N102PT Citation CJ1 declares emergency, crashes Maine.....

Aviation Aviation News
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I can’t get my mind wrapped around why she pressed on in those conditions. I’ve been instrument rated a few years - not a lot of time since then, maybe 300 hours since my rating with about 20% of that hard IMC - but I know enough about weather to know that it can change rapidly. The stuff she took off in was NASTY - a few hours earlier or later can (and usually do) make a huge difference, especially that critical difference between “hard IMC” and “the birds are walking” IMC. The next morning was great, as evinced by the aerial photos of the still smoking wreckage. I’ve flown out of Maine Instrument Flight many times, years ago (during both Bill Perry Sr. and Bill Perry Jr. tenure) and those guys and their employees would have given her a ride back down the hill to a hotel or whatever, as would almost any hometown FBO. Not that money was an issue for her!

I think the Donovan guy she worked with has a perception that 20 years makes you a great pilot, but what makes you a good pilot is a lot more than time since your cert was issued. It’s entirely likely that she had flown the CJ for years, without ever having to divert, delay, or cancel a flight. That kind of experience can lead you into a mindset where you feel you NEVER have to do any of those things. Also…there may have been successful launches into bad conditions in her past flying which reinforced the faulty decision-making. I wonder why she thought it was so critical to go right then? She was heading home, with her kid, no boss to care if she didn’t show up for work until Sunday(!). If I taxied my shiny jet through the grass, toward a takeoff on a runway and forgot to turn on the lights, I’d like to think I would pack it in and head back to the ramp. I decided early on in my IFR training to dedicate a certain portion of my flying to “optional” trips in sloppy weather, that is, going up in conditions that were challenging but controlled for the equipment and my currency level, with no self-imposed penalties for diverting, going missed, etc. I found that made it so much easier to do those things (the right things) without hesitation in the air when I was on later flights that had an objective of “getting there”. A very key part of becoming a good pilot (I’m getting there, but will never “arrive”!) is developing a mindset that you should always expect things that weren’t in your plan. ATC gives you a new route in the air, weather changes enroute, aircraft engine or systems fail, etc. Practicing that stuff makes it manageable when it happens. Folks like me with limited budgets do as much as possible, but still far less than part 135 folks who fly single pilot IFR in the northeast, night and day, in all kinds of weather. If you own and operate a jet as Ms. Symons did, you have to dedicate a certain portion of your time (probably the most valuable commodity to someone like her, from reading various profiles) to ensuring that you only operate it under circumstances that give you a wide margin of safety.

As an aside - can a CJ1 really make it to Lincoln, NE from Augusta, ME without stopping for gas?? The max range numbers I found published on the web have her gliding the last hundred nm or so. Did her plane (525-0433) have long range tanks or something…?

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Who Are The Richest 40 Under 40? (2001)
…No. 15, Jeannette Symons, Vice-President of Zhone Engineering, with $374 million.
nbc11.com/money/944793/detail.html

but wealth can not buy judgment. Ms Symons made hundreds of important decisions in her life, yet it appears she was determined to depart even under most severe weather conditions others did not test. As noted by one resident in the area, “The true origin of most weather related accidents, automotive, marine, or aeronautical? Get-there-itis. The unstoppable need to be in another place at a specific time. It was painful to see what a beautiful, clear day it was today, and what a great day it would have been to fly.”
tinyurl.com/2mpedv

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WEST GARDINER, Maine – A commercial airline that operates from the Maine State Airport grounded its aircraft 1 hours before a California pilot took off in a private jet that crashed several miles away, claiming two lives.

Maine Instrument Flight officials told the Kennebec Journal that the pilot declined to have her Cessna Citation de-iced on Friday evening. He said she also neglected to turn on the runway lights and that her jet went into a ditch before finding the runway.

The snow, sleet and freezing rain prompted Colgan Air Inc., which operates U.S. Airways Express flights, to ground its aircraft that evening.

Authorities said the two victims are believed to be Jeanette Symons, of San Francisco, and her son, Balan, 10. The State Medical Examiner’s Office said it hopes to confirm the identities through DNA by week’s end.

De-Icing Pilot’s Call
At the Augusta State Airport – and at other airports across the country – the decision whether to take off is up to the pilot, not the airport.

