Just havin' a little fun - The Pinnacle Crash...

[sshekels]

Here is an interesting bit of information:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/05/national/main678341.shtml

(AP) Moments before a double engine failure and a crash that killed them, one of the pilots aboard a regional airliner told an air traffic controller they had "decided to have a little fun" by flying at the plane's maximum altitude.

There were no passengers on the plane and no one on the ground was injured by the Oct. 14 crash in a residential neighborhood of Jefferson City, Mo.

Transcripts the St. Louis Post-Dispatch obtained from the Federal Aviation Administration describe the rapid descent of the Pinnacle Airlines Corp. plane after it lost engine power.

The problem was first mentioned in the transcripts when an air traffic controller in Kansas City told the pilots it was rare to see the plane, a Canadair CRJ2, flying at an altitude of 41,000 feet.

"Yeah, we're actually ... we don't have any passengers on board, so we decided to have a little fun and come up here," one of the pilots said. The transcripts don't identify whether Capt. Jesse Rhodes or First Officer Richard Peter Cesarz made the statement.

The pilot soon told air traffic controllers that the CRJ2 wouldn't remain at that altitude for long.

"I don't think he had enough gas up there; he was so slow," one air traffic controller said.

The pilots said first one and then the second engine shut down.

"We're going to need a little lower to start this other engine up, so we're going to go down to about 12 or 11 (thousand feet). Is that cool?" the pilot said.

The last contact that controllers had with the crew was at 9,000 feet, when the pilot reported an airport beacon in sight.

Earlier that day, the crew had called off a scheduled flight with passengers from Little Rock, Ark., because an indicator light went on for part of its "bleed air" system, which takes hot, compressed air from the engines to heat other components of the plane. After a repair, the plane took off for Minneapolis with just the crew on board.

Phil Reed, Pinnacle's vice president of marketing, said he could not comment.

 

[Arnold]

The moral of the story?

If you want to have fun in an airplane, fly a J-3 either on wheels or floats.

 

[Len Lanetti]

Unfortunate choice of words. It is a shame. Possibly if those words were not said people would have considered that the crew was simply trying to reduce fuel costs for their firm.

Hopefully some good will come from this so as to avoid issues on revenue generating flights in the future.

Len

 

[jkaduk]

Why would the engines shutdown. I think I saw some speculation that it was because the fuel gets too cold and won't flow. Why couldn't they restart? What does weight have to do with how high they can go?

 

[Arnold]

Why would the engines shutdown. I think I saw some speculation that it was because the fuel gets too cold and won't flow. Why couldn't they restart? What does weight have to do with how high they can go?

The fuel does get very cold. Some aircraft have fuel heaters, if I remember correctly the ATR used the fuel to cool the oil and heat the fuel. Some use an additive like PRIST.

Weight has much to do with how high you can go. As altitude increases thrust decreases and so does IAS. Since lift is roughly a function of speed and since you will be generating less lift at higher altitudes, you must reduce weight to get higher. At a reduced weight you need less lift to maintain altitude. It is more complex than this, but that is the short answer.

I have no idea why the restart did not work. Generally there is an envelope of altitude/airspeeds at which an inflight restart is possible, that is likely why they initiall said they needed lower to restart. They needed to get an appropriate volume of air going through the engine.

With both engines out they were probably having serious handling problems as I believe the controls are boosted, though I don't know the systems on that aircraft.

In any case a double engine flame out on a two engine airplane is going to be a challenging situation.

 

[ala737]

All,

Couple comments here. Number one, the statement about having a little fun is being taken way out of context. Because the CRJ200 is underpowered for its respective weight, it rarely can get to the higher altitudes when it is loaded with pax (it is legally certified to fly at by the way) so the fact they could get up to 410 was for them "fun". It doesnt mean for a minute they were screwing around or doing something illegal. For those in the airline business, the flying becomes very monotonous and structured. You are told what routing to fly, how high to fly, how much fuel to take, what your alternates are, etc. On a Part 91 ferry flight the opportunity to go up to the max altitude was probably a rare opportunity and they thought theyd go up there. Ive done it before too.

As far as fuel freezing I dont buy that for a second. They were only at altitude for a short time. It takes fuel a long period to freeze. Most Jet A freezes at -42C. The limitation on the plane I fly is freeze point minus +3C. If it approaches that limit, you either go down or go faster to increase the ram air temp over the wing. I have flown at 410 from Chicago to Anchorage (2600miles & 7+ hours flight time) in the dead of winter and never seen it get close to freezing. Im afraid this is another knucklehead reporter who doesnt know squat about airplanes, making assumptions.

The question about weight and altitude is not different than our little airplanes we fly. When you are at gross weight, you arent going to make your service ceiling either. Same holds true for turbojets. A fully loaded 737-900 certified to 410 will not make it any higher than 35000 until you start burning off fuel (lots of it too).

As air density decreases with altitude, it becomes very hard to relight an engine at altitude. For example, on a 737-700 it is certified to fly as high as 410 but the emergency checklist for inflight engine start shows the inflight engine restart envelope is a max altitude of 27000 and between 140kts and 300 knots. It is important to have the adequate amount of airflow (speed and density) through the engine to relight it. At certain speeds, you can do a windmilling start, others it requires starter assisted one.

Hope that helps a little, but I dont like seeing reporters make assumptions about fellow deceased pilots. I personally will wait for the NTSB and ALPA experts to find the cause of this accident.

Tim
75 182P

 

[jkaduk]

If the fuel being too cold wasn't the problem, what else could have caused them to flame out.
As to the weight issue, somehow I got the impression that it was dangerous, as opposed to physical limitation.