Posted on 06/13/2005 8:45:15 AM PDT by TheOtherOne
Joking Pilots in Commuter Jet Crash Wanted to 'have a Little Fun' by Climbing to 41,000 Feet
Published: Jun 13, 2005 WASHINGTON (AP) - Two pilots, in a jovial mood as they flew an empty commuter jet, wanted to "have a little fun" by taking the plane to an unusually high altitude last October, only to realize as the engines failed that they were not going to make it, according to transcripts released Monday.
The plane, which the two were ferrying from Little Rock, Ark. to Minneapolis, crashed and both Capt. Jesse Rhodes and First Officer Peter Cesarz perished.
The cockpit voice recording, released by the National Transportation Safety Board at the start of a three-day hearing into the Oct. 14, 2004 accident, revealed how the pilots cracked jokes and decided to "have a little fun" and fly to 41,000 feet - the maximum altitude for their 50-seat plane. Most commuter jets fly at lower altitudes.
"Man, we can do it, 41-it," said Cesarz at 9:48 p.m. A minute later, Rhodes said, "40 thousand, baby."
Two minutes later, "There's 41-0, my man," Cesarz said. "Made it, man."
At 9:52 p.m., one of the pilots popped a can of Pepsi and they joked about drinking beer. A minute later, Cesarz said, "This is the greatest thing, no way."
But at 10:03 p.m., the pilots reported their engine had failed. Five minutes later, they said both engines had failed and they wanted a direct route to any airport.
The transcript recounts their increasingly desperate efforts to restart the engines and regain altitude. They tried to land at the Jefferson City, Mo., airport but by 10:14 p.m., it was obvious they wouldn't reach it.
"We're not going to make it, man. We're not going to make it," Cesarz said. The plane crashed in a residential neighborhood of Jefferson City. No one was injured on the ground.
Accident investigators are examining how well the pilots were trained - a key safety question as the number of regional jets keeps growing.
The crash involved a Bombardier regional jet plane operated by Pinnacle Airlines, an affiliate of Northwest Airlines. Like many regional carriers, Pinnacle is growing rapidly as it teams up with a traditional network airline looking to offer more seats to more places.
Memphis, Tenn.-based Pinnacle grew by 700 percent in the past five years, according to Phil Reed, its marketing vice president. During that time, it switched its fleet from propeller-driven planes to small turbojets, known as regional jets, or RJs.
The number of regional jets rose to 1,630 last year from 570 in 2000, the Federal Aviation Administration says. The question of whether government safety inspectors can keep up with such rapid changes in the airline industry was raised last week in a Transportation Department inspector general's report.
Jet engines work differently at higher altitudes, and it's unclear whether the relatively inexperienced Pinnacle pilots were aware that they had to be more careful in the thin air at 41,000 feet, the maximum altitude for their plane.
According to FAA transcripts of air-to-ground conversations, an air traffic controller in Kansas City told the two pilots it was rare to see the plane flying that high.
"Yeah, we're actually ... we don't have any passengers on board, so we decided to have a little fun and come up here," one of the pilots said. The transcripts don't identify whether Jesse Rhodes or Cesarz made the statement.
First one, then the other engine shut down. The last contact that controllers had with the crew was at 9,000 feet, when the pilot reported an airport beacon in sight.
At the hearing, NTSB investigators plan to delve into the plane's flight limits and the proper recovery techniques when engines fail. They also want to know if the pilots knew those procedures and to learn the engine's performance characteristics at high altitudes.
On June 2, the FAA issued a special bulletin clarifying what steps pilots need to take to restart an engine when there's a dual engine failure, agency spokeswoman Laura Brown said.
David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association, said the issue may be reckless pilots rather than inadequate training or improper recovery procedures.
"This is more a story of pilots having time on their hands and playing with things in the cockpit that they shouldn't," he said.
Flying, he said, is as boring as truck driving most of the time.
"This was boredom and experimentation, these guys experimenting with things they had no business doing," Stempler said.
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On the Net:
National Transportation Safety Board: http://www.ntsb.gov
AP-ES-06-13-05 1117EDT
There are many old pilots, and there are many bold pilots. But there are not many old, bold pilots.
I think these guys were falling like a rock. It would be interesting to know if they had a military background or not. I'm betting not.
snip
The problem is first hinted at in the transcipts when an air traffic controller in Kansas City told the pilots it was was rare to see the plane flying at an altitude of 41,000 feet.
"Yeah, we’re actually . . . we don’t have any passengers on board, so we decided to have a little fun and come up here," one of the pilots said. The transcripts don’t identify whether Rhodes or Cesarz made the statement.
But the pilot soon told air traffic controllers that the CRJ2 wouldn’t remain at that altitude for long.
"I don’t think he had enough gas up there; he was so slow," one air traffic controller said.
The transcripts then describe the conversations between the pilots and the air traffic controllers as the first engine loses power followed by the second engine at 13,000 feet.
