Pilots trajic "joyride"

[Guest ThrottleUp]

Interesting (and tragic) story. You all remember that crash in October 2004 where this jet suffered double engine failure? They released the tapes which apparently reveal that the pilots were in a jovial mood and decided to take the plane as high as it would go....Have a read:http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/06/13/...ain701381.shtml

[Jeff Nielsen 1,385]

I have a friend who flies scarebuses for NWA out of MSP while residing here in KC. I now see what he meant by there were other circumstances going on and I would find out.I was once told by my flight instructor that if I chose to fly outside the published limitations of the aircraft I would be a 'test pilot'This sounds like a case of just what can happen when you choose to become a test pilot.

[delta november 0]

Yeah; I live about 50 mi from where they crashed, but from the link youposted the following really got to me; "Flying, he said, is as boring as truck driving most of the time."x( This guy probably doesn't know any more about flying than he doesabout driving a truck, which is evidently NOTHING. :-lol DennyProfessional Tourist

[greggerm 312]

Read the article, guys!The pilots were not "joyriding" - the aircraft they were flying in was CERTIFIED to fly at the altitude that they went to, so they were not stepping outside the bounds or acting reckless in any manner.It sounds as though the pilots didn't know how to handle the aircraft at that altitude - as you know, the air is thinner and the margin of error is much slimmer. The pilots probably ended up flying too slow for their altitude, stalled out the airfoils, and ended up in a DEEP stall whereby the wings actually block air from getting into the engines, causing a flameout and inability to restart. This may also account for why they weren't able to glide to a safe location - 41,000 feet is a DARN high altitude, and you can reach a lot of airfields from up there. The quote that is being thrown around about them wanting to go up to altitude to have some fun is, to me, taken so far out of context that it does the entire news story a great disservice. They weren't playing around, but it does seem that they were not adequately trained to know the effects of higher-altitude flying...-Greg

[Guest DNelson]

Go read the Cockpit Voice Recorder transcript:http://www.ntsb.gov/events/2005/Pinnacle/e...CVR_Factual.pdfIt sure sounds to me like they were having fun, at least until the engines flamed out. The phrase "sound of laughing" shows up in the transcript 29 times.

[mgh 89]

I did read the article and I quote:'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

[mgh 89]

I've just read that transcript. Do they sound like professional aircrew?As well as the laughing, there were 26 expletives before the engines flamed out.

[Guest ThrottleUp]

Just goes to show how terribly unforgiving flying is if you mess about with it.Im just glad no-one on the ground was killed.

[Jeff Nielsen 1,385]

None the less, the fact is from 41K you'd think they could have landed at KCI or STL from that alt. I'm sure there were plenty of other circumstances that affected the choice of where to land. I wonder if Jeff City was actually too close for them and they had to bleed off excess altitude then from there they may have misjudged the final altitude a bit. I've done that before in practicing engine outs. I ended up doing S turns to bleed off altitude and came up a bit short in the end.My guess is that they also burned the generators and batteries out by trying to restart when they couldn't. They may have tried an incorrect restart procedure and it was to late by then.What ever the case is, they still couldn't get them lit again which is kind of suspicious.I agree that the quote could have been taking out of context, but they shouldn't have been any where near that high in the slow j. I wonder how long it took them to get that high given the CRJ's terrible time to climb ratios. None the less, 1 foot above 41K was above the service ceiling and left no room for error.In any case, we can what if this to death, but it is a learning experience we should all learn from.

[KevinAu 441]

Why not just go here and get some facts.http://www.ntsb.gov/events/2005/Pinnacle/e...its/default.htm

[Jeff Nielsen 1,385]

Ok, the fact is this: If you fly the airplane outside of it's performance envelope you become a test pilot. These planes have already been tested. Now you see the what being a test pilot can do to you.I don't care if they were at the service ceiling. They must have been above it or pretty darn close, anyways. I'd say the aircraft flies pretty close to the published AFM, woudn't you? Just because 41K is the certified ceiling, that's also in a given set of conditions.As I'm reading through the brief, I'm already finding serveral very alarming things about the crew, specifically the captain. Like failure to perform the company checklists during simulator sessions. Very crazy! That confirms my suspicion maybe about not getting the engines restarted properly?

[KevinAu 441]

You sound a bit defensive there. All I did was give you a link to the public docket so you can read for yourself what actually happened instead of having to make any more guesses about burned out generators and batteries. I am sure everybody will agree with your conclusions about their crazinesses.BTW, there is also a detailed analysis of their radar track and glide performance to answer your question about whether they were too close to Jefferson City.

[Jeff Nielsen 1,385]

No offense to you, but that kind of stuff (crews acting like that) just lights me up sometimes...lol. Didn't mean to sound rude.

[woodreau 0]

Not that we need any Monday morning quarterbacking...But when I was reading the exhibits, I was kind of shocked to see that the pilots let it get as slow as green line. With green line being 1.27 Vso, flying above green line is the normal region of flight command, flying below green line the CRJ is in the region of reverse command.Remember doing slow flight in your Cessna? trying to maintain altitude, while keeping the speed just above stall? you keep adding more power and the airplane keeps slowing down and you can't maintain altitude unless you increase the backpressure which slows you down even more.Their weight at brake release was just over 39,000ft and the performance charts in the exhibit say that the CRJ can just barely make it to FL410 at that weight.It looks like the pilots handflew it up to FL410 not using the proper climb profile, and when they got up to FL410 put the autopilot back on. The airplane didn't have enough power to accelerate so the autopilot tried to maintain altitude by increasing angle of attack = just like slow flight in a Cessna. Then they stalled...During the stall, it appears the airflow got interrupted into the engines, and both engines experienced compressor stalls. When you look at the FDR data, both engines flamed out when they stalled, the ITT temp of the #2 engine got up to 1250 C. Max continuous ITT is 874 C. So #2 engine is fried and probably won't start ever. I don't think they realized it at the time...Now you're at FL410, no engines, as the IDGs stop supplying power you lose hydraulic pressure in all 3 hydraulic systems and now have no flight controls... The RAT deploys and #3b hydraulic pump works to provide hydraulic pressure to hydraulics system 3 to operate the flight controls. You get your primary flight controls back, but no flaps, no spoilers.After the RAT deploys, the FO has no flight instruments, his PFD/MFD has no power, only the Capt's PFD/MFD has power, (but the nav display has no info to display because the FMS does not work) the FO's Comm2 / Nav2 / DME 2 and audio control panels don't work. Only the Capt's Comm 1 / Nav 1 and his audio panel works. If they weren't paying attention to the aircraft position before, the only way at this point to figure out where they are is to tune in one VOR in Nav 1, get a radial, tune in a second VOR in Nav 1, get a radial, just like your single NAV/COM Cessna 152.Establish best glide M0.70 above FL 340, 240kts below FL 340.Next altitude is 30,000ft, that is the altitude you can start the APU to get electrical power restored. Once electrical power's established, you get the FO's instruments, com/nav radios, both DMEs, and FMS back..Next altitude is getting set up for windmill airstart at 21,000ft. push over around FL 250-260 - by the time you accelerate from 240kts to the 300kias required for the windmill airstart, you're descending thru FL210. Once you get the 300kts below FL210, you're looking for at least 12% N2 rotation, these guys never got the N2 rotation - they never got above the 300kts required, but it looks like they tried to start anyway.So windmill airstart doesn't work, try the starter-assisted air start, can't do that until 13,000ft. Which is why you hear them asking for 13,000ft. After you give up on the windmill airstart establish best glide again probably 170kts because they were so light (39,000lbs at brake release). And you stay at 170kts all the way to the landing flare.At 13,000ft attempt the airstart, they still weren't able to get N2 rotation. Looking at the CVR, it looks like they waited until 9,000ft until they gave up trying to start the engines and started asking for vectors to any airport. - for a long time ATC only knew about a single engine failure, and ATC wasn't informed of both engines being out until much later after the stall.By the time you're at 9000ft, you've got about a 4-5 nm glide range at 170kts, and you're descending around 1500-1800fpm or about a 6-7 degree glideslope.I think the pilots got too preoccupied with trying to restart their engines that they didn't aviate - and asking for closest airport. When you look at their ground track, they flew past several towered airports that looked promising.They went 14 minutes after the flameout before they asked for vectors to the closest airport - then they crashed 6 minutes later.Anyways, that's my guess as to what happened.