Plane crash on FL freeway

MauiJim said:
Thanks, I understand 135. But neither would provide the crew with any real deterrent. I’m quite sure that gust questioning a pax or a call back to the office questioning a passenger’s viability would cause a crew member a lot of grief. There are a lot of sick people out there that aren’t being identified and treated.
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Apparently you've been away from Part 135 for some time. Operators are required to participate in the Twelve Five Standard Security Program.
 
MauiJim said:
All the possibilities have been covered here except one...Call me crazy
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OK. Maybe not crazy, but a bit of a stretch. Other explanations are more likely. Particularly with the throttles being sent to cutoff inadvertently.
 
Fuel starvation does not necessarily mean they were out of fuel, only that it wasn’t going into the engines.

Lots of reasons exist as to why it wouldn’t go to both engines at the same time.

1. Turn the fuel levers off
2. Something other than fuel in the lines
A. Contaminated fuel
B. Air
C. Stuff
3. Mismanagement of fuel system

NOW you can start asking why one of these possibilities may have happened.

In the case of #1

a. Suicidal pilot
b. Suicidal pax
c. One engine fails, screw up procedures and shut the other down…

Who knows. But two engines not running is a BIG deal.
 
If we really wanna go root cause… I see three possibilities

1. Two engines fail
2. Two engines not producing enough thrust to fly
3. One engine fails, one engine not producing enough thrust.

If #1, then six subsets. Considering engines need air, fuel and spark… and there are two… six combos.

My previous post is a coupla steps from this. Starting at the top and working down to root cause is REALLY hard to do…. Should start here and work your way up.
 
Thanks Doc. I’m not familiar with that program but I had a SIDA badge for 10 years. You challenge everyone that’s not badged or accompanied by a badge that includes that rating.

Two “On-Condition” engines failing on short final has to be an Extremely Unlikely (FAA definition) event. I believe it’s at least 1x 10 to the minus 9th per flight hour probability. I’ve assisted in a number of accident investigations.

Why wait until final? Panic. OMG. We’re Ready to land. Now or never.

I hope I’m wrong.
 
Tools said:
If we really wanna go root cause… I see three possibilities

1. Two engines fail
2. Two engines not producing enough thrust to fly
3. One engine fails, one engine not producing enough thrust.

If #1, then six subsets. Considering engines need air, fuel and spark… and there are two… six combos.

My previous post is a coupla steps from this. Starting at the top and working down to root cause is REALLY hard to do…. Should start here and work your way up.
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# 2, 3 are easy. Hit GA. Briefed before Apply thrust, positive rate of climb, runway heading, go around and sort it out.
# 1: FADEC turns on ignitors if needed. A/C will easily GA on one good engine -especially when light and at sea level. Back to … what’s common to both engines?
 
MauiJim said:
# 1: FADEC turns on ignitors if needed. A/C will easily GA on one good engine -especially when light and at sea level. Back to … what’s common to both engines?
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Minor correction: The CF34-3B1 is not a FADEC engine, it's mechanical. I believe it should still automatically turn on the ignitors in an engine rollback situation, but to be clear, they don't have a FADEC. Remember these engines date back a long ways.

The -8s and -10s are FADEC engines, but they also have very little to no resemblance to the -3s. The -10s really are more like a CFM56 put on a Xerox machine with scale set to 75%.
 
MauiJim said:
All the possibilities have been covered here except one. I’m retired from the corporate aviation field (30+ years + 10 years below wing with a major CRJ operator but not a pilot) Call me crazy but there is no real security that would prevent a pax from boarding this A/C and taking it down. There was nothing that would keep anyone out of the cockpit. No airliner style door. Reaching the throttles, fuel cutoff and engine fire buttons is very easy from the jump seat. It’s not likely these pax were vetted before they boarded. Maybe not even asked for a DI to name match. Just saying I hope the NTSB has asked the Federal Marshals to keep an eye on all 3 of them until the CVR and FDR analysis clears them. Hope to God I’m wrong.
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Interesting...