"We’re going to need a little lower to start this other engine up, so we’re going to go down to about 12 or 11. Is that cool?" the pilot asked.
A few moments later, he reported double engine failure, according to the transcripts.
The last contact that air traffic controllers had with the plane was at 9,000 feet, when the pilot reported an airport beacon in sight.
Earlier that day, the jet had aborted a scheduled flight with passengers from Little Rock, Ark., after an indicator light went on for part of its bleed-air system. The system pulls hot, compressed air from the engines to heat other components of the plane.
An airplane indicator light signaled a potential problem with the bleed-air sensing loop, which uses heat to determine whether air is leaking from the engine.
The plane’s loop was replaced before it took off for Minneapolis with just the crew.
http://tinyurl.com/ckjd4
I started in a C-152, then transitioned to a T-Craft before I knew any better. I hope not too much brain damage was done by the nosewheel...but you never know.
You can be healed.
;-)
See that? I told you that you fighter pilots had no clue!!
heh heh heh....
I don't know about him - but I've been called "ruggedly handsome."
Personally, I think I look a little like Mel Gibson - after a bad motorcycle accident...
Heck - I don't look that good!!!
dudes -- settle down, please.
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/aircraft/jetliner/b777/ <-- will tell you that the service ceiling of a triple 7 is just over 43,000 feet. But there is a union reason AND a flight safety/procedure reason why commercial passenger aircraft rarely go to FL 410. Exec jets bust FL410 all the time, but not so much the Boeings.
The trash haulers here on FR can tell you why (it has to do with deep, long-lasting marks on the First Officers' faces ;-) )
A B 36 would fly above FL 410 but you could not start anything up there. The J 47 jets would work well up there but there is very little air up thre. The recips would work well if they were running with 2 turbo blowers for each engine.
I doubt they had a military background also. Pilots who have not been in the military generally are not trained as well as the military trains especially the Air Force.
Class 56H Air Force.
Bleed air is nothing more than air that has been compressed by one or more of the compressor stages of a turbine engine. Bleed air is hot, as a result of being compressed. The more compressor stages that have compressed the bleed air, the higher the temperature and pressure will be.
In most turbine powered aircraft, bleed air is used for pressurization, air conditioning, engine anti-ice, windshield anti-ice, de-ice boot inflation, to power a venturi system, (creates vacuum to control outflow valves and power gyroscopic instruments), and on some aircraft, to anti-ice the wing and tail. When bleed air is extracted from an engine, some power loss will result. When operating bleed air powered wing heat, engine, or windshield anti-ice systems, aircraft performance and engine power settings will change and some loss of performance will result.
There are bleed valves on some turbine engines that serve only to improve the engine's idle and acceleration characteristics. These valves operate pretty much automatically, and are of little concern to the pilot unless they malfunction. A malfunctioning bleed-air circuit can cause unstable idle RPM, or compressor stall.
In flight engine restart difficulties could be compounded by several factors, icing of the air-bleed circuitry, and operational paramaters of the engine. The latter may be a safeguard designed into the engine so that the blades don't overheat. Air is bleed off from the compressor, run it down the shaft, and blown through the middle of hollow turbine blades. If the air-bleed circuit is faulty (or obstructed), the compressor's rotation may be governor limited.
The first type of compressor stall, the less severe type of stall, is the "axis-symmetric stall", is a straightforward expulsion of air out the intake due to the compressor's inability to maintain pressure on the combustion chamber.
In the second, more-severe "rotational stall", the air flow disruption of the stall causes standing pockets of air to rotate within the compressor without moving along the axis. Without fresh air from the intake passing over the stalled compressor vanes they overheat, causing accelerated engine wear and possible damage.
The most likely cause of a compressor stall is a sudden change in the pressure differential between the intake and combustion chamber. Jet aircraft pilots must take this into account when dropping airspeed or increasing throttle.
Flying through a cloud of ice crystals at max altitude, or while attempting an in-flight engine restart (in conjunction with an existing air-bleed circuit malfunction) could result in some problems for pilots.
Proper fuel flow is very important in a gas turbine engine. Unlike an engine with a carburetor, the amount of air flowing into a jet engine is not regulated. Jet engines suck in whatever air is available. Engine power is controlled by the amount of fuel that enters the engine's combustion chamber. At sea level, only about 25% of the air entering the engine is burned. The other 75% just flows through the engine, absorbs heat and provides mass to be routed through the turbines. The proper fuel flow for a given engine RPM varies with altitude.
In general, the proper fuel flow for a given situation depends on the following:
The result of all this is that the pilot merely tells the fuel control unit how much thrust is desired by moving the thrust lever. The fuel control delivers the proper amount of fuel to the combustion chamber for optimum operation of the engine according to the parameters observed at the time. The point of all this: the air-bleed can become an extremely critical factor for proper engine operation at max altitude or during in-flight engine restarts and its failure may well be implicated in this crash.
Great Post!
Wouldn't there be independent circuits per engine. ie. system separation?
Yeah, but your personality makes you a hunk, right!
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