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
That's what I was wondering. 41K is in Class A - IFR-only - airspace. I'm not IFR-rated myself, but I wonder how ATC handled this.
(you do know I'm pulling your chain, don't you. Start back at #87)
Daughter of a (late) airline pilot/B-17 commander here (and a little ol' PPL) ... I've seen enough performance charts here and there to know that the "iffy" factor has been lawyerized out of the charts. If a speed, altitude, gross weight, etc. is listed in performance charts, they've been tested to the satisfaction of the lawyers (sad to say). I confess that I don't know what the "wiggle room" factor is for performance charts for jets... is there any?
<< I don't understand why they could not airstart the engines once they were at a lower altitude. Something is wrong here. >>
Yep.
'Finger trouble' has raised its ugly head again.
That's what I think. I think they panicked and started pushing buttons like mad. Poor bastards.
I heard that one too,Chilling....
A buddy and I flew a E-2A Hawkeye "Greyhound" (A pilot training aircraft -- much lighter than standard -- i.e., no radar, computers etc.) to 43,500' one night over NAS North Island, justforthehellofit.
We were trying for 44,000', but the old girl just did not have quite enough oomph at max continuous TIT (932 degrees C, as I recall, though I believe 976 was available in an emergency), and we did not want to overtemp the engines.
The E-2 service ceiling was, as I recall, roughly 37,000'. Needless to say, we did not have a lot of fuel on board, either -- we landed with less than 1,500 lbs.
And, we were very, very careful with the power levers until we were below 30,000. We did not fancy a night dead stick landing!
And, yes, we were on 100% oxygen!
All this "E2-A altitude record attempt" highly amused the San Diego Approach Control and LA Center guys -- it was late at night and apparently, none of us had much else to do that night. E-2s were not generally flown much above 30,000', so they had some fun with us.
On the subject of the Challenger crash, hard to believe those guys were not able to light at least one of those engines off on the way down. In-flight restarts are not that complex below 15,000'.
Methinks panic took over, and they did not properly execute the in-flight restart checklist.
The emphasis on the joking and all is just a journalist's thing, as far as I can tell. I see no connection between ordinary chatter with the ground and the crash.
I'll be interested to read the final report here. But those of you who think the pilots are "idiots" or "bozos" from the little information actually presented in this article are just producing an excess of warmed air.
I would submit the P&W TF-30 as proof that they can produce a crappy engine as easily as anyone else.
It's too bad they didn't have Dave here to help them out....or some other self loading baggage. Just because you ride doesn't mean you know how to fly and if he does know anything about flying he wouldn't make these statements without seeing the NTSB report. Asking this guy to comment is like asking a heavy drinker why a bar down the street went out of business.
but has an Acela ever made it over 41,000 feet?
Yeah - That caught my eye also: The flight (stall and control) problems happened BEFORE the engines stalled out.
Which doesn't make sense.
Youngster.
Oh, I feel so outed. You are a joke.
I have no idea why the investigators and some of the posters here having such a difficult time with this simple concept. Crying "pilot error" in this case makes no sense based on the facts presented in the article. It's like blaming an old lady for having her blender shatter after she dared push the "high" button to de-pulp her orange juice. I guess it's just easier to blame the dead than to admit that there might be something wrong with the design parameters.
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