Phenom 100 crash in MD

Not a wild dart. The NTSB press conference guy confirmed the aircraft hit three houses. He said the first one had a wing slice through it, wing slice damage. That's approx a 90 degree relative to the ground. The second house the aircraft hit nose first and he said the tail was by the front door. So it hit sideways and went in. Last thing he said was the other wing somersault and hit the third house. Based on these entry points to three houses, it is consistent with an aircraft being in an upset condition and slicing down in a wing severely low condition, possibly 90 degrees.

A bird strike? Maybe. It would have to be both engines but that doesn't explain the unusual attitude. Worse case would be a bad bird strike in windshield that incapacitated/killed the pilot. Again, maybe.

Still sounda like an aircraft upset. Was he really straight in or decide to do a circle to land last second for some reason? Historically speaking, an aircraft coming into an approach for landing that crashed into the ground ends up being pilot error. Few notable exceptions of 737 rudder hard overs, but when it comes to private operators, especially rich turboprop/jet owners, the odds aren't in their favor.

Apparently this pilot crashed a TBM 700 at the same airport 4 years ago and walked from it. If this indeed is proven true, Then this doesn't look good.

The NTSB recovered the FDR/CVR and they are already being analyzed tonight. The preliminary should be quick and fairly obvious as to what happened.
 
scott523 said:
Heard the two bird warnings and the Phenom pilot reporting twice on final but no reaction on the bird reports. Could this be pilot error for not shooting a missed approach?

Here's the flight track from FlightRadar24
Click to expand...
I went under a dozen of them on an approach this morning as I broke out of a low overcast. Go missed and back up into the clag and have to come back down into them again? I have the environment, I'm stablized, I'm well below them, and none are trying to Kamikaze into me.

Ah...no.
 
I have flown these, and can say it's not hard to imagine a situation where an owner/operator would be tempted to press the loading limits. Very generous cargo capacity. Then again, it wouldn't have performed all that well on departure if it were overloaded this badly. Really hard to say. Unless I'm mistaken, this will be the first fatality incident from the Phenoms. I will be interested to learn exactly what happened. These are very refined, "easy" jets to operate, save for the brakes.
 
As far as birds go, the only thing that would make sense would be if they went through the windscreen, incapacitating the pilot and/or making the aircraft uncontrollable.
 
If a Phenom is has slowed to 110-115 KIAS (to follow the 172), is fully configured, AND has a dual flame out Sully-style, I'm told it bleeds energy pretty darn quickly.
 
I will say KGAI tends to have a lot of traffic, including GA training that can make it pretty 'interesting' flying in there. Also yeah, lotta birds sometimes. Like most airports.
 
In a Phenom configured for landing if one engine gets taken out by a bird is it a lost cause? Or can the other engine provide enough power to recover? Assuming a go around to sort things out.
 
Multiple bird strikes on approach are up there in anyone's worst nightmare scenario. Our company guidance is not to attempt a go-around to avoid or after bird strikes. There was a crash in Italy some years ago (no final report yet) of a 737 that flew through a flock of starlings which killed both engines, started to go around, recognised the loss of thrust and just made it to the runway. Wrote off the aircraