Bismarck Air Medical crash, 11/18/2018

iamtheari

iamtheari

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The news doesn't have many details yet. KFYR is reporting that a twin-engine Bismarck Air Medical plane flying from Bismarck (KBIS) to Williston (KISN) crashed around 11:00 p.m. last night a few miles north of Mandan (Y19), with the three occupants (pilot, paramedic, and nurse) dying in the crash. Kathryn's Report so far just showed the NTSB tweet that they are investigating a Cessna 441 crash near Bismarck, which matches up with one of the company's planes. LiveATC (see below for link and timeline) has N441CX (a Conquest registered to Bismarck Air Medical) taking off around 10:30 p.m.

I live between Bismarck and Williston, closer to Williston. It's currently IFR to MVFR along the route; last night was similar as far as I can recall. Surface temperatures are around 10-15F and probably weren't much different last night. I also know that the first part of that flight is over fairly barren ground other than a huge wind farm with blinking red lights. I am like everyone else here, ambivalent about speculating about things like this, but there are a number of factors that likely combined in this one. One factor is likely that medical flight crews, just like ground ambulance crews, often put their own safety behind their mission of saving others. May they all R.I.P.

https://www.kfyrtv.com/content/news/Medical-plane-crash-northwest-of-Mandan-kills-3-500828871.html

https://flightaware.com/resources/registration/N441CX

https://twitter.com/NTSB_Newsroom/s...chrome&ref_url=http://www.kathrynsreport.com/

Here is the LiveATC archive. Last contact I hear from the plane is at about 2:30 in the clip (10:32 p.m. local). They were cleared for takeoff at 0:30 in the clip and handed off to Departure at about 2:15. They made initial contact with Bismarck Departure climbing through 2,600 for 14,000 (airport is 1,661 MSL) and were cleared direct Williston. Starting at about 11:00 in the clip (10:41 p.m. local and between 9 and 10 minutes after takeoff), Departure makes a series of calls to the flight. I didn't hear a response from the plane. It could be that the plane radioed something that we can't hear on LiveATC or it could be loss of radar contact or other concerns on the part of TRACON. They kept radioing until at least 15:30.

http://archive-server.liveatc.net/kbis/KBIS-Twr-App-Nov-19-2018-0430Z.mp3
 
Sounds like in-flight break up. Like really broken up... RIP
 
I've heard third-hand that the debris field covers 3/4 of a mile. Based on the KFYR picture, that sounds accurate. Whatever happened was definitely dramatic and bad.
 
iamtheari said:
One factor is likely that medical flight crews, just like ground ambulance crews, often put their own safety behind their mission of saving others. May they all R.I.P.
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I have yet to meet the medical flight crew that would risk the life of a patient by knowingly violating flight rules. The pilot can lose his/her certificate that way just like anyone else. Better for the patient to be on the ground in a hospital than in a plane that is looking for an airport above minimums. Fortunately it appears that there was not a patient onboard.

Just about all if not all med flight companies have a company rule stating that the trip is a mutual consent. If one person declines for any reason then the flight is cancelled. I have had a few flights cancelled because the med crew did not like the weather conditions. The rest requirements of the med folks are usually more stringent than pilot rest requirements. I have had trips cancelled because the med crews were timed out and were in their required rest period. And if a pilot is fatigued, then the mission will be cancelled.

The condition of the patient is not considered when planning a flight, and some companies do not give the patient condition to the pilot, unless there is something contagious involved. And if any linemen here, it is wise to stay away from a plane when the crew gets out wearing NBC suits....

Saying medical flight pilots risk their life to get a mission completed is like saying airline pilots risk passenger lives just to get their trip done.
 
Zeldman said:
I have yet to meet the medical flight crew that would risk the life of a patient by knowingly violating flight rules. The pilot can lose his/her certificate that way just like anyone else. Better for the patient to be on the ground in a hospital than in a plane that is looking for an airport above minimums. Fortunately it appears that there was not a patient onboard.
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I didn't mean to imply that medical flight crews take unjustifiable risks or violate regulations, and I apologize if what I said came across that way. All I meant is that, within the bounds of the regulations, there is a risk continuum that encompasses and informs every go/no-go decision, and medical flights basically have a two-dimensional risk continuum because their no-go decision doesn't just mean missing a football game or dinner. (They aren't told the condition of the patient, but here in oil country with heavy truck traffic and icy roads, the air ambulance guys know they aren't being dispatched for a patient with the sniffles.) I think that the value of their mission entitles them to greater deference on their go/no-go decision than we give to a $100 hamburger flight, just as I believe we owe greater deference to a ground ambulance's decision to make a trip on icy roads to transport an MVA victim than we owe to the guy who caused the MVA on his way to a football game or dinner.
 
iamtheari said:
I've heard third-hand that the debris field covers 3/4 of a mile. Based on the KFYR picture, that sounds accurate. Whatever happened was definitely dramatic and bad.
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It's pretty shocking to see the front portion of the fuselage torn off like it was half a soda can.