Pilot Tom Wright has flown for more than 40 years. He told News 8 no matter what type of planes they are flying, all pilots must go through a checklist before takeoff.

“All these rules and regulations you have to go by. The other ones are the laws of physics, he said. You may break the first rules and get away with it, but the laws of physics are still going to apply.”

According to Wright, those laws of physics are even more critical when weather conditions are not ideal, as they were on Friday.

He noted that he did not know Symons or her level of experience.

"It is her prerogative to not get de-iced, Wright said. There isn’t anyone there that is going to say, You have to get de-iced. It is her decision. I wasn’t there. Could be the wings were clear of ice, and the accident has nothing to do with this problem.

Portland Transportation Director Jeff Monroe said most airports only close in extreme weather conditions, and while commercial planes are usually grounded, private planes are another matter.

He told News 8, “If a private pilot wants to take off, it is really their decision. They will check with the tower, but ultimately the authority lies with the pilot.”

Monroe said that once the National Transportation Safety Board releases its findings on Fridays crash, he and other officials at the Portland International Jetport will look at it. He said that even though the crash did not happen at the jetport, there could be some lessons to be learned that could prevent future crashes.


MS. Symons at the controls of N102PT

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What a shame. We call it get home itis. As a senior captain for a major airline, our ops specs prevent us from operating in freezing rain, and believe me, we operate and are expected to operate when we can safely and legally do so. This lady had the enviable position as the owner of her own personal jet. You can not loose sight of the limits of the operation of any aircraft, no matter how large or how fast, you must play by the rules and limits. Break them and you crash. Before the grace of go I.

25

I wonder if there was any attempt at getting a weather briefing. There used to be an AFSS in Maine.

26

Based on what has been described on the airport conditions, I don’t think one was needed from this pilots mind…

She had her mind made up that wheels were going to leave the ground.

We see reports all the time when VFR pilots do get a briefing and they still launch when “VFR is not recommended” and that over powering “get there itis” overtakes the common safety sense of our thought processes.

FSS is just another tool in our toolkit of making a decision.

I just wonder, what were the circumstances were that were so “urgent” for her to want to leave such bad icing conditions being described. Was it a medical emergency, funeral, business meeting or what?

Unfortunately, the decision making process she took to decide to push the throttles forward down the runway will never be known…

Allen

27

All the signs point to poor decision making by the pilot, but we don’t know that there wasn’t some major mechanical malfunction outside of the pilot’s control.

I think we should be careful to critique the pilot’s judgment until we know for certain the cause of the tragedy.

28

Here is a post regarding N102PT posted on Professional Pilot Rumour Network; (SSG USA).

ok I will say it…

Some Points at the risk of pissing everyone off…

  • Owner flown jets have the worst accident rates in the industry, and I personaly don’t want to be lumped in with them when people talk about another Citation captain augering in. Simply put, you don’t build a business and have time to somehow build up 10,000 hours at the same time, sorry, not doable. Simuflite has a perfect moniker for the biz owner that comes in wanting to fly his new CJ…‘I have a jet, therefor I must be a jet pilot’. It’s not to say that some ‘pros’ can’t fly either, but for those biz guys in here reading this, you and I both know a few CEOs that are pilots and have made the point of hiring a pilot, simply for the reason that flying a jet is for the most part a full time thing. If your sharp, fine, but how many are, and how many have solid IFR skills that never did it for a living.

I am not here to rip on the biz owner pilots, nor a future generation of Mustang and Eclipse pilots. But if you really think your going to go fly to Aspen this weekend, blowing snow, with a thousand hours of P51 time in a C172, the only people your pulling one over on is your family, because they are coming with you to the flight’s inevitable conclusion.

  • Anyone in here that has actualy been in a piston single, with a couple of inches of ice, vs a light twin, vs a turboprop, vs a jet, will immediately understand that if icing took the Citation down, it wasn’t the Citation’s fault.

  • For those that think an attitude indicator out on a jet is an Emergency Procedure item, forgot to notice the other one on the right side, the peanut gyro in the Center, and for those with EFIS, the one in the MFD as well.

