As expected, the National Transportation Safety Board said the probable cause of the October 14, 2004 Pinnacle Airlines accident was the pilots' fault. (RAN, December 4, p.7)

"This accident was caused by the pilots' inappropriate and unprofessional behavior," said NTSB Chair Mark Rosenker, during a hearing last week into the crash of the Bombardier (BBD) CRJ 600. "Simply adhering to standard operating procedures and correctly implementing emergency procedures would have gone a long way to averting this tragic accident."

The Board cited the pilots for poor airmanship for deviating from standard operating procedures resulting in an in-flight emergency from which they were unable to recover. The Board cited the fact the pilots had inadequate training to recover from an engine core shutdown. It also said they failed to prepare for an emergency landing in a timely manner, including communicating with air traffic controllers immediately after the emergency about the loss of both engines and the availability of landing sites. Finally, the board cited the pilots' failure to achieve and maintain the target airspeed in the double-engine-failure checklist, which caused the engine cores to stop rotating and resulted in the core lock engine condition, cited as a contributing cause.

The Board urged the Federal Aviation Administration to require new standards for the CF34-1 or CF34-3 engines, citing a safety hazard that could prevent them from being restarted if they fail at high altitude.

It recommended aircraft manufacturers perform high-power, high-altitude, sudden engine shutdowns; determine the minimum airspeed required to maintain sufficient core rotation and demonstrate that all methods of in-flight restart can be accomplished when the airspeed is maintained. It also wants airplane flight mannals for the General Electric engines to clearly state the minimum airspeed required for core engine rotation. It wants a warning to state if this airspeed is not maintained after a high-power, high-altitude, sudden engine shutdown, a loss of in-flight restart capability may occur from a core lock. Finally, it would require operations of the CRJ-100, -200 and -400 aircraft include in the flight manuals the significant performance penalties, such as loss of glide distance and increase descent rate, that can be incurred from maintaining the minimum airspeed required for core rotation and windmill restart attempts.

NTSB Investigates Runway Incursion At DEN

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating a near miss between a Frontier Airlines Airbus A319 and a Swearingen Metroliner, operated by Key Lime Air, which inadvertently entered the runway. The move comes after a series of runway incursions across the country.

The two aircraft came within 50 feet of one another, said the Board. The Frontier aircraft broke out of the clouds and executed a missed approach after spotting the turboprop on the runway. The Airport Movement Area Safety System (AMASS) alerted the control tower personnel of the situation at the same time the Frontier crew saw the Metroliner on the runway. Weather at the time of the incident was a half-mile visibility with a 600-foot, overcast ceiling and mist.

The incident raises new questions about the relevancy of a Federal Aviation Administration's anti-collision system. A solution to runway incursions is on the Board's 10 Most Wanted List which calls for a cockpit alert system. Currently, unless they see the danger themselves, pilots must rely on tower guidance to help them avoid such situations, which, the Board says, takes too long. The investigation is the fourth such investigation by the board which said there are hundreds of runway incursions annually, virtually all involving small planes. The safety board launched an investigation in November of three incidents involving commercial airliners that used wrong runways at airports.