GIV crash 31 May,Bedford,Mass.

de biz

A 2000-build Gulfstream IV msn 1399 / N121JM has crashed whilst departing from Bedford-Hanscom Field Airport, in the State of Massachusetts. Seven people died in the accident.
The Gulfstream’s first flight of the day had taken N121JM on a short hop from Wilmington’s New Castle Airport in Delaware to Atlantic City, New Jersey. After a few hours on the ground the aircraft left Atlantic City for the 48 minute flight to Bedford.
The accident happened when the aircraft was flying back to Atlantic City, at around 21:40 local time.
The aircraft is believed to have caught fire on its take-off run, with several eye-witnesses telling local newspapers than they heard a loud explosion, and saw a fireball rising to about 60-foot in the sky.

smurfjed

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2646565/Charred-wreckage-private-jet-claimed-lives-billionaire-Lewis-Katz-six-revealed-emerges-pilots-didnt-time-issue-call-help.html

Some pretty nasty pictures, I'm actually in KILG and saw that aircraft a few days ago. Extremely distressing how a simple flight can turn into a disaster.

eatmyshorts

Looks like it had a high speed runway over run. I notice that the reverser buckets are closed and no sign of spoilers deployed on the relatively intact right wing.

What's the TORA on this runway?

No experience of G4 or bizjet ops, so I'll defer on making anymore assumptions to the experts!

Suasdaguna1

Terrible accident......me too I'm no expert of G V's but would be very keen to hear the prelim report.

de biz

R/W 11 TORA 7011

smurfjed

The G4 balanced field would be about 4000 feet for max thrust and 5000 for flex. As for the thrust reversers, the aircraft has a nutcracker system that is designed to bring systems from ground to flight mode, if this fails into the flight mode, then you will lose the thrust reversers around 50 kts, you will also lose the anti skid and the engines will go into a high flight idle.
I have no idea as to the cause of this crash, so I'm interested in finding out what the flight data recorder reveals, if anything. This is actually the 2nd fatal crash involving G4 aircraft in the last 2 years.

de biz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26oFaPFYK3Y

smurfjed

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/Deadly_failure_on_the_runway_in_Katz_crash.html Gulfstream has admitted that power can be set even with the flight control lock engaged.

de biz

http://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/PR20150909.aspx

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GokKYNOcp20

smurfjed

That is unreal, I lost count of the number of times that they should have aborted. The part about this that is even worse is that they had only completed the after start flight control check 2 times in the preceding 170 flights. To me this is one of the biggest problems having fixed crews who always fly with each other, it allows complacency to set in, if the training provider then takes the approach of "tick the box" as they don't want to upset the customer, then you really start to have a problem.

This accident was so easily avoidable.

Crumbs868

Read an interesting article which basically said private aircraft pilots are under huge pressure to do what their boss say and stick to his schedule more so than a commercial aircraft pilots where it's always safety first, sounds like it may have been a factor here

Irish Steve

Crumbs868 wrote: »

Read an interesting article which basically said private aircraft pilots are under huge pressure to do what their boss say and stick to his schedule more so than a commercial aircraft pilots where it's always safety first, sounds like it may have been a factor here

The average owner of a GIV has no detailed knowledge of the procedures that are required to operate the aircraft safely, and the extra time required to perform the check lists completely rather than casually is minimal, and there are plenty of ways to explain what's going on, the best being " We are preparing for departure, and performing the ESSENTIAL checks to make sure that we arrive safely at our destination."

This accident was not a result of rushing to depart, and everything to do with a poor and unacceptably casual attitude towards the correct and safe operation of the aircraft.

de biz

http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR1503.pdf

John_Mc

Why did the PIC keep announcing "lock is on"? Not familiar with that phrase.

Amazing that they continued with the takeoff after getting the rudder limit without knowing the reason

smurfjed

The Gulfstream IV is fitted with a flight control lock to protect the flight controls from wind damage when they are parked and to lock the throttles, the lock is supposed to be released as part of the before-start flow and checked against the before-start checklist, it is also checked with the after start flight control check where all flight controls must be exercised, and again this is confirmed with a checklist.

