N56KJ Pilatus PC-12 crash docket released

3393RP

3393RP

En-Route
Joined
Oct 8, 2012
Messages
4,219
Display Name
Display name:
3393RP
It's been 2½ years since N56KJ crashed on takeoff during a snowstorm, killing nine members of a prominent Idaho family and injuring three others. They had flown to a small airport in South Dakota for a pheasant hunting trip. Photos taken of the plane on the ramp by the hunting lodge owner just prior to its departure pretty much explain what happened.

This conversation between the airport manager to the pilot caught on the CVR clears up any doubt as to the cause:

12:29:34.4
APT it don't look good to me I don't know what you guys are thinkin'.

12:29:37.6
RDO-1 uh is the runway in good condition?

12:29:40.3
APT I would say I can't hardly keep up.

12:29:43.2
RDO-1 aright I'll be okay...five six kilo juliet.

12:29:46.6
APT what's that?

12:29:47.8
RDO-1 uh we're gonna be just fine...uh I'll go uh backtaxi three one
and we'll uh take off outta here...six kilo juliet.

12:29:54.4
APT 'kay * the runway is not clear.

12:29:57.8
RDO-1 oh I thought you had the - oh - uh let me - let me backtaxi down
and look at it then I'll be back.

12:30:06.2
APT (why) you guys are crazy...I got berms on this thing

12:30:32.4
RDO-1 I think we're gonna be just fine right down this uh one track
you've made six kilo juliet.

12:30:50.2
APT [If you] guys don't mind (problems with/plowin' through) some drifts.



I'm sure it must have been horrible tragedy for the survivors.

https://data.ntsb.gov/Docket/?NTSBNumber=CEN20FA022
 
Last edited:
Here's the Cliff Notes.
From the CVR. APT is the Airport Manager

12:30:06.2
APT (why) you guys are crazy...I got berms on this thing - I gotta
get the snow outta here
 
Thanks for sharing that. 2000+ hr pilot with about 1200 in the PC12. Manually and chemically removed ice prior to the flight, but couldn’t reach tail. Stick shaker going on & off at takeoff, then stick pusher. 2 pitot heats were turned on, then one turned off. Bad weather. Pilot said they had to get home and declined the offer of the lodge owner to stay one more night.

Incident chain, Swiss cheese, multiple failures, almost all of which could have prevented senseless outcome.

I hope I never get to whatever thought process led to this.
 
If they thought they could do better snow removal in less time than the airport manager, then getting out of the plane to move snow would have made more sense than taking their chances plowing through drifts.

This is one of those Murder on the Orient Express crashes. There are several suspects, all of whom had equal means, motive, and opportunity to commit the crime. The lesson is not to board a train full of murderers.
 
Poor decision making caused the accident, what actually caused the plane to stall and crash? Ice on wing? Ice on tail? Overweight and aft of CG? Slow and behind power curve at rotation? ASOS wind 010@7, departed 31 and turned left, a downwind turn at minimum airspeed?
 
Last edited:
David Lloyd said:
Poor decision making caused the accident, what actually caused the plane to stall and crash? Ice on wing? Ice on tail? Overweight and aft of CG? Slow and behind power curve at rotation?
Click to expand...
I was going to just say “yes.” But the correct answer is that the critical angle of attack was exceeded.
 
David Lloyd said:
Poor decision making caused the accident, what actually caused the plane to stall and crash? Ice on wing? Ice on tail? Overweight and aft of CG? Slow and behind power curve at rotation?
Click to expand...

They are all causal factors. No single one by itself might have caused the accident. The stall by itself did not cause the accident.
 
Weather so bad, people on the ramp decide to video tape your take-off...I saw this once before, but I can't remember the case. Anyway, I think that is what is known as "a sign" that you shouldn't be taking off.
 
"Father in Heaven we ask for a special blessing now that we take off in this not so great weather and that (Thy) will watch over and protect us. impress upon the mind of @ [pilot] that he might know how best to travel this course that we are about to do and we are thankful for this airplane and ask that You will watch over and protect us."