This guy joins and his first post is that we're all in danger of passengers on charter jets using them as weapons. What's next? No unvetted passengers in a 172?

Remember that guy who was the aviation god? Demanded that every one call him "Viper". I think this guy will end up the same way.
 
MauiJim said:
Ok. You’re right. The FBI then. People that know these aircraft are really scratching their heads. This ship shows it flies several charters a week so it was not a hanger queen they just threw on the line. As I said, I hope I’m wrong.
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The FBI doesn’t, either. No agency does. In three decades in law enforcement I never saw, or even heard rumors of, anyone being surveilled unless they were a developed suspect in a crime. There is zero evidence at this point of the passengers being anything but unwilling victims of a mishap.
 
ateamer said:
The FBI doesn’t, either. No agency does. In three decades in law enforcement I never saw, or even heard rumors of, anyone being surveilled unless they were a developed suspect in a crime. There is zero evidence at this point of the passengers being anything but unwilling victims of a mishap.
Click to expand...

Likely the only ones following the passengers around are personal injury attorneys offering to sue for a percentage.
 
donjohnston said:
Interesting...

This guy joins and his first post is that we're all in danger of passengers on charter jets using them as weapons. What's next? No unvetted passengers in a 172?

Remember that guy who was the aviation god? Demanded that every one call him "Viper". I think this guy will end up the same way.
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Attacking me is not offensive. Especially when you have no new information to present.
 
3393RP said:
C'mon, Doc. Obviously the pilots didn't elaborate on the reason for loss of both engines over the radio because they were protecting management's scheme of intentionally underfueling aircraft to save money.

It didn't have anything to do with both engines failing when the aircraft was in a reduced energy state, at low altitude, and roughly 90 seconds from touchdown. The pilots wouldn't have been focused on going through engine restart procedures or looking for someplace suitable for an emergency landing.
Click to expand...

If it wasn't birds or fuel completely disabling the engines, these poor guys
didn't have a chance to get those engines started again. That's because if
it was a windmill start, they'd need 240 knots + according to the Challenger
604 checklist. And, according to this helpful post on another forum, just
getting the APU started to restart at least one of the engines could take up
to two minutes or so:

<<EDIT to answer question in comment: Depending on size, the APU will take something between 30seconds and 2 minutes to start. The big APU of the 777
will deliver electrical power after 2 minutes or so, small units you are likely to find on regional jets can do that after perhaps 45 seconds. Then, it takes
an additional 2-4 minutes until you can extract bleed air from it.>>

aviation.stackexchange.com

How are APUs started?

How are jet engines started? says that engines must be started from bleed air, which can come from the APU, another engine, or a huffer cart, or from windmilling. As far as I understand, APUs are ...
aviation.stackexchange.com aviation.stackexchange.com

I agree that's a very tense situation where the pilots were likely in some state
of shock / disbelief and they were incredibly busy deciding what to do. It was
also a very good decision not to take out any of the houses on the east side.
And the golf course on the west could only handle something like a 172. So
they admirably saved three lives by choosing the freeway with very little
time to think.

Just FYI, these pilots were about 1,000' lower than Captain Sully on Cactus
1549 when he reported his dual engine failure was due to striking birds - he
didn't have much time to think either, but he immediately said that he
"hit birds, lost thrust on both engines..."

As we can see below, Hop-A-Jet 823 started losing speed and altitude at a faster
rate at about 1,800'. But the pilot still said twice that they lost both engines -
I would think they could take another half a second or so to say if it was birds
at least one of those times.

 
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Ted said:
My experience is with the engines that are on that plane, which I used to support, and my knowledge of the plane itself is only cursory.

