More details
Crashed Pinnacle jet had earlier problem
Jon Tevlin and Tony Kennedy, Star Tribune
October 16, 2004 PINNACLE1016
JEFFERSON CITY, MO. -- Alphia Witham may have been the only person on Hutton Lane to go to bed early on Thursday. Instead of watching the playoff baseball game between the St. Louis Cardinals and Houston Astros like her neighbors, Witham went to sleep in the back bedroom of her small ranch home on a hill overlooking Jefferson City.
She didn't sleep long. At 10:13 p.m. a 50-seat Northwest Airlink plane with only the pilot and copilot on board slammed into her back yard, about 35 feet from her bedroom window.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating why the relatively new Canadair Regional Jet CRJ-200 crashed, killing the pilots. The plane, which has a strong safety record worldwide, carried no passengers and was en route to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport from Little Rock, Ark.
The jet's operator, Pinnacle Airlines, a Northwest Airlines affiliate, said the plane was being positioned for a Friday departure from the Twin Cities. On Friday night, federal investigators said the jet had aborted a scheduled flight Thursday from Little Rock after an indicator light went on for a mechanical system that distributes engine heat throughout the plane.
An airplane indicator light typically signifies a problem.
Pinnacle, based in Memphis, operates 102 daily departures from the Twin Cities on behalf of Northwest Airlines.
Thursday night's accident was the first fatal crash of any type of airplane for Pinnacle since Dec. 1, 1993, when a Northwest Airlink turboprop plane slammed into a mound of mining debris in Hibbing, Minn., killing all 18 on board. That flight, the deadliest air disaster in Minnesota, was operated by Pinnacle's predecessor, Express Airlines I.
NTSB spokeswoman Carol Carmody, also a member of the board, said Friday that the pilots asked to make an emergency landing in Jefferson City after reporting engine trouble.
The NTSB said late Friday that the plane was flying at 41,000 feet when it dropped to 25,000 feet and reported one engine was lost. The jet continued dropping, and at 13,000 feet, the pilots said they lost a second engine. The tower lost contact with the plane at 9,000 feet, the NTSB said Emergency vehicles were on their way to the airport when the plane crashed about a mile short of the runway. The pilots were Capt. Jesse Rhodes of Palm Harbor, Fla., and First Officer Richard Peter Cesarz of Helotes, Texas. Rhodes joined Pinnacle in February 2003. Previously he had been a captain at another regional airline and had more than 6,700 flight hours, the company said. Pinnacle said Cesarz joined the company in June 2004.
Witnesses said they heard a low rumble that sounded like thunder shortly before the massive explosion. The flames were so high and the smoke so thick that people 100 feet away couldn't see Witham's house.
"I tell you, these two ladies come into my house, and they were screaming and a-hollering 'Get out of the house,' " said Witham, 78. "I didn't know what was going on. I was in my nightgown and didn't have no shoes."
Like others along Hutton Lane, Witham was stunned at how the 4-year-old twin-engine jet landed in an open spot between three houses in a densely populated neighborhood of modest single-family homes and apartment buildings.
The plane's left wing apparently clipped a tree before it plunged into the hill, Carmody said. The craft broke apart, with the cockpit landing about 70 yards from the fuselage. The plane's tail was in the ground, with one engine through a fence of the home next to Witham's. The heat melted vinyl siding off one house and scorched a back-yard trampoline.
"When I saw the size of the fire, I thought it would spread down the block," said Dana Muessig, cradling her 4-month old, Audrey. "It almost seemed like he aimed for that spot; it was just a perfect spot."
As residents returned Friday to pick up belongings, a team of investigators picked through rubble. The plane's black box and flight data recorder were sent to NTSB offices in Washington.
While some neighbors said it appeared that the plane's left engine was on fire before the crash, Carmody could not confirm that. She said the preliminary investigation would take several days and the final report would take months.
Philip Reed, a spokesman for Pinnacle, said the accident did not cause the airline to change its Friday schedule. In a written statement, Pinnacle Chief Executive Officer Philip Trenary said, "I am greatly saddened by the loss of our crew."
Linked to Northwest
Pinnacle was founded in 1985 and acquired by Northwest Airlines in 1997. Though the company went public last year, Pinnacle has no consumer identity of its own. Its planes are owned by Northwest, are painted Northwest colors and bear Northwest's logo. The company changed its name to Pinnacle in 2001. Eagan-based Northwest, which owns about 11 percent of Pinnacle's stock, also controls its scheduling, pricing, reservations and ticketing.
Because pilots and other employees at regional operators such as Pinnacle and Mesaba Airlines are paid less than their counterparts at the major carriers, Northwest and other big airlines increasingly rely on them to serve smaller or developing markets.
Pinnacle operates more flights out of Minneapolis-St. Paul than any other regional carrier, including Mesaba Airlines, another Northwest affiliate.
Through August, Pinnacle had 38,500 departures and arrivals out of the Twin Cities, up 65 percent from a year ago. In the first nine months of the year, Pinnacle carried 4.6 million passengers to and from Detroit, Memphis and the Twin Cities, a 44 percent increase over 2003.
A record of safety
It was the first fatal crash of a commercially flown CRJ series regional jet in the United States since the airplane was introduced in 1992 by manufacturer Bombardier Aerospace of Canada. Worldwide, it was only the second fatal accident for a commercially flown CRJ. In June 2003, a Brit Air CRJ-200 crash-landed in Brest, France, killing one pilot. The remaining crew and all 24 passengers survived.
According to Federal Aviation Administration records available through the aviation Web site
www.landings.com, the Pinnacle plane that went down Thursday night was not involved in any prior accidents or incidents. FAA records indicate the plane, made in 2000 by Bombardier, had a standard airworthiness certificate.
Bombardier spokesman Bert Cruickshank said the CRJ-200 was delivered to Pinnacle in May 2000 and was one of 109 CRJ-series planes operated by Pinnacle. Reed said the plane that crashed had been in commercial service for a total of 10,161 flight hours when it departed Little Rock. Under the company's FAA-approved maintenance schedule, the plane was required to have its first heavy maintenance check at approximately 8,000 flight hours. Reed said that the plane was inspected according to the schedule and that resulted in "no major findings."
Debby McElroy, a spokeswoman for the Regional Airline Association in Washington, D.C., said Bombardier's CRJ series regional jet has an "extraordinary" safety record.
Bombardier makes three variations of the CRJ -- the CRJ-200 and two stretched versions, the CRJ-700 and CRJ-900. Cruickshank said there are almost 900 CRJ-200 planes in service worldwide with a total of 9 million hours in the air and a total of more than 7.5 million takeoffs.
According to disclosures made to its stockholders, Pinnacle maintains its airplanes with its own repair staff and through FAA-approved vendors at a number of locations.
Staff writer Eric Wieffering and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Jon Tevlin is at
[email protected].