RIP
 
Wow. Winter weather is just getting underway. It's been a rough November for aviation so far.
RIP
 
This one hits REALLY close to home. I knew Chris personally, Todd and Bonnie in passing. My agency was tasked with death notifications that night and at my prior job, BAM was one of our customers. For those local to the area, it sounds like there will be a full honors service Monday morning at the Bismarck Civic Center.
46507759_10158054714266110_5912913598463606784_n.jpg
 
I’m fairly local to this one as well and also heard the debris field was 3/4 of a mile. I can’t believe that weather was a factor.

Can an engine explode to this degree? Ignition of the gas? Oxygen on board?

This one hurts... RIP.
 
scorpio said:
I’m fairly local to this one as well and also heard the debris field was 3/4 of a mile. I can’t believe that weather was a factor.

Can an engine explode to this degree? Ignition of the gas? Oxygen on board?

This one hurts... RIP.
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I can't answer WHAT happened, but yes, they do have oxygen on board and probably a full load since they were enroute to pick up a patient
 
Sounds like weather, low clouds and snow nearby at the time. I’d think weather factored in some way or another. With that in mind, then we can back up to possibly ADM.
 
sourdough44 said:
Sounds like weather, low clouds and snow nearby at the time. I’d think weather factored in some way or another. With that in mind, then we can back up to possibly ADM.
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From all appearances, there was an inflight breakup. Only thing that comes to mind is either getting iced up at a higher altitude and loosing control, or icing up the pitot/static and loosing orientation.
 
sourdough44 said:
Sounds like weather, low clouds and snow nearby at the time. I’d think weather factored in some way or another. With that in mind, then we can back up to possibly ADM.
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Weather was not an issue that night. Yes there was light snow in the air. It's North Dakota, it's not uncommon to see snow here. And if icing occurred, the crew would have had plenty of time to make radio calls, not just suddenly prompt a controller to go "Conquest 441CX, Bismarck" over and over out of the blue. So your assumption of poor ADM is in your head.
 
O.K., maybe the inflight breakup was due to mechanical or instrument failure?
 
Local paper has an article about the girlfriend of the pilot. He is the second boyfriend she has now lost to an accident within the past year. The first one died in a hiking accident in the Rockies.
 
No real surprises (or answers) in that preliminary. It'll be interesting to see what the final report says, even though I have heard some theories that would be viable.
 
KaiGywer said:
No real surprises (or answers) in that preliminary. It'll be interesting to see what the final report says, even though I have heard some theories that would be viable.
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Such as?

Something sure went wrong quickly...

"Radar data indicated the airplane climbed on a direct course until reaching 14,000 feet above sera level. Ground speed was at 240 knots. The airplane then entered a steep right bank and radar contact was lost. No distress calls were received."
 
My condolences to all those affected in this tragic accident.

Cessna 441 dont generally break up in VMC.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Such as?

Something sure went wrong quickly...

"Radar data indicated the airplane climbed on a direct course until reaching 14,000 feet above sera level. Ground speed was at 240 knots. The airplane then entered a steep right bank and radar contact was lost. No distress calls were received."
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Since as of this time they are speculations/rumors I won't go into details. If what I heard is accurate, it will be in the report.
 
Very sad. The pilot was a former pilot at my airline although I’ve never met the guy.
 
NTSB final report is out. From https://www.kxnet.com/news/local-ne...d-to-in-flight-breakup-of-airmed-jet-in-2018/ ...

While en route, around 10:39 p.m., the plane began an unexplained right descending turn, losing 7,800 feet of altitude over the span of 30 seconds. At some point, the NTSB reported, the pilot attempted a pull-up maneuver to recover from the descent. The NTSB said the stress on the plane from that action caused the part of the wing that passed through the center of the airplane to compress, buckle and fracture. That led to the separation of the left wing and right wing engine and the subsequent breakup and crash of the plane.
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I can't even imagine a sudden 15,000+ FPM descent. "Unexplained" is the best they can come up with...
 
iamtheari said:
NTSB final report is out. From https://www.kxnet.com/news/local-ne...d-to-in-flight-breakup-of-airmed-jet-in-2018/ ...
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IK04 said:
I can't even imagine a sudden 15,000+ FPM descent. "Unexplained" is the best they can come up with...
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Without any type of CVR or data recorder on an airplane of this size, its impossible to know what caused the unexpected turn and descent. Could have been an inflight emergency, instrument failure, pilot medical problem, or just plain pilot getting disoriented. The ultimate result was a pull out that overstressed the airframe. We will never know.
 
