Plain English Meaning

A landing approach that is too slow or otherwise out of control — wrong speed, wrong descent rate, wrong power, or wrong path — to the point where the pilot can no longer fix it before touchdown. Pulling back on the yoke to slow the descent only makes things worse because the airplane is already too slow.

Full Definition

An approach to landing in which the airplane is not established on the proper flightpath, airspeed, configuration, descent rate, or power setting required for a , and in particular one flown at an airspeed below the recommended where the airplane is operating on the . In this regime, increasing to arrest increases faster than can overcome, producing and an increasing sink rate that cannot be before .