Maybe use the training and experience you've gone through that's telling you this is 'not so great weather' instead of this? o_O
 
Or just don't plow the runway for them to take off. I can't imagine how the lodge owner feels after reading his statement and the CVR of their conversation then watching them take off and knowing the result that he enabled even if he did his best to stop it.
 
Dang. CVR captures passenger reciting the Traveler's Prayer (emphasis mine).

[passenger recites traveler's prayer] ** our Father in heaven we're grateful that we've been able to come out here to South Dakota and have a wonderful time with family we appreciate the blessings that we enjoy and we're thankful that we can be together on this Thanksgiving weekend we appreciate everything that God does for us especially providing us a savior and we appreciate Him very much. Father in Heaven we ask for a special blessing now that we take off in this not so great weather and that (Thy) will watch over and protect us. impress upon the mind of @ [pilot] that he might know how best to travel this course that we are about to do and we are thankful for this airplane and ask that You will watch over and protect us. *** (ensure the function of this aircraft) we say this in the name of Jesus Christ amen.
Click to expand...

The whole docket is like, the more you read, the worse it gets. From the witness statements:

They took a ladder from the lodge and stopped at a local hardware store to buy some isopropyl alcohol on the way to the airport. The pilot and passenger worked for about 3 hrs. to remove the snow and ice that had accumulated on the airplane overnight.
Click to expand...

Mr. Story asked the pilot not to head out and mentioned they had room for them to stay another night back at the lodge. The pilot noted that they needed to get home. The pilot told him that the airplane was 98% good and the remaining ice would come off during takeoff.
Click to expand...

Buying isopropyl alcohol at a hardware store to deice a PC-12. That can't be a reasonable course of action, right?



 
fasteddie said:
Buying isopropyl alcohol at a hardware store to deice a PC-12. That can't be a reasonable course of action, right?
Click to expand...

How many hardware stores carry a large quantity of rubbing alcohol? Propylene glycol, or "RV antifreeze" would have been much more likely. Is the report in error? Not likely.

Regarding the pilot's statement saying the remainder of the ice would come off, one just has to look at the docket photo taken after the crash of the hardpacked snow and ice on the horizontal stabilizer to see how that turned out.

The pilot's comments bring back memories of the 1,400 hour Manhattan investment banker whose TBM 700, N731CA, spun in from 18,000' in 2011, a few minutes after receiving an icing warning from ATC. The pilot was quite cavalier in his reply:

The NTSB said Buckalew was directed by an air traffic controller to climb to 14,000 feet and advised of moderate rime icing.

"We’ll let you know what happens when we get in there and if we could go straight through, it’s no problem for us," Buckalew replied.

He requested and received a clearance to 20,000', and continued his climb past 14,000 through icing so severe that I seem to recall an MD83 just a few miles from him declared an emergency and requested a lower altitude.

There was no record of the pilot obtaining a live weather briefing. After the airplane stalled at 18,000', it broke up during an uncontrolled descent. He killed his wife, their two children, and a business associate.
 
Last edited:
Sounds like the Hansen family put some pressure on the pilot to get to their destination?

Snow storm, ice buildup, get-there-itis.

I sometimes have zero sympathy when ****-poor decisions are made and it results in death. Maybe I saw this movie too many times.
 
Failure to consider aircraft are not automobiles?

Being from ID I’d suspect they’d all driven in much worse. Why shouldn’t this machine, that cost multiple times what my 4x4 cost be able to handle this? Then there’s the left seat problem. wow.
 
overdrive148 said:
"Father in Heaven we ask for a special blessing now that we take off in this not so great weather and that (Thy) will watch over and protect us. impress upon the mind of @ [pilot] that he might know how best to travel this course that we are about to do and we are thankful for this airplane and ask that You will watch over and protect us."

Maybe use the training and experience you've gone through that's telling you this is 'not so great weather' instead of this? o_O
Click to expand...
It wasn't the pilot who was praying. Unfortunately, they put too much faith in this pilot.
 
Was it ever disclosed who was the pilot, and who else was in the cockpit?
 
mryan75 said:
It was a family member who was the pilot/murderer.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I did some digging and confirmed it was Kirk. Interesting that his name was "scrubbed" or difficult to find when trying to determine who was at tge controls.
So yeah, Kirk murdered several family members due to hubris.
 
FlightmechH3 said:
So yeah, Kirk murdered several family members due to hubris.
Click to expand...

I think that's the thing that draws me to learn more about these accidents. The fact that it wasn't ice on the tail, or weather, or some mechanical issue that killed all those innocent people. It was ultimately the human failing of excessive hubris.

No human being is perfect, we all have our various flaws. It's just that aviation is one of those pursuits where the normal human flaws can have such outsize consequences. Or, to borrow a famous quote: Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.
 
I don’t know the pilot or family, but take care stretching an accident factor to “hubris”. I read the same things in the docket, and my tendency is to call it hubris, but I’m just short of doing so.

There is a passenger who I love flying with. However, I would never fly cross-country round-trip with this individual because I feel the pressure to get back home for this person could be too great for me to consider taking a risk I normally would not. I see potential, so I avoid it. On my end, it would not be categorized as hubris if I launched into marginal or plain stupid conditions. It would be something else.

Just my opinion.
 
Bell206 said:
Of the dozens of other people who killed their families and others because they forgot what it was to be a pilot. You can't fix stupid.
Click to expand...

Some apparently never learned how to be a pilot, like the individual responsible for.the 2012 breakup of another PC-12 over Florida. It occurred just as the aircraft encountered significant rain, convective activity, and total obscuration.

Before purchasing the airplane about 5 weeks earlier, the pilot had not logged any time as pilot-in-command in a turbopropeller-equipped airplane and had not logged any actual instrument flight time in the previous 7 years 4 months. Additionally, his last logged simulated instrument before he purchased the airplane occurred 4 years 7 months earlier.

The autopilot disconnected at FL250, and the pilot lost control almost immediately. At 15,500', as the aircraft exceeded VMO by 175 knots, he made an abrupt and extreme control input, and the aircraft broke up.

The pilot, his wife, and their two children died in the crash. One of the kids was ejected from the ruptured fuselage at altitude.

Regarding the N56KJ crash:

As @hindsight2020 said above about these types of pilots, "I didn't buy this kerosene burner to wait for the weather...."

@455 Bravo Uniform said "I don’t know the pilot or family, but take care stretching an accident factor to “hubris”. I read the same things in the docket, and my tendency is to call it hubris, but I’m just short of doing so."

The pilot's words captured by the CVR were stunning, at least to me. The lodge owner and the airport manager tried multiple times to convince him to postpone the flight to the next day, when the heavy snow and overcast was forecast to clear.

He basically said (paraphrasing) "I know exactly what I'm doing, and this turbine aircraft is going to lift off quickly and fly away. We'll be home in 90 minutes."

Kirk Hansen killed his son, his grandson, two son-in-laws, his brother, two of his brothers sons, and his father.
 
Last edited:
3393RP said:
He basically said (paraphrasing) "I know exactly what I'm doing, and this turbine aircraft is going to lift off quickly and fly away. We'll be home in 90 minutes."
Click to expand...
He also said, with less paraphrasing, that he could have cleared the snow better and faster with his pickup from back in Idaho than the airport manager had done in two and a half hours of work in a tractor. Everything about this guy screamed that he knows better than everyone about everything. He was incorrect.
 
Last edited:
I certainly didn’t read enough. It does sound like arrogance or hubris from what you guys are relaying. That’s awful.
 
overdrive148 said:
Or just don't plow the runway for them to take off. I can't imagine how the lodge owner feels after reading his statement and the CVR of their conversation then watching them take off and knowing the result that he enabled even if he did his best to stop it.
Click to expand...

Enabled how, exactly? As in, transported them to the airport? Because I don't know what else he could have done short of kidnapping them that was going to stop that pilot from taking off.
 
FlightmechH3 said:
Yeah, I did some digging and confirmed it was Kirk. Interesting that his name was "scrubbed" or difficult to find when trying to determine who was at tge controls.
So yeah, Kirk murdered several family members due to hubris.
Click to expand...
Manslaughter, involuntary, would fit better.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top