IF this lady declared MAYDAY because of an attitude indicator, she was way behind the power curve and way inexperienced to be sitting in that plane. Sorry, but that’s just a fact.

  • And no, a Pitot tube doesn’t affect the Attitude indicator… , the Citation has three pitot tubes, by the way…

  • Let’s all remember that a Citation 500 series, can be flown Single pilot either if it’s certified single pilot like the CJs or the 501SPs and 550SPs…a type is all they need. To fly the Encores, Ultras, Vs, you need the Single Pilot Exemption, and none of the Exemptors have crashed a plane yet, except my friend at Cable, Ca. and he was a biz owner, and he lost his wife over it…and I helped train him…

He chose to fly into a 3500 ft home field, full of fuel, with a 12 kt tail wind at night, and land on the last third of the runway, too fast…and instead of going around, he didn’t, then tried to go around too late…

So why did he do that? Because he is a used to getting away with crap, because he’s a biz owner, his ego was bigger then his experience, and he saw me land there, over and over and over, and make it look easy…He couldn’t buy jet fuel at Cable, so he decided to tanker it from San Diego and come in heavy to a short field, hot, landing long and not knowing when to go around.

He didn’t have the experience to know what he could do or not do, what he could get away with, what the limits were, what was too much or too little, ect ect…

One learns that through experience, and herin lies the problem in people buying thier way into a jet, vs earning it…It’s no different then giving your kid a Ferrari for his 16th birthday…

So the next time your sitting next to a guy in a plane and he’s sipping coffee, threading his way through thunderstorms, with the radar, making jokes, or makes that 3000 ft landing looking easy…

It isn’t, he just has the experience to make it look easy…and sorry, no matter how much money you got, you can’t buy the experience, you can’t train enough, you can’t spend enough time on your days off to fly like the pros, nor will you have the balls to fly down to zero zero to try it out…he has to take a look, it’s part of his job, you won’t…so he will get the experience, experience that you can neither buy nor have the gumption to go get…

So a few hours around the patch with the local CFII for your instrument reccurrent won’t buy you a ticket into the jets…

So hire a guy, you can be the ‘captain’ in the left seat, wiggle the controls, feel like the pilot you always wanted to be, tell your friends you ‘fly your own jet’ and your pilot will be there to grab the controls when the SHTF.

29

A few good points…and a few ridiculous… And I don’t know what Citation that he’s talking about with three pitot tubes…but the CJ series only has two.

30

That guy is shooting from the hip, but the theme he is describing is one we’ve seen often. Doctors and business executives used to being in control finally meet their match in their Bo, Cirrus and now light jets. Very similar to the rich kid in the Bee-mur.

Flight Safety/SimCom students… do they ever talk about decision making and limits of the aircraft in a way that would have helped this lady? Or do they mostly teach systems and emergency procedure, situation recovery, etc…

I assume most insurance companies would require sim training twice/year but would a non-professional jet pilot have any training in setting personal minimums? This (lack of common sense?) seems to kill all the lives saved* by the advances in simulator training.

Pro pilots… who sets the minimums that you follow? You the pilot or your employer? Do your passengers throw a fit when you can’t go or do they thank you for being a safe pilot?

*Speaking to the private side. All training including Sim have obviously reduced airline deaths from 500-1,000/yr to almost zero.

31

To fly the Encores, Ultras, Vs, you need the Single Pilot Exemption, and none of the Exemptors have crashed a plane yet, except my friend at Cable, Ca. and he was a biz owner, and he lost his wife over it…and I helped train him… … He chose to fly into a 3500 ft home field, full of fuel, with a 12 kt tail wind at night, and land on the last third of the runway, too fast…and instead of going around, he didn’t, then tried to go around too late…

ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_i … 0851&key=1

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Turbine airplane initial/recurrent training syllabuses are primarily aircraft specific and the training is designed to fulfill the criteria of Parts 61.157, and/or 61.56, 61.57, and 61.58. However, FlightSafety and SimCom do offer enrichment courses in CRM, ADM, and other various subjects. But these courses are electives if you will. Insurance companies usually require training only once a year for typical Part 91 flying.

With the introduction of VLJ’s the training providers, in conjunction with the insurance companies, are changing their approach to how training is conducted. Jets require a “Type Rating” and that aircraft specific type rating is achieved by demonstrating proficiency to ATP (Airline Transport Pilot) standards. Typical type rating training programs are a pass or fail, 2-4 week cram session, followed by a check ride… as a candidate should already have the necessary skills prior to attending the course. With pilots of various experience levels intending to operate VLJ’s, new training programs have, and are being developed. There’s a good article about this subject in the February issue of FLYING magazine relating to the new Citation Mustang training program.

Most corporate operators have a Company Operations Manual that provides guidance though SOP’s (Standard Operating Procedures). These SOP’s can vary but typically address issues such as; Duty time limits, Runway requirements, Weather requirements and operating limitations, etc., etc. Some SOP’s offer guidance with enough latitude for making sound judgements by a crew. And others can be so specific that they dwell on the minutia. I would say as a whole that passengers in corporate operations respect the judgments of the crew…note that I said “as a whole” There are some situations that it’s not as easy…

33

General question: What mechanism activates the stick shaker? Airspeed? Angle of attack? Is the static system involved in the Angle of Attack indicator.

34

I think the record reflects that some if not all of the following conditions were self evident.

  1. Rain (R, RA)- Rain is liquid precipitation that reaches the surface in the form of drops that are greater than 0.5 millimeters in diameter. The intensity of rain is determined by the accumulation over a given time. Categories of rain are light, moderate and heavy.

  2. Snow (SN, SNW, S)- Snow is an aggregate of ice crystals that form into flakes. Snow forms at temperatures below freezing. For snow to reach the earth’s surface the entire temperature profile in the troposphere needs to be at or below freezing. It can be slightly above freezing in some layers if the layer is not warm or deep enough the melt the snow flakes much. The intensity of snow is determined by the accumulation over a given time. Categories of snow are light, moderate and heavy.

  3. Snow Pellets (GS)- A snow pellet is precipitation that grows by supercooled water accreting on ice crystals or snow flakes. Snow pellets can also occur when a snowflake melts about half way then refreezes as it falls. Snow pellets have characteristics of hail, sleet and snow. With sleet (ice pellets), the snowflake almost completely melts before refreezing thus sleet has a hard ice appearance. Soft hail grows in the same way snow pellets can grow and that is ice crystals and supercooled water accreting on the surface. Snow pellets will crush and break apart when pressed. They can bounce off objects like sleet does. Snow pellets have a whiter appearance than sleet. Snow pellets have small air pockets embedded within their structure and have visual remnants of ice crystals unlike sleet. Snow pellets are typically a couple to several millimeters in size.

  4. Snow Grains (SG)- Snow grains are small grains of ice. They do not produce much accumulation and are the solid equivalent to drizzle.

  5. Ice Crystals (IC)- Also called diamond dust. They are small ice crystals that float with the wind.

  6. Sleet / Ice Pellets (PE, PL, IP, SLT)- Sleet (Ice Pellets) are frozen raindrops that strike the earth’s surface. In a sleet situation the precipitation aloft when it is first generated will be snow. The snow falls through a layer that is a little above freezing and the snow partially melts. If the snow completely melts it will be more likely to reach the earth’s surface as supercooled water instead of sleet. If the snow partially melts there will still be ice within the falling drop for water to freeze on when the drop falls into a subfreezing layer. The lowest layer of the troposphere will be below freezing in a sleet situation and deep enough to freeze drops completely. The lower boundary layer can be above freezing and sleet occur if the sleet does not have time to melt before reaching the surface.

  7. Hail (GR, A)- Hail is dense precipitation ice that is that least 5 millimeters in diameter. It forms due to ice crystals and supercooled water that freeze or stick to the embryo hail stone. Soft hail is more white and less dense since it has air bubbles. Soft hail occurs when hail grows at a temperature below freezing by ice crystals and small supercooled water and cloud droplets merging onto the hail. Hard hail occurs when liquid water drops freeze on the outer edges of the hailstone after the outer edge is above freezing. The freezing of supercooled water releases latent heat and this can result in the outer edge of the hail stone warming above freezing. Then the water refreezes creating solid ice. Hail will commonly have soft ice and hard ice layers when it is sliced open.

  8. Graupel (GS)- Graupel forms in the same way as hail except the diameter is less than 5 millimeters. It usually grows by soft hail processes.

  9. Drizzle (DZ, L)- Drizzle is liquid precipitation that reaches the surface in the form of drops that are less than 0.5 millimeters in diameter.

  10. Freezing Drizzle (FZDZ, ZL)- Freezing Drizzle is liquid precipitation that reaches the surface in the form of drops that are less than 0.5 millimeters in diameter. The drops then freeze on the earth’s surface.

  11. Freezing Rain (FZRA, ZR)- Freezing Rain is liquid precipitation that reaches the surface in the form of drops that are greater than 0.5 millimeters in diameter. The drops then freeze on the earth’s surface.

  12. Freezing Fog (FZFG)- Freezing fog is a fog composed of supercooled water drops. These drops freeze just after they wet the earth’s surface.

  13. Mixed Precipitation (MXD PCPN)- The combination of two or more winter precipitation types occurring at the same time or over a period of time at the same place.

35

On the Cessna CJ series airplanes it is Angle of Attack.

It is not.

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robbreid

Well you seem to have a few valid points BUT the real point here is when you get a loose nut behind the wheel the plane will have issues.I dont care if its you,me or the AA flight crew that I was on that flew thru LVL5 TS and crashed…2,count them two PRO ATPS the only thing you get with a pro is the he gets paid, not to say that most are not the cream of the crop BUT they too have loose nut behind the wheel.
I am one of the CEO types that you talk about with such distane but I also can do a great job in the aircraft(c-340 c560 c750 and taylorcraft f21) I have flown over 1000000 miles with the pros and a few thousand hours myself.and I am private pilot that goes to Flightsafty and still gets a PROCARD!!! they dont think I suck too bad? I have seen owner pilots boneheads and PRO Boneheads both at FSI,I have also seen guys and a Female that were REAL GOOD some pros some owners,you are correct the ratio is greater to the PROS much greater, but EVERYONE can screw up on any day.
It is all about your attitude,If I were to fly with someone who took off going to zero/zero I would kick your ass when we got on the ground then make sure WE never flew together again(I dont need to be there that bad) on the othet hand if it turns bad and you can do a catIII then great your awesome. aviation is so unforgiving that mistakes can have major prices like death… we can only GUESS as to what hapened to the c525 at this time so I will wait to see what the facts are and not start pointing fingers till we know more.
Eric

P.S wazzu90 If you ask your instrustor at FSI you can talk about decision/attitude not just systems/aircraft all you have to do is ask they have a lot of great thing to do in the sim to see if you will try to save"the plane" or its passangers. or yourself,some of the sim instructors have tons of experiance and some are just CFIs

37

What company are you CEO of?

robbreid was quoting someone else from another forum - he didn’t make those comments himself.

38

I sense some arrogance on your posting… You don’t make mistakes?

What is FSI? I take it FS = Flight Safety???

Everybodys minimums are different. So, if you say my minimums are lower then yours, that makes me a bad pilot and you would work my rear end over???

While you won’t catch me taking off in zero/zero or taking off in freezing rain, it’s not for me to judge a person on their decision making process.

Question it, yes based on my experience, that I am doing, but to sit here and say flat out the person was wrong, well, I am the last one to pass judgement.

There are better pilots then me by a wide margin, and I consider myself to be one of the safer ones, but **if a pilot takes off zero/zero, maybe he has that piloting skills I lack. **

I am making the assumption that the jet taking off in this thread had some type of deicing equipment. While it may be suidical to take off in my Sundowner under those conditions, maybe in that jet, it’s more an inconvienance.

Having been through an engine emergency situation myself, saving the plane should be the last thought.

Saving your carcass and flying that plane till it plain and simple stops flying is the only goal you should have in mind in my opinion.

All you are doing once things fail catastraphically is delivering the plane to the insurance company. Your goal is to see the insurance adjusters check on the top side of where the green grass grows.

Allen

39

One other entry seen frequently that should be added to a very nice metar aid for precipitation types posted by gretnabear.

UP = Unknown Precipitation.

Allen

40

I called and got a brief yesterday and was given UP for the first time, quite strange as I am only a few miles from the airport and I could look outside and clearly see that it was snow lol.