Update on Pinnacle CRJ crash

[LJDRVR]

Enough!

You speculating "ninnies" need to read leardrivrs post again. If you think that a CRJ, or any swept-wing jet designed after 1965 has that narrow of an aerodynamic "throat" at cruise, you're smoking crack. A C-model U-2 or a standard wing Lear 23 (Neither of which fly anymore) maybe, but a CRJ?

How about waiting for the NTSB to come out with their final report. In the mean time, let's not dishonor the memory of two fine aviators by stupid, mis-informed, junior high gossip.

 

[Ailerongirl]

Update...

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Bureau released new details in Thursday night's crash of a Northwest Airlink jet that was heading to the Twin Cities.

The NTSB now says that both engines of the 50-seat CRJ failed at the same time while the plane was cruising at an altitude of 41,000 feet. Earlier reports showed the two engines failed at different times.

Investigators say the fact that both engines failed at the same time could indicate a major power failure aboard the plane. Investigators say the pilots glided for nearly 100-miles without power before crashing into a neighborhood in Jefferson City, Missouri. No one on the ground was injured.

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has also learned that the same jet was taking off from Little Rock, Arkansas earlier Thursday when it had to abort. We now know that flight was headed to the Twin Cities with 40-passengers aboard. Those passengers were placed on another aircraft.

The pilots were flying the jet to the Twin Cities Thursday night, where it would have gone back into service for flights out of Minnesota. The pilot and co-pilot were killed in the crash. The investigation into what caused the crash continues.

The vice-president of Pinnacle Airlines, which operates the jet for Northwest Airlink says he is confident in the safety of the company's fleet. The smaller commuter jets are being used more and more by the airlines because they are more efficient.

 

[Mel Sharples]

The NTSB now says that both engines of the 50-seat CRJ failed at the same time while the plane was cruising at an altitude of 41,000 feet. Investigators say the pilots glided for nearly 100-miles without power before crashing into a neighborhood in Jefferson City, Missouri.

Oh, sweet Jesus...

Those poor, poor gentlemen. I know it is not official, but the thought of a dual flameout at 41,000 and then gliding all the way down makes me sick.

People always say after incidents like this, "They died doing what they loved." I am NOT trying to be funny, believe me, but do you think they "loved" gliding to earth with no power from 41,000 feet? Ugh. I can't imagine the hell they must have went through.

Let me just say, I'm sure they did all they could to get that thing on the ground safely.

Why was it those two and not any of us? We will never know.

My heart aches for their co-workers, family, and friends.....





.

 

[wood pecker]

Last month we were in the sim for a loft and we asked if we could throw in a 2 eng failure for learning purposes. Of course the answer was no there is not enough time with all the standard bs. I guess it is more critical that we continue doing the same stale loft routine instead of actually learning something that could potentially save our lives + pax. After all according to our instructor we are not likely to have a dual failure. How about some more focus on real emergencies instead of the DC ESS Bus failure which I have had 3 lofts in a row. This is not to be critical of my training dept b/c I truly believe they are the best and they have to do what they are told. I just wonder if I would be proud of my performance in a real emergency when the only practice I get is reciting IAI instead of doing them in a sim more frequently. I hope I will never know b/c I sure the hell don't want every body second guessing my actions, my wife already does that.

 

[Dinger]

We "ninnies" aren't really speculating about what happened to the RJ crew. I think this thread has evolved into more of a discussion on "coffin corner". That's how I read it, anyway.

 

[flyingforfood]

a time to think about how lucky we all are......

 

[flyingforfood]

my boys from gq...any one out there...hope all r good!....tps

 

[JetCapt69]

Dual Flameout

Our company experienced a dual flameout of both engines at FL410 in one of our beechjet 400's while flying over the Gulf of Mexico. They were issued a descent, reduced power and lost both engines. The beechjet does not have a fuel heater, so it requires the fuel additive PRIST to prevent fuel icing at altitude. It has been determined that the PRIST container on the fuel truck was empty when the jet was topped off with fuel.

The crew was able to relight one engine at 13,000 and land safely at Sarasota, Florida. All 7 pax and 2 crew were uninjured.

I don't want to speculate on this accident, but surprising to me, a dual flameout is not beyond possible. I also thought that scenerio was next to impossible, just goes to show how little I know.

Where was the flight attendant on this flight? It makes me wonder if this was a maintenance repo leg with only the required crew onboard.

GOD rest their souls.

 

[strega7]

Didn't a Challenger force land in a field in the middle of the night a few years ago? Lost both engines at altitude and glided in after they couldn't get them restarted. I think it was excess water in the fuel system after refueling and the ice caused a dual engine flameout. I haven't done the 6-weeks in SLC yet so, does the CRJ have a different fuel system that would prevent this from happening? Just wondering.


Praying for the families.

 

[Mike15601]

Accident Description Status: Final [legenda]



Date: 20 MAR 1994
Time: 00:36 CST
Type: Canadair CL-601-3A Challenger
Operator: Crystal Aviation
Registration: N88HA
Msn / C/n: 5072
Crew: 0 fatalities / 2 on board
Passengers: 0 fatalities / 0 on board
Total: 0 fatalities / 2 on board
Airplane damage: Written off
Location: Bassett-Rock, NE (USA)
Departure airport: Burlington International Airport, VT (BTV)
Destination airport: Long Beach Municipal Airport, CA (LGB)
Narrative:
Both engines lost power at FL410; forced landing in a field, striking an irrigation structure and trees. Improper refueling by FBO personnel at Lawrence, MA caused the Challenger to depart with water contaminted fuel.
PROBABLE CAUSE: "The pilot in command's inadequate planning/decision making and inadequate preflight inspection after receiving a load of contaminated fuel. Related factors are the contaminated fuel, improper refueling by FBO personnel, and the dark night light conditions."
Source: (also check out sources used for every accident)
NTSB








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[T-Gates]

PROBABLE CAUSE: "The pilot in command's inadequate planning/decision making and inadequate preflight inspection after receiving a load of contaminated fuel. Related factors are the contaminated fuel, improper refueling by FBO personnel, and the dark night light conditions."