Hard to imagine plane like that is on autopilot pretty soon after rotation. Certainly once at altitude. Crazy.
 
benyflyguy said:
Hard to imagine plane like that is on autopilot pretty soon after rotation. Certainly once at altitude. Crazy.
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Not hard to imagine at all. In both the C-425 and KA-90 it was company policy, backed up by sim training, to engage the auto pilot before entering the clouds or 1500AGL. VFR at night with no visible horizon (which happens a lot in rural southwest) was to be considered as entering the clouds at 500AGL. Using the autopilot was part of the checkride.
 
Zeldman said:
Not hard to imagine at all. In both the C-425 and KA-90 it was company policy, backed up by sim training, to engage the auto pilot before entering the clouds or 1500AGL. VFR at night with no visible horizon (which happens a lot in rural southwest) was to be considered as entering the clouds at 500AGL. Using the autopilot was part of the checkride.
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I should clarify that it’s hard to imagine an accident like this for this plane as they would be trained to engage soon after rotation. seeing my sentence I see why it was misconstrued.
 
benyflyguy said:
I should clarify that it’s hard to imagine an accident like this for this plane as they would be trained to engage soon after rotation. seeing my sentence I see why it was misconstrued.
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Old autopilots fail frequently and without it warning. I’ve had autopilots that would absolutely have put me in some type of very uncontrolled attitude had I let them. Of the attitude gyro was feeding the autopilot (which is possible on the 441, not sure which autopilot it had) failed, that can be even worse since the autopilot is following what the gyro is telling both it and the pilot.

Unexplained is all they’ll be able to. One up with, because there’s no evidence left as to what actually happened. However I could certainly see a number of failure modes that could have caused this and a pilot who had marginal instrument flying skills and relied on the autopilot would not be in a position to succeed in timely identification and recovery.

I almost never used the autopilot in the MU2, even on 10 hour days with night IMC and icing single pilot.
 
Ted said:
Old autopilots fail frequently and without it warning. I’ve had autopilots that would absolutely have put me in some type of very uncontrolled attitude had I let them. Of the attitude gyro was feeding the autopilot (which is possible on the 441, not sure which autopilot it had) failed, that can be even worse since the autopilot is following what the gyro is telling both it and the pilot.

Unexplained is all they’ll be able to. One up with, because there’s no evidence left as to what actually happened. However I could certainly see a number of failure modes that could have caused this and a pilot who had marginal instrument flying skills and relied on the autopilot would not be in a position to succeed in timely identification and recovery.

I almost never used the autopilot in the MU2, even on 10 hour days with night IMC and icing single pilot.
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The modern over-reliance on the autopilot for light aircraft operations is problematic IMO. I have had people be aghast that I would hand fly an ILS to minimums. I, frankly, would not trust my family to a pilot that can't hand fly an ILS to minimums without breaking a sweat. Having served a couple of stints as a 135 check pilot, I could always tell which of my pilots used the autopilots too much. The checkrides always terrified them.
 
Kristin said:
The modern over-reliance on the autopilot for light aircraft operations is problematic IMO. I have had people be aghast that I would hand fly an ILS to minimums. I, frankly, would not trust my family to a pilot that can't hand fly an ILS to minimums without breaking a sweat. Having served a couple of stints as a 135 check pilot, I could always tell which of my pilots used the autopilots too much. The checkrides always terrified them.
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I’m 100% with you. When I did 135 rides the inspector made me turn on the autopilot because he wanted to make sure I knew how to use it.

A couple years ago with the MU2 I had to fly to Puerto Rico and back. 20 hours in 2 days, I hand flew it all. Return to the home airport from FTW was night thunderstorms the whole way to an ILS. I came home and was talking to a fellow at work who often trains King Air pilots, and when I told him about my trip he smiled and said “You know Ted, a lot of people can’t do that.” I said “You know why they can’t do it? Because they never ****ing do it.” If you let yourself rely on automation, you’ll never learn how to work without it.

First time flying a Cheyenne with virtually no turbine time, hand flew a night ILS to mins (lights at 200, runway at 100, MD80 ahead went missed) after 8 hours of flying that day. Needles were centered. If you know how to hand fly it mostly doesn’t matter what you’re in.
 
