'xx' and the letter 'right'. In selecting such a landing spot the aiming spot must be a point before the desired landing area; in this case the blast pad prior to the runway threshold. The student was on final at the appropriate airspeed and glide path was stable; aiming point was also appropriate; power reduction was proper. We transitioned into ground effect and suddenly I noticed the aircraft begin to rapidly lose altitude; speed also decreased. I called for a go-around and I ensured maximum power by pushing the throttle along with the student and controlling pitch to prevent increase drag; knowing that any further loss in altitude and speed would cause us to land on the blast pad. As the go-around procedure was initiated the thrust was not enough to overcome the drag and the aircraft's main gear made contact with the blast pad. During the go-around the tower announced winds at 160 at 5 kts. Gusting to 10. The sudden loss of headwind could be a factor in this unintentional situation. Corrective actions would be to call for a wind check on final when becoming established in a traffic pattern; adding half gust factor to approach speed; as well as no longer selecting the numbers as practice.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: DA40 Instructor reported wind shift on final that caused his student to touch down on the blast pad before the runway threshold.

Narrative: It was a training flight returning from a cross-country trip. Neither the TAF nor METAR indicated gust during our preflight briefing. I; the instructor pilot; asked the student to practice a short field landing on Runway XXR; more specifically the desired touchdown point was the numbers 'XX' and the letter 'R'. In selecting such a landing spot the aiming spot must be a point before the desired landing area; in this case the blast pad prior to the runway threshold. The student was on final at the appropriate airspeed and glide path was stable; aiming point was also appropriate; power reduction was proper. We transitioned into ground effect and suddenly I noticed the aircraft begin to rapidly lose altitude; speed also decreased. I called for a go-around and I ensured maximum power by pushing the throttle along with the student and controlling pitch to prevent increase drag; knowing that any further loss in altitude and speed would cause us to land on the blast pad. As the go-around procedure was initiated the thrust was not enough to overcome the drag and the aircraft's main gear made contact with the blast pad. During the go-around the tower announced winds at 160 at 5 kts. gusting to 10. The sudden loss of headwind could be a factor in this unintentional situation. Corrective actions would be to call for a wind check on final when becoming established in a traffic pattern; adding half gust factor to approach speed; as well as no longer selecting the numbers as practice.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.