A tale of two Citations

Sometimes accidents come eerily close to being identical, though. With minor differences ignored, these similar accidents can provide a rare chance to isolate specific actions, and offer a glimpse into possible answers to the age-old question of “What if X had been done instead of Y?” Two accidents that occurred a little over two years apart at the same airport, both involving light jets made by the same company, provide one such opportunity to examine how a single different choice led to very different final outcomes. In one case, all aboard perished; in the other, all survived with no injuries.

Accident 1: Four fatalities

In the early morning of January 24, 2006, N86CE, a Cessna Citation 560, approached McClellan-Palomar Airport (CRQ) in Carlsbad, California. McClellan-Palomar has a single runway just shy of 5,000 feet long, and sits a few miles from the Pacific Ocean at 331 feet msl. Despite the relatively benign environment immediately surrounding the airport, approaches from the east can be demanding; the Peninsular Ranges rise to more than 6,000 feet msl within 25 miles of the airport, necessitating minimum segment altitudes as high as 7,100 feet msl on the ILS 24 approach.

As N86CE approached McClellan-Palomar, the crew of two airline transport pilots was navigating to an intermediate fix on the ILS Runway 24 approach when they were cleared for the approach, with the advisory that the glideslope was unusable. The first hint of trouble came just a few seconds after the approach clearance, when the controller asked, “You gonna be able to get down OK?” to which the captain responded “Ah, yeah, thank you.”

Once an attempt is made to stop a landing aircraft, the pilot is historically best served by continuing that effort until the airplane stops.
Approximately two minutes after receiving the approach clearance the controller advised the crew that the airport was at their 12 o’clock position at 6.5 miles. They acknowledged the airport in sight and shortly afterward canceled IFR. The controller again alluded to the aircraft’s excessive altitude when he advised the crew that they could “use S-turns to get down.”

At this point the aircraft was just less than six miles from the runway threshold, and descending through 5,000 feet. By comparison, on a stabilized approach an aircraft six miles from McClellan-Palomar would be no higher than 2,300 feet msl. The crew maintained a 3,000- to 4,000-feet-per-minute descent until about four-tenths of a mile from the end of the runway, when the descent decreased to 1,000 fpm. During this period, the enhanced ground proximity warning system (EGPWS) alerted the crew for the last 20 seconds of the approach with numerous sink rate alerts, followed by “pull up, pull up, pull up, pull up, pull up, sink rate, sink rate, minimums, minimums, one hundred [feet agl], sink rate, forty [feet agl], thirty [feet agl], sink rate.”

The Citation crossed the threshold with a groundspeed calculated to have been between 130 and 140 knots. With the six-knot tailwind present, this groundspeed equated to a calibrated airspeed of roughly 131 knots—30 knots faster than the reference approach speed (V_REF) of 101 knots appropriate for the aircraft’s landing weight. The extra airspeed no doubt contributed to the slightly long landing, with the jet touching down 1,500 feet past the threshold. Nonetheless, Cessna calculated that even with the excessive speed and floating, had the pilots used maximum reverse thrust and braking, the Citation could have stopped 4,746 feet from the approach end of the runway, or 151 feet short of its end.

Within a second of gear contact the pilots had deployed reverse thrust, and for five seconds no cockpit conversation is heard on the cockpit voice recorder until the co-pilot says “Let’s get on them,” to which the captain replies, “Yeah, I don’t like this.” Six more seconds pass before the co-pilot asks twice, in rapid succession, if they are going around, and the captain answers with, “Yeah, let’s get…out of here.”

Witnesses heard the engines spool-up, and the NTSB determined the aircraft became airborne prior to the end of the runway. The flight was tragically short-lived, however, as the aircraft hit a localizer antenna platform located roughly 300 feet past the end of the runway, and two feet lower than the departure end of the runway—implying the airplane was not capable of maintaining level flight at the airspeed at which it lifted off.

The now damaged jet continued flying over downsloping terrain for another 400 feet before hitting the ground and then a building 80 feet lower than the departure end of the runway. The majority of the aircraft structure forward of the engines was consumed or significantly damaged by the ensuing fire, and the two pilots and two passengers died.

Accident 2: No injuries

On the morning of April 19, 2008, another Citation approached McClellan-Palomar, again from the east with the intention of landing on Runway 24. N54PV was a model 510 Mustang, flown by a single, commercially rated pilot.

The pilot reported that as he descended through 30,000 feet on the assigned arrival, the right primary flight display began to flicker. A few minutes later an alert flashed, indicating that the autopilot had disengaged, and the pilot simultaneously felt the autopilot disengagement and heavy control forces on the yoke. The pilot realized that the electric pitch trim was not functioning, but was able to use the manual pitch trim wheel on the center console.

This act undoubtedly raised the pilot’s workload—with his left hand he would have been required to manually control the aircraft, while his right hand would be working the trim wheel during any speed or configuration changes. The FAA recognizes the reduction in workload a functioning autopilot creates by only allowing single-pilot flight in light jets if the autopilot is working properly.

ATC vectored the aircraft to the ILS approach to Runway 24, and the Mustang broke out of instrument conditions at 2,600 feet msl. Again, a Citation was given a caution by ATC when the controller noted N54PV was abnormally high and queried, “Do you think you can make it?” and again a pilot replied “Yes.” The Mustang crossed the Runway 24 threshold fast—in this case only 15 knots too fast, versus 30 knots for the previous example—above the appropriate VREF, but with a longer float than N86CE had experienced, resulting in a touchdown more than halfway down the runway.

The pilot reported he realized that despite his braking attempts and extension of speed brakes, the airplane was not going to stop before the end of the runway. Facing the downslope at the end and feeling he wouldn’t be able to accelerate the aircraft to liftoff speed, he decided to perform a 180-degree course reversal and ground-looped the jet with aggressive control yoke and rudder deflection. The aircraft came to a stop off the left side of the runway with the main landing gear collapsed, but most important, with no injuries to the pilot or its three passengers.

When you’re down, stay down

The lesson here should be clear: Once an attempt is made to stop a landing aircraft, the pilot historically is best served by continuing that effort until the airplane stops moving. An aircraft that departs the end of a runway at low speed, with wheels firmly on the ground, is going to be far more survivable in the ensuing accident than one that has limped into the air, marginally controllable, with twice (or more) the speed resulting in four times the kinetic energy.

Both accidents also demonstrate the tunnel vision that can lead to runway excursions. In both cases ATC alerted the pilot that the aircraft was well above the nominal flight path to Runway 24, and in both cases the pilots ignored the warnings—believing they could shed an impressive amount of excess energy in only a few miles. When the voice inside your head says this doesn’t look quite right becomes a voice on the radio saying the same, it’s time to move to Plan B.

Neil Singer is a Master CFI with more than 9,500 hours in 15 years of flying.