WTF??? I think the blame here falls solely on the FBO personell who didn't sump the fuel truck. I've never even seen a procedure to sump the tanks on any jet/turboprop I've ever flown.

 

[CatYaaak]

WTF??? I think the blame here falls solely on the FBO personell who didn't sump the fuel truck. I've never even seen a procedure to sump the tanks on any jet/turboprop I've ever flown.

Before you start WTF-ing the findings of the NTSB (who do this for a living) you might want to read the whole report as to what happened with that Challenger instead of just assuming. For instance (how I remember them)..

While taxiing out for a repo leg, the FBO called and said the fuel they had just put in the aircraft was contaminated with water, alerting the crew. The crew stopped and sumped the tanks until they though it was clear. Then they took off.

The flight made a short hop, then took off again for a transcon flight. About 2 1/2 hours into it, fuel starvation resulted from the build-up of ice particles in the fuel system. Both engines flamed-out and they dead-sticked it into a Kansa field. No fatalities.

I imagine the NTSB's finding was based on the fact the FBO alerted the crew prior to T/O, and the crew continuing the flight after not allowing the recommended settling time of 1 hour per foot of fuel to ensure the entrained water was removed by sumping.

 

[JetCapt69]

I've never even seen a procedure to sump the tanks on any jet/turboprop I've ever flown.

Cessna Citations have fuel sumps and a large fuel cup strainer. I am sure other business jets do too. It just doesn't seem to be common practice, which may bite someone eventually.

 

[xrayojilp1]

An empty CRJ would have no problem getting up to 41,000. With pax this would be very difficult, true. I have never made it up higher than 39,000, but that was with about 5 pax and maybe around 8000lbs of fuel (which is a lot). Even a cold day at 41,000 there would indeed be a relatively small spread between green line (1.27Vs) and MMO but I don't see how that would be a problem in this case, it seemed like it helped them have more time to troubleshoot the problems.

It was the NTSB investigator that actually stated the airplane went into an aerodynamic stall, but this does not make much sense to me. From what I've heard a CRJ cannot recover from a stall due to the engines blocking airflow over the tail. Bombardier lost two test pilots during certification when a chute designed to pull the airplane out of the stall failed to deploy.

Having known Jesse and knowing how smart and competent he was, I would expect we will eventually find there was some sort of catastrophic problem that caused the engine loss. If only this had happened in the daytime I suspect they would still be with us.

 

[Gulfstream 200]

Cessna Citations have fuel sumps and a large fuel cup strainer. I am sure other business jets do too. It just doesn't seem to be common practice, which may bite someone eventually.

yeah??

citations do because those cups are standard issue with 172's..?

please, tell me, what good is sumping thanks on a bizjet that holds...say...40,000+lbs of fuel?

"Sorry boss, we gotta wait 6 hours here while the fuel settles so we can sump it.."

mx can peridocally sump if it sits, but pilots can do very little to monitor this on the road.

 

[DoJetMX]

WTF??? I think the blame here falls solely on the FBO personell who didn't sump the fuel truck. I've never even seen a procedure to sump the tanks on any jet/turboprop I've ever flown.

Back in the days when I used to fuel, one company always tested the fuel in my truck before I put it on. Who ever had the NxxxFX tail numbers. They always had that water paste with them, asked for a sample from the truck, stuck it on the end of a small stick and tested it. Not sure how accurate it was, but I do remember them doing it.

 

[Alchemy]

Bombardier Flexjets are the FX tails. Challengers and lears. Don't remember them ever testing fuel from the truck when I worked the line for signature. Signature has pretty good Fuel QC anyway, maybe they trusted us. I know we had to do about half a dozen tests on the fuel before taking delivery from a tanker truck and then tests on the refueling trucks daily.

 

[Lear70]

First, it's not the engines that block airflow over the tail in a full stall, it's the wings. Secondly, you'd have to override the pusher to put the aircraft into a full stall (that's what it's there for) and I seriously doubt these guys would have done that if the shaker then pusher cut in.

The RAT does indeed power the aircraft in the event of a loss of all AC power, it does it automatically, then you pull the manual handle to bridge the batteries into the circuit (also a double-check to make sure the RAT deployed although as loud as it is you can't miss the sound).

The APU (if it would start) would reapply AC power to the aircraft and give bleed air to start an engine, but if there were a fuel problem or another bleed air problem that was taking too much air flow out of the compressor stage, they'd be unlikely to get an engine start. I'm not hypothesizing, just talking systems, I have no clue what the actual chain of events was and neither does anyone else unless the NTSB has already given a prelim listen to the CVR.

Lastly, I flew for Flexjet for two years up to '99 and if the pilots are testing the fuel, it's a new procedure - never did it while I was there. As far as sumping the tanks go, we got some bad fuel in a Lear 35 once, lots of water, sumped about four gallons out mixed with water and gave up, made the FBO pump all the fuel out of the aircraft then sumped it dry, flushed it several times like that until no more water came out. That's about the only way I know of to get rid of water in a jet... sumping doesn't help.

 

[bigboy]

So Sad.


My God rest their souls, and give their families the strenth through this though time.
MMS

 

[Best on a Camel]

I have had the pleasure of experincing many flame outs my self and never had a problem with handiling or speed control./QUOTE]




Reeeaaalllyyyy??? How many is many? You must be pretty unlucky.