In 2005, an accident occurred to an MD-82 aircraft that bore the characteristics of a Deep Stall.

The report, was released in 2010

The accident involved a West Caribbean MD82 at Machiquez, Venezuela on Aug 16th 2005,
which failed to recover from high altitude stall.
In this accident, the pilot attempted to climb from FL310 to FL330, too high for the aircraft's
weight. Complications arose due to reduced power from the use of engine anti-icing. The stab
was continuously retrimmed by the autopilot until it reached 10.8 units nose up at an AOA of
+7.7. It remained there for the rest of the flight. The autopilot was trimming nose up to maintain
FL330 while the autothrottles were trying to maintain M 0.75. When the engines couldn’t
maintain the speed, it decayed - requiring the autopilot to trim more and more nose up to
maintain the altitude. The speed decayed to M 0.60 and the airplane started descending, unable
to maintain the selected altitude.
The pilot then disconnected the autopilot with the severe mistrim now in place. He never
corrected it. 40 seconds later, with the autothrottle still engaged, the stick shaker activated and
the stall warning went off. The airplane entered a deep stall from which it never recovered.
A deep stall or a super stall is a condition where the wake of the wing impinges on the tail surface and
renders it almost ineffective. The wing is fully stalled, so the airflow on its upper surface separates right
after the leading edge, which produces a wide wake of decelerated, turbulent air. Consequently, the dynamic
pressure at the tail surface is much smaller than in un- stalled flight, which is the main reason for the
reduced effectiveness. Consider the control power of the horizontal tail. When it flies in undisturbed air, it
can trim a wide range of angles of attack. In the deep stall condition, however, its control power is much
reduced, resulting in a much smaller range of trimmable angles of attack. To get out of this trap needs other
changes: Either shift the center of gravity forward, or try to drop one wing. Unfortunately, both the ailerons
and the rudder will also be much less effective due to the massive separation and the wake.
Deep stalls can occur when pilot mismanagement or turbulent air forces the aircraft into a
severe nose-up attitude, and the elevator becomes totally ineffective. Once the aircraft is in
the embrace of a deep stall, there may be no way to force the nose down and fly the aircraft
out of the stalled condition.

To get out of this trap needs other changes: Either shift the center of gravity forward, or try
to drop one wing. Unfortunately, both the ailerons and the rudder will also be much less
effective due to the massive separation and the wake. On multi-engine aircraft, asymmetric
thrust may also succeed in breaking the airplane out of the deep stall.
A swept-back wing tends to stall first near the tips. Since the tips are situated well aft of the
CG, the loss of lift at the tips causes the pitch attitude to increase rapidly and further increase
the angle of attack.

This “automatic” increase in angle of attack, caused by pitch-up, stalls more of the wing. Drag will
increase rapidly, lift will reduce and the aeroplane will start to sink at a constant, nose high, pitch
attitude. This results in a rapid additional increase in angle of attack
Separated airflow from the stalled wing will immerse a high-set tailplane in low energy turbulent air, as
shown in Figure above. Elevator effectiveness is greatly reduced making it impossible for the pilot to decrease
the angle of attack. The aeroplane will become stabilized in what is known as the “super stall” or “deep stall”
condition. The combination of a sweep-back wing and a high mounted tailplane (‘T’ - Tail) are the factors
involved in the “super or deep stall”. Of the two: THE SWEPT-BACK WING IS THE MAJOR
CONTRIBUTORY FACTOR.
The tendency for a swept-back wing to pitch-up can be reduced by design modifications (wing fences,
vortilons and saw tooth leading edges) which minimize the root-to-tip spanwise flow of the boundary layer.
These devices delay tip stall. Vortex generators are also frequently used on a swept wing to delay tip stall and
improve the stall characteristics.

Aircraft such as the DC-9, MD-80, Boeing 727, Fokker 28 and others, have swept-back wings and high
mounted tailplanes (‘T’ - Tail). They also have rear, fuselage mounted engines. The only contribution rear
mounted engines make is that they are the reason the designer placed the tailplane on top of the fin in the first
place. In and of itself, mounting the engines on the rear fuselage does not contribute to super stall.
Deep Stall is a aerodynamic stall
condition that is difficult or
impossible to correct and un- stall
the wing. In some flying tail aircraft
it is the blanketing of the rear
control surfaces by a stalled main
wing. In a canard it is typically a
stalled main wing, which the canard
has no aerodynamic ability to nose
down and correct.
The most likely cause of a deep stall is flying with the CG beyond the aft limit, either
knowingly or unknowingly. Building errors that result in incorrect incidence angles on the
canard or main wing can also be the cause.

A Deep Stall will blank the horizontal stabilizer by wake off the wing at high AOAs, resulting in
loss of elevator effectiveness. When this situation develops, the airplane becomes trapped in a
high AOA - high sink rate, sometimes called a "super stall" - unable to recover using normal
pitch controls or engine power. It is a nasty by-product of airplanes with T-Tails.

Deep Stall entered the aviation world, with the advent of the first T-Tail jet transports, starting
with the Trident and BAC-111 in the early 60s. A number of fatal accidents ensued, involving
the Trident, BAC-111 and Canadair Challenger, despite being flown by professional test pilots.