The main thought I've had that hasn't somehow been discussed in here would be an uncontained failure of one of the rotors (my first guess would be the high pressure turbine - HPT, but LPT and fan are possible) that exited the engine, went through the fuselage, and then took out the other engine. This sort of failure mode is extremely uncommon because it's both an uncontained failure (rare) that then happens to be a projectile at just the right angle so as to go through and take out the other engine, but it has happened. Early S-76s had this happen I believe more than once. There is absolutely enough energy in there to rip through the fuselage and hit the other engine if a disk separated. It's been a while, but I think the CF34-3 core spins at... 15-20k RPM? Something around that sound right, and HPT rotors have some heft to them

As a general concept, think United 232, but that instead of the tail mounted engine where the fan rotor took out the hydraulic lines, that it was an engine across from another engine. A failure like this happened in 2000 to a Continental DC-10 with a failure of certain low pressure turbine (LPT) components:


Note that while engine #3 didn't immediately as a result of #1, there was damage to it that created enough of a vibration that the crew pulled it back to idle, flying only on engine #2. After they successfully landed and the plane was inspected, engine #2 (the one on the tail, above the fuselage) was also found damaged from debris that came out of the #1 engine, mounted below the wing on a low-wing airplane. It can go a long way. There's other examples but this one came to mind.

Incidentally, this is why turbines have life limits on components and the inspections and replacements are mandatory. When these failures happen it's generally without warning.
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An uncontained failure and really bad luck is where I was settling with my own speculation. Fuel contaminant would most likely cause problems early in the flight in my opinion. Short of some crew error in misidentification of the bad engine this seems the only plausible answer, especially with the type of post accident fire. Seems like there was more than enough fuel to make it to the airport.

Will definitely be following this investigation.
 
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Jim K said:
From Juan brown's youtube comments, so you know, all the salt, but it sounds plausible...

View attachment 125261

I don't know enough about it to have an opinion, but I thought it was an interesting take.
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Here's an interesting add on to that from the same YouTube forum:

<<..I flew CRJs with Skywest and I 100%agree with you. Those stupid tabs are a dangerous design. Problem is, once they're "bumped" and unlocked, it doesn't take much to bring the thrust levers to the shutoff position. Even with all the charred wreckage, that throttle quadrant will show what position those levers are in. This same thing happened on a Vietnamese CRJ900 years ago.I also bumped those damn tabs one time during the after landing check as we were taxiing into SLC in a 900. I think it was just a clumsy hand moment or something. Anyway, we had to sit on the outter boundary of the ramp while waiting for a gate so we elected not to start the APU while sitting there with one engine running. The captain went to rest his hand on the thrust lever of the running engine and suddenly "click" and poof,killed the engine. I looked over like "WTF just happened?" More like "how did that happen". Yep, you guessed it, when I bumped it earlier, I unknowingly unlocked it by accident when I bumped the tab. We could hear passengers getting up in the back because they thought we were at the gate. Made an announcement to tell them to be seated and fasten belts until we get to the gate. Pretty embarrassing, but I was super careful around those tabs, especially after I upgraded and moved to the left seat.I now fly Challenger 300/350s and they don't have that deadly design. Engine run switches are below (aft) of the quadrant.>>
 
CaptainDoug said:
If it wasn't birds or fuel completely disabling the engines, these poor guys
didn't have a chance to get those engines started again. That's because if
it was a windmill start, they'd need 240 knots + according to the Challenger
604 checklist. And, according to this helpful post on another forum, just
getting the APU started to restart at least one of the engines could take up
to two minutes or so:

<<EDIT to answer question in comment: Depending on size, the APU will take something between 30seconds and 2 minutes to start. The big APU of the 777
will deliver electrical power after 2 minutes or so, small units you are likely to find on regional jets can do that after perhaps 45 seconds. Then, it takes
an additional 2-4 minutes until you can extract bleed air from it.>>

aviation.stackexchange.com

How are APUs started?

