Update on Pinnacle CRJ crash

[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.