Citation hits a utility pole during an approach...

Hit a ****ing pole at 10 ft AGL 2 miles from the airport on a RNAV approach in a business jet? How the hell does that happen. I don't like to judge..but wow..I'd hang up my wings after that.

I guess it wasn't his day.
 
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"The pilot's second class medical certificate was issued on May 19, 2012, and contained the limitations: "not valid for night flying or by color signal control," and, "must have available glasses for near vision.""
 
Reminds me of a Bonanza that was in a well-known part 134&1/2 operation here...30+ years ago. Came in a tad low on the approach, hooked a telephone wire a mile from the field and 'brought er home' without noticing!
 
Holy moly! In some way, that utility pole just save the passengers and flight crew by alerting them before CFIT. How in the heck does something like this happen?
 
Words can't even express...

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29-foot tall electric utility pole about 10 feet 7 inches above ground level.????

EDIT: Duh. He smacked it 2/3rds of the way down from the top
 
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luvflyin said:
29-foot tall electric utility pole about 10 feet 7 inches above ground level.????
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The pole can be 29 ft tall - and you can strike it in your airplane at 10 ft 7 inches AGL. Nothing says a guy has to hit the top of the pole.
 
luvflyin said:
29-foot tall electric utility pole about 10 feet 7 inches above ground level.????
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He hit it a little more than a third of the way up. Notice there’s damage to the top and bottom of the jet.
 
Flew it around for 40 minutes before landing it, too... at 12,000'... the NTSB report just keeps giving and giving on this one...
 
rtk11 said:
Holy moly! In some way, that utility pole just save the passengers and flight crew by alerting them before CFIT. How in the heck does something like this happen?
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The “dive & drive” method gone horribly wrong?

We’re all lucky he hit the pole instead of a building full of people.
 
-1C Wonder if he had a bit of ice in his static system? 400 foot low roughly. But thinking about it more he was right of course just before impact by 1.2 nautical miles and corrected, and then when back on course was 1,000 high two miles before impact. And actually lost 1,400 feet of altitude in roughly 2 miles just before the pole. Guessing an approach speed of 120 he probably descended in excess of 1,500 fpm. Seems excessive to me that close to the ground. And then dropped 400 feet below mda in the process. He and his passengers were very lucky he caught it in the nose and not on a wing! I am betting the FAA helped him with the decision to hang it up for awhile.
 
This was 2014 and I guess the plane had no LPV equippage. Don't know whether the approaches were LPV when the accident occurred...

...lucky for the Cessna built it stout. The pole lost the battle.
 
not instrument rated so excuse me if a dumb question, but where was ATC on this one...No altitude alert? Do they just clear you for the approach and go on to other things as long as you don't pop up on a missed approach procedure? I guess they lose you on radar, eventually, but he was supposed to be 2500'.... so he thought he was, anyway...
 
FlySince9 said:
not instrument rated so excuse me if a dumb question, but where was ATC on this one...No altitude alert? Do they just clear you for the approach and go on to other things as long as you don't pop up on a missed approach procedure? I guess they lose you on radar, eventually, but he was supposed to be 2500'.... so he thought he was, anyway...
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Ground elevation is about 2,000 ft so not surprising that the aircraft would be below radar coverage at 2,500 ft. Elk City is sorta in the middle of nowhere.
 
FlySince9 said:
not instrument rated so excuse me if a dumb question, but where was ATC on this one...No altitude alert? Do they just clear you for the approach and go on to other things as long as you don't pop up on a missed approach procedure? I guess they lose you on radar, eventually, but he was supposed to be 2500'.... so he thought he was, anyway...
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Depends on the area, where I live they wouldn't have me on radar at 2500 AGL or so.



Also this changes the way I think about citations, to take a beating like that, execute a missed, fly around and still land uneventfully, that is quite impressive.
 
Holy cow!!! At first, I couldn't imagine how this was possible, but then when I street view the area of the strike (not the exact area, because street view doesn't cover that):

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FlySince9 said:
not instrument rated so excuse me if a dumb question, but where was ATC on this one...No altitude alert? Do they just clear you for the approach and go on to other things as long as you don't pop up on a missed approach procedure? I guess they lose you on radar, eventually, but he was supposed to be 2500'.... so he thought he was, anyway...
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At a non towered airport he’d most likely get “Citation 61YP, radar services terminated change to advisory frequency approved.” Even without the termination phraseology (not required), once switched to CTAF, radar or no radar, ATC is done with him.
 
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I'm surprised whacking a utility line pole 10' 7" off the ground didn't put the plane on the ground.
 
Unless the jet had a equipment malfunction this pilot really screwed up and he nearly killed everyone on board. Very fortunate.
 
wonder what if the altimeter was set correctly?
 
Back in the late 70s I hit a very old telephone pole with a '49 Packard. The pole definitely lost that battle. I still have a couple of the glass insulators I took off the cross bars.
 
mscard88 said:
"Wi Tu Lo"
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Sum Timg Wong.

I thought it neat the the perpetrators got that on the air. OTOH, they deserved what they had coming.

It was at least entertaining. Making light of a bad situation is not always bad unless you are politically correct.
 
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