How are jet engines started? says that engines must be started from bleed air, which can come from the APU, another engine, or a huffer cart, or from windmilling. As far as I understand, APUs are ...
aviation.stackexchange.com aviation.stackexchange.com

I agree that's a very tense situation where the pilots were likely in some state
of shock / disbelief and they were incredibly busy deciding what to do. It was
also a very good decision not to take out any of the houses on the east side.
And the golf course on the west could only handle something like a 172. So
they admirably saved three lives by choosing the freeway with very little
time to think.

Just FYI, these pilots were about 1,000' lower than Captain Sully on Cactus
1549 when he reported his dual engine failure was due to striking birds - he
didn't have much time to think either, but he immediately said that he
"hit birds, lost thrust on both engines..."

As we can see below, Hop-A-Jet 823 started losing speed and altitude at a faster
rate at about 1,800'. But the pilot still said twice that they lost both engines -
I would think they could take another half a second or so to say if it was birds
at least one of those times.

Click to expand...
Why do you have a fixation on the content of the radio transmission? The crew had about 30 seconds of flight remaining when the PM notified ATC they were going down. Any further communication with ATC outside of informing them the aircraft was attempting an off airport emergency landing would have stolen precious time the pilots needed to try and optimise the outcome of a dire situation.

I'm well aware of the time and procedures required to attempt a restart of the engines or bring the APU online, and that the outcome of the flight was preordained the moment the engines stopped producing thrust.

That you had to look on the internet to find the restart checklist and that your information on APU spool up times came from a "helpful post on another forum" indicate rather clearly you don't know the basic facts about rote memory emergency procedures for advanced turbine powered aircraft, and the online persona you present is probably invented.
 
Just because one guy transmitted that they’d had a bird strike doesn’t mean that everyone else talks about it on the radio when they do.

When I had a bird strike, I made the routine calls and didn’t say why I was returning to land instead of departing as previously announced. A few friend who’ve had bird strikes also kept their traffic concise. The one who had a turkey vulture crush the leading edge back into the forward spar made no calls unti he was wntering the pattern five miles later. (Carbon Cub - the wing had to be replaced because the spar attachment was slightly bent. He said it remained totally controllable and almost unnoticeable in flight.)

Another acquaintance who had an engine failure on climbout simply told the tower “emergency, landing”, and said the runway he was using.
 
I never worked for Hop a Jet, so I can’t speak to their SOP’s, but in our operation, the APU would have been running during this phase of flight.
 
3393RP said:
Why do you have a fixation on the content of the radio transmission? The crew had about 30 seconds of flight remaining when the PM notified ATC they were going down. Any further communication with ATC outside of informing them the aircraft was attempting an off airport emergency landing would have stolen precious time the pilots needed to try and optimise the outcome of a dire situation.

I'm well aware of the time and procedures required to attempt a restart of the engines or bring the APU online, and that the outcome of the flight was preordained the moment the engines stopped producing thrust.

That you had to look on the internet to find the restart checklist and that your information on APU spool up times came from a "helpful post on another forum" indicate rather clearly you don't know the basic facts about rote memory emergency procedures for advanced turbine powered aircraft, and the online persona you present is probably invented.
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BS - I have starter generators and FADEC which automatically ignites the igniters
after an engine failure. I am fully aware of the dual engine restart from the memory
items for a twin turbine with no APU - for you to automatically and ERRONEOUSLY
say that I'm not (because I don't fly a Challenger, Gulfstream, etc.) puts you in negative
light in my book.

PS: Just got back from FSI for recurrent - got my Pro Card. So don't you dare
say that I'm not familiar with the memory items and checklist items for
emergencies.

Due to your idiotic assumptions, I'm starting to think that it's people like
you who I hear screwing around on guard in the flight levels. And that's
IF you've even started a jet anytime recently. Moreover, due to those
idiotic and erroneous assumptions, I won't hold any of your analysis in
high regard either.
 
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MauiJim said:
Attacking me is not offensive. Especially when you have no new information to present.
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Wasn't an attack. Just an observation.