The rudder limit light is normal after starting an engine and it indicates a difference in the hydraulic systems working on the rudder, once again this isn't normal with two engines working and the least reaction would have called the crew to read the QRH.

The flight control lock cannot be released when hydraulic pressure is applied and it looks as if the crew pulled the flight power shut off valve to release that hydraulic pressure, however this isn't a written procedure during a takeoff roll.

Unfortunately for Gulfstream, the flight control lock allowed the throttles to move to a setting above the minimum EPR for the autothrottle, so power was set but then rapidly changed, I believe that this design fault will now cost them millions much to the delight of the lawyers.

As for the crew, negligent isn't a sufficient description of their actions, they had multiple opportunities to stop that aircraft, even the guy in the right seat who just allowed himself to be carried to his death, why didn't he just yell STOP!

de biz

Final report on N823GA at Le Castellet 2012

Might be of interest to some....


http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2012/n-ga120713.en/pdf/n-ga120713.en.pdf

smurfjed

Read part of it last week, the G4 has automatic ground spoilers that must be armed prior to landing, once they deploy the handle doesn't actually move, there are failure lights if they don't deploy, that was the start of their problems. Extremely sad result for the crew of 3.

homerjay2005

so am i right in saying, this accident is as bad as it gets when it comes to pilot related error?

smurfjed

the pre-flight planning was incomplete;
ˆˆ during the flight, numerous checklists were not carried out or called for. The
‘‘before landing’’ checklist was carried out in an incomplete manner;
ˆˆ the crew omitted to arm the ground spoilers during the approach and they did
not detect this in flight;
ˆˆ the flight path and speed were stabilized and the touch occurred near the
touchdown zone;
ˆˆ not being armed, the ground spoilers did not deploy on main landing gear
touchdown and the crew did not notice it;
ˆˆ the non-deployment generated a low load on the landing gear causing a
temporary loss of on-ground condition of the main landing gear;
ˆˆ the temporary loss of the on-ground condition inhibited the deployment of the
thrust reversers for seven seconds and caused the triggering of the MASTER
WARNING alarms;
ˆˆ the low load on the landing gear prevented effective braking;
ˆˆ the deceleration was relatively low on the first two thirds of the runway;
ˆˆ the crew applied a strong nose-down input that generated an unusually high
load, for a short period, on the nose gear;
ˆˆ following the second touchdown of the nose gear the aeroplane veered to the
left due to an orientation to the left of the nose gear;
ˆˆ the leftwards orientation of the nose gear could have been caused by a left input
on the tiller or by a failure in the steering system;
ˆˆ the crew immediately responded to the lateral deviation with an input on the
rudder pedals and differential braking but were unable to maintain control of the
aeroplane; they did not set the PWR STEER switch to OFF when the aeroplane was
on the runway;

Unfortunately, the simple mistake of forgetting the set the ground spoilers which should have been done in this case by the Captain (PM), combined with not following the checklist properly created a problem that escalated into this accident.

this accident is as bad as it gets when it comes to pilot related error?

I wouldn't agree, they made a mistake, but it wasn't on the same level as the Metro in Cork.

de biz

http://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/brief2.aspx?ev_id=20150209X74707&ntsbno=CEN15IA139&akey=1

de biz

The aircraft lined up for takeoff in conditions of reduced visibility. The crew believed that the lights they could see ahead were runway centreline lights when they were actually runway edge lights. The aircraft began its takeoff run but ran off the paved surface and onto grass. The commander closed the thrust levers to reject the takeoff.
Information available to the pilots allowed them to develop an incorrect mental model of their route from the holding point to the runway. Environmental cues indicating that the aircraft was in the wrong position for takeoff were not strong enough to alert the pilots to the fact that they had lost situational awareness.
One Safety Recommendation has been made.


https://www.gov.uk/aaib-reports/aaib-investigation-to-gulfstream-iii-g-1159a-n103cd

smurfjed

N103CD

I believe that this aircraft was owned by an American church, they are now calling for their congregation to finance a new Gulfstream 650

de biz

smurfjed wrote: »

I believe that this aircraft was owned by an American church, they are now calling for their congregation to finance a new Gulfstream 650

Praise the Lord and pass the collection plate...they will need a silent collection at that!