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
Can't argue your point -- makes sense to me. I assume they filed a flight plan. Wouldn't going to that altitude disregard the flight plan? Or, wouldn't going to that altitude require authorization from flight controllers? Just wondering.
You'd think that from 41,000 feet they could glide it to anywhere.
"We had a report of a guy who was Instrument Rated and Current in a Cirrus who was on a VFR flight plan and got lost in the clouds and he PULLED THE HANDLE!!!"
ROTFL
Hmmm Lets see maybe if I step out of the cockpit for a moment and check this map...
That is what I think. If that was how high it was supposed to fly, then why did the engines stop. Something is wrong here.
My dad flew glider planes. He always felt they were safer (less mechanics to go wrong)...and they have a great glide ratio
ping
Not a completely dead stick though - if they lose the engine, the EPU will fire, giving them 7-10 minutes of electric power - that's the only connection the pilot has to the flight controls. Lose that, and you lose the aircraft.
I call it the "I GIVE UP!" handle.
PS... I've had two engine failures and two mechanicals and lived to talk about it. I've never stopped flying the airplane.
If an airplane is still in one piece, don't cheat on it. Ride the bastard down.
— Ernest K.Gann,
Time to change the owner's manual.
Pukin Dog is/was the pilot - I was the wrench twister. Worked on Eagles and Falcons primarily, Warthogs once in a while. Also worked crash recovery, and assisted with investigation a couple times.
Mmm, Icarus...used to be nice restaurant in Boston. Oh yea, and the myth thing.
Wasn't that EPU fueled with hydrazine ? I remember that was a hazard for my EOD teams trying to render safe, the gun , ordnance and seat the F16 after an accident.......There wass even some code word for such an incident when the EPU's fired. Do ya remember it ? I don't.
Good points !.......Stay safe !
Not to mention that there's probably a safety margin built into the published max altitude. 41,000 shouldn't have been a problem; max specs were probably higher.
Per http://www.aerospace-technology.com/projects/crj200/specs.html
12,496 meters or ~FL410 is indeed the "maximum".
I just wonder if 41,000 is the maximum because of how the aircraft is pressurized, the state-of-the-art of the rubber jungle in the cockpit (for flights aboveFL 410) OR if that really is the flame-out altitude. There is a "B" version of the CRJ2 - configured for hot or high altitude operations, but I presume they mean take off/ runway conditions related to air density.
Who knows.
Bottom line, they had the runway in sight at Jefferson and ran out of glide path. Sad.
J-3s are nice, the Citrabira/Champ are too easy imo.
I like the BC-12s, high wingloading only simplifies things. Low wingloading (with a tailwheel and a crosswind) teaches decision making skills.
Is that the aeronautical equivalent to "popping the clutch"?
"I was the wrench twister. Worked on Eagles and Falcons primarily, Warthogs once in a while"
Those A-10's are something else. Somewhere I have some pics that a friend in Iraq sent back that he got from a A&P of one Warthog that made it back shot up all to heck. They finally stopped count something around 70 various holes in the thing from flak. Kept right on flying.
You mean the engine never went out on him?
Ahhh... the T-Craft.
Not many left out there - but you are right.
I think low powered, tailwheels are the way to start.
PS.... I started in a Citabria. I practice what I preach.
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