NEW YORK TIMES
February 4, 2005
First Findings See No Brakes Used in Most Of Jet's Path
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By PATRICK McGEEHAN and MICHELLE O'DONNELL [/size]
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/dropcap/t.gifhe National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the crash of a corporate jet at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey on Wednesday, said yesterday that its findings indicated no braking system was in effect until the plane was 5,000 feet along the 6,013-foot runway. Normally, a liftoff takes place around 3,000 feet.
Officials could not say whether the pilots attempted to stop the plane earlier, or whether there had been a mechanical problem.
Earlier yesterday, a lawyer for the pilot said that his client had made a valiant effort to stop the plane when he realized that a mechanical problem would prevent it from lifting off.
Michael A. Moulis, a lawyer for Platinum Jet Management, the company that was operating the plane when it rammed into a warehouse on Wednesday morning, said the pilot, John Kimberling, told him that "something broke" as the plane roared toward the end of the runway. As the jet skidded across six lanes of Route 46, a main thoroughfare at the northern end of the airport, Mr. Kimberling and his co-pilot tried to guide it through a break in traffic, Mr. Moulis said the pilot told him.
"He said, 'I think I clipped one,' " meaning a car, Mr. Moulis recounted from Teterboro, where he was meeting with investigators for the safety board. He declined to say what he and Mr. Kimberling thought had malfunctioned, because he said he did not want to interfere with the investigation.
But Mr. Moulis, who said he was representing Mr. Kimberling and Platinum Jet, said he believed that the investigation would rule out pilot error or ice on the wings as a cause of the crash.
Witnesses told investigators that there was no ice on the wings.
In addition to the findings about the skid marks, Debbie Hersman, a spokeswoman for the safety board, said that a flight data recorder had captured only 10 seconds of the 43 seconds that elapsed between the start of the plane engine's acceleration and the crash. "It's not exactly what we were looking for," Ms. Hersman said. "But we're hopeful that we can get more information from it."
The cockpit voice recorder, which is still being analyzed, indicated that there had been a decision to discontinue the takeoff, the authorities have said. Ms. Hersman said that the jet's reverse thrusters, which are part of the braking system along with conventional brakes, had deployed but that it was unclear whether the brakes had.
Saying a catastrophe had been narrowly avoided, Acting Gov. Richard J. Codey and United States Representative Steven Rothman said they would petition the Federal Aviation Administration to adopt further restrictions on the number and types of flights from Teterboro.
In Wednesday's crash, the plane ripped the roof off one car, a Toyota sedan, seriously wounding its driver and a passenger before smashing through the brick facade of a warehouse across the highway. But none of the eight passengers, a group of financial executives, were seriously hurt, and Mr. Kimberling and the co-pilot, Carlos W. Salaverria, escaped with broken bones in their legs.
Mr. Moulis said that Mr. Kimberling's feet "were injured because he was jamming on the brake so hard."
Both pilots, who had not yet been interviewed by investigators, spent Wednesday night at Hackensack University Medical Center. The third member of their crew, a 22-year-old cabin aide, Angelica Calad, had only scrapes and bruises, said Patrick Rivers, operations manager of the Voodoo Lounge in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where Ms. Calad works part time as a hostess.
After the crash, Mr. Rivers said, Ms. Calad called the club from an undisclosed location where she is being questioned by investigators to tell co-workers of her harrowing experience. She said she was strapped into the jump seat near the cockpit of the small plane when the ride turned "a little bumpy," Mr. Rivers said.
"The next thing she knew she was in a warehouse," he said.
Mr. Moulis told a more heroic tale about Ms. Calad, who, like the two pilots, was working for Platinum Jet, a charter company based in Fort Lauderdale, on a freelance basis. Despite being soaked in jet fuel and fearing that the plane would explode, she instructed the passengers to help her kick open the main cabin door, then helped them jump out of the smoking wreck, he said.
After the passengers - five employees of Kelso & Company, a private investment firm in Manhattan, and three men from other financial firms in New York - escaped, Mr. Kimberling helped Mr. Salaverria off the plane, then touched each seat to make sure it was empty before he jumped out, Mr. Moulis said.
He said Mr. Kimberling was a veteran pilot who had logged more than 15,000 hours of flight time, including more than 3,000 hours flying planes like the one he was piloting on Wednesday. According to aviation administration records, Mr. Kimberling and Mr. Salaverria have clean records, with no history of accidents or other incidents.
"He's been around the block," Mr. Moulis said, referring to Mr. Kimberling.
The crew arrived at a hotel near the Teterboro Airport around midnight on Tuesday, about seven hours before the failed takeoff, after traveling from Fort Lauderdale to New York, Ms. Hersman said.
Manuel Epelbaum, a Miami lawyer representing Mr. Salaverria, arrived in New Jersey yesterday to meet his client. He said he had not been authorized to talk about him.
In Trenton, Mr. Codey and Mr. Rothman said the accident exposed the potential dangers the airport poses, though Mr. Codey said the federal agency was unlikely to accede to the demands of some area residents and shut the airport.
After meeting with representatives of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the state's economic development authority, Mr. Codey and Mr. Rothman called on the federal agency to ban midsize Stage 2 aircraft from the airport. The federal agency classifies planes by the noise their engines produce. The newest and quietest ones are Stage 3. Most private planes have noisier Stage 2 engines.
The ban would not affect the plane that crashed on Wednesday, a Canadair CL-600 Challenger that was built in 1980 and used by the Canadian military before going into the private sector in March 2001, because it is a Stage 3 craft.
But New Jersey officials say the ban would still reduce the likelihood of a serious crash and reduce the number of daily flights to about 475 from 500. "In time, smaller flights would almost certainly take the place of those larger aircraft," Mr. Rothman said. "But they would generate less noise and we would have a safer airport."
In addition to the restriction on the size of planes using the airport, New Jersey officials are asking the federal agency to provide safety barriers at the end of the runway and improved firefighting equipment that would allow them to cut through a burning plane's fuselage and douse flames with fire retardant foam before they could ignite the fuel tanks.
David Kocieniewski and John Holl contributed reporting for this article. COPYRIGHT 2005 The New York Times