I agree with @Ted's statement about autopilots, especially when the airplane is older, as this one was; a 1982 Cessna 441. I spent most of my career flying in airplanes that had no autopilot or somewhat sketchy ones. It was only very late that I flew a more reliable airplane, but I still was a little amazed watching the airplane flying itself.
 
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Everskyward said:
I agree with @Ted's statement about autopilots, especially when the airplane is older, as this one was; a 1982 Cessna 441. I spent most of my career flying in airplanes that had no autopilot or somewhat sketchy ones. It was only very late that I flew a more reliable airplane, but I still was a little amazed watching the airplane flying itself.
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I had a coworker for a while who’d been a test pilot. He trusted autopilots completely, but he flew his career with new airplanes that had properly functioning autopilots. He’d also had some friends hand fly themselves into mountains and the ground. We had essentially opposite flying backgrounds and very different opinions. Always was fun taking to him, but I always did (and still do) maintain that autopilots are good tools, but you should ultimately be able to hand fly anything you’re in behind 500 AGL autopilot on. It’s worth noting this fellow was an excellent hand flyer, too.

The United pilot on our flight last night didn’t seem to have done any recent hand flying or night landings - approach was meh and landing was the worst Laurie or I had witnessed in a long while. Nobody questioned that we had arrived!
 
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Ted said:
We had essentially opposite flying backgrounds and very different opinions.
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Interesting when people come from different flying cultures and how the culture can change. When I started with the condiment company, the pilot population was mostly former freight dogs with a few ex-military. As time went on (the early 2000s), there were more pilots from college programs as well as furloughed airline pilots. The culture became less about thinking outside the box, and turned into staying far away the edges of the box. Procedure became the word of the day. I think the whole industry culture has changed in that way. It's certainly safer, in some respects. But a former military pilot once told me that if you never test the edges of the envelope in a controlled manner, you will be unaware when you accidentally cross it.
 
Ted said:
I’m 100% with you. When I did 135 rides the inspector made me turn on the autopilot because he wanted to make sure I knew how to use it.

A couple years ago with the MU2 I had to fly to Puerto Rico and back. 20 hours in 2 days, I hand flew it all. Return to the home airport from FTW was night thunderstorms the whole way to an ILS. I came home and was talking to a fellow at work who often trains King Air pilots, and when I told him about my trip he smiled and said “You know Ted, a lot of people can’t do that.” I said “You know why they can’t do it? Because they never ****ing do it.” If you let yourself rely on automation, you’ll never learn how to work without it.

First time flying a Cheyenne with virtually no turbine time, hand flew a night ILS to mins (lights at 200, runway at 100, MD80 ahead went missed) after 8 hours of flying that day. Needles were centered. If you know how to hand fly it mostly doesn’t matter what you’re in.
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I have always had to demonstrate that I knew how to use the autopilot, but I never went further than that. I have yet to shoot a coupled IMC approach, and that is not because I haven't shot any. Back in the freight days, I have shot approaches that strained the definition of having the approach lights in sight. But like you, the needles were in the middle until crossing the threshold.

I too hand fly with any significant ice on the plane and I generally kick the A/P off when I have reached the initial vectoring altitude for the approach. I also typically hand fly the departure until I get at least to the first assigned altitude.
 
Everskyward said:
Interesting when people come from different flying cultures and how the culture can change. When I started with the condiment company, the pilot population was mostly former freight dogs with a few ex-military. As time went on (the early 2000s), there were more pilots from college programs as well as furloughed airline pilots. The culture became less about thinking outside the box, and turned into staying far away the edges of the box. Procedure became the word of the day. I think the whole industry culture has changed in that way. It's certainly safer, in some respects. But a former military pilot once told me that if you never test the edges of the envelope in a controlled manner, you will be unaware when you accidentally cross it.
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Safer! Perhaps to a point. But not if an entire flight crew of an Airbus over the South Atlantic at night have forgotten the basics of how to fly. Or if you are an Asiana crew trying to land at SFO without a glideslope.
 
Kristin said:
Safer! Perhaps to a point. But not if an entire flight crew of an Airbus over the South Atlantic at night have forgotten the basics of how to fly. Or if you are an Asiana crew trying to land at SFO without a glideslope.
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When I started flying the Commander wasn’t all that long after the Air France crash. The chief pilot said “you don’t push the nose down when you stall a turbine. They have enough power to get out of it.” I looked at him and said “Have you read the reports on that Air France crash?” I didn’t agree with his recommendation.
 
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