And you don't have any "new information". So why don't you list all the incidents in the US where charter aircraft were taken over or crashed by an unvetted passenger. BTW, here's some new information (for you): the flight attendant was one of the 3 which survived. So I'm pretty sure they were "vetted"
 
CaptainDoug said:
BS - I have starter generators and FADEC which automatically ignites the igniters
after an engine failure. I am fully aware of the dual engine restart from the memory
items for a twin turbine with no APU - for you to automatically and ERRONEOUSLY
say that I'm not (because I don't fly a Challenger, Gulfstream, etc.) puts you in negative
light in my book.

PS: Just got back from FSI for recurrent - got my Pro Card. So don't you dare
say that I'm not familiar with the memory items and checklist items for
emergencies.

Due to your idiotic assumptions, I'm starting to think that it's people like
you who I hear screwing around on guard in the flight levels. And that's
IF you've even started a jet anytime recently. Moreover, due to those
idiotic and erroneous assumptions, I won't hold any of your analysis in
high regard either.
Click to expand...
So what do you fly?
 
CaptainDoug said:
BS - I have starter generators and FADEC which automatically ignites the igniters
after an engine failure. I am fully aware of the dual engine restart from the memory
items for a twin turbine with no APU - for you to automatically and ERRONEOUSLY
say that I'm not (because I don't fly a Challenger, Gulfstream, etc.) puts you in negative
light in my book.

PS: Just got back from FSI for recurrent - got my Pro Card. So don't you dare
say that I'm not familiar with the memory items and checklist items for
emergencies.

Due to your idiotic assumptions, I'm starting to think that it's people like
you who I hear screwing around on guard in the flight levels. And that's
IF you've even started a jet anytime recently. Moreover, due to those
idiotic and erroneous assumptions, I won't hold any of your analysis in
high regard either.
Click to expand...

Can't dispute this guy, he has a PRO CARD.
 
oh sweet, the appeal to authority fallacies have started flying already. Subbin'! ...Where's the thumb and bell on this thing -- oh wait wrong website. :D
 
ateamer said:
Just because one guy transmitted that they’d had a bird strike doesn’t mean that everyone else talks about it on the radio when they do.

When I had a bird strike, I made the routine calls and didn’t say why I was returning to land instead of departing as previously announced. A few friend who’ve had bird strikes also kept their traffic concise. The one who had a turkey vulture crush the leading edge back into the forward spar made no calls unti he was wntering the pattern five miles later. (Carbon Cub - the wing had to be replaced because the spar attachment was slightly bent. He said it remained totally controllable and almost unnoticeable in flight.)

Another acquaintance who had an engine failure on climbout simply told the tower “emergency, landing”, and said the runway he was using.
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Can't argue with that. But there's different levels of professionalism.
Captain Sullenberger was former Air Force and a very good thinker.
Many wouldn't even have done what he did to save all of those people that
day. A guy like Capt Sully packs it all in concisely. In my view, he's immediately
and quickly conveying to the world WHY he lost thrust in both engines should
the crew, the passengers and the black box not make it that day.

"Hit birds, lost thrust on both engines..."

But not everyone thinks as far forward and as quickly as Sully - that's why
more that just a few would have returned to LGA and probably have
killed 155 people.
 
Mikey52 said:
Can't dispute this guy, he has a PRO CARD.
Click to expand...
Please, feel free to dispute or argue.

I'll do the same if I subjectively believe to see errors or omissions
in either facts, logic or both.
 
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This one went to the kiddie table quickly.

IMO there should be some kind of online dueling room for forum users whose honor has been affronted. A digital version of slapping each other with a dress glove and meeting for a 1v1 FPS contest. Or maybe an aviation trivia shootout.
 
I’m sorry I’ve offended all of you. Doc, Don & Doug, each of you certainly have more hours and understand corporate aviation better than I do. So please accept my apologies. I was rude and offensive at the very least. I don’t fly anymore. But I’m still a corporate aviation enthusiast. I can’t help it. I also have strong ties to the ‘604. I can’t help it.

If I could restate my original premise: I think we can agree that this accident is very unusual. So unusual I can’t ever remember of it happening. And I’m not a youngster.

These aircraft are designed, built, flown and maintained to avoid a few unrecoverable failures. Near the top of the list is dual engine failures on short final. It’s certified to 1 in 10^+9 flight hours. That’s a thousand million flight hours. And the exposure time is only about 15 min per flight. That’s as low as those probabilities go in the FARs.

Two of our brothers flew West. Our hearts go out to their families. The last thing any us want is a repeat. So the cause HAS to be found & fixed. ASAP.

So if nothing makes sense, we need to think out of the box. What are we overlooking?

There were 3 other passengers onboard that, for all practical purposes, were strangers to the crew. Could it be as simple as a suicidal passenger?

We see mental health issues galore including suicide being ignored. People deliberately causing head-ons or driving into interstate bridge supports more and more often. We lost a pilot on an overnight at the station I worked at to suicide. Didn’t show up for the hotel crew bus. We all know of someone who (not just pilots) we wish we could have helped before it was too late. It’s not new but it feels like it’s escalating to me. I’m almost 80 and I plan to live to 100. But what about those 3 strangers?

I got to thinking about the FBOs I’ve visited and thought “how hard would it be to book a charter, board and then cause the aircraft to crash? Especially if you’ve been on charter flights before.

Cockpits are completely accessible. One might even be invited in to ooh and ahh at the wonders that we all take for granted. Kneeling on the floor behind the pedestal, how quickly could I grab the power levers or hit both capped engine fire switches? You know the answer. In this case the person in question would be a murderer. I hope to God I’m wrong.

We know the FDR and CVR reads will provide a vector for NTSB to follow (if they are successful at reading them. That was some fire.) But that report is going to take weeks if not months.

It just feels to me like one assumption that needs to be written on their blackboard is that someone ABOARD the aircraft shut down both engines simultaneously. Accident or on purpose-we need to know. The flight crew would be my last guess.

I was way too flip when I previously mentioned it. Once it’s clear this assumption is invalid (FDR/CDR) erase it.

Thanks for listening to my second attempt.
 
Ed Haywood said:
This one went to the kiddie table quickly.

IMO there should be some kind of online dueling room for forum users whose honor has been affronted. A digital version of slapping each other with a dress glove and meeting for a 1v1 FPS contest. Or maybe an aviation trivia shootout.
Click to expand...

I propose a DCS online room. 3 out of 5 sets, high aspect BFM, WVR shots only. 9-Papa or 20 mike mike only, like real men used to do. Hook up each dueler's genitals to a 120V wall socket a la Napoleon Dynamite, get cattle prodded every time a valid Pk shot gets ya.
:rofl:
 
Nothing much to add here other than to requote 3393RP. That could have been an absolute bloodbath.
3393RP said:
The crew did a damned good job of playing the cards they were dealt. Putting down a bizjet on a highway involves speeds that usually result in fragmentation of the aircraft and death of the occupants. That the passengers survived shows those two professionals gave it their all.

Rest easy, guys.
Click to expand...
 
Ed Haywood said:
This one went to the kiddie table quickly.

IMO there should be some kind of online dueling room for forum users whose honor has been affronted. A digital version of slapping each other with a dress glove and meeting for a 1v1 FPS contest. Or maybe an aviation trivia shootout.
Click to expand...
Balloon duel with blunderbusses?
 
The suicidal passenger theory has no basis in reality. Just write every cause of every accident that has ever happened on a slip of paper, put them in a hat and pull one at random and propose it as the cause of this crash. That's what you're doing.
 
dmspilot said:
The suicidal passenger theory has no basis in reality. Just write every cause of every accident that has ever happened on a slip of paper, put them in a hat and pull one at random and propose it as the cause of this crash. That's what you're doing.
Click to expand...

Well, so far he hasn't drawn slips that say "carb ice" or "fouled spark plugs" or "propeller failure" or....
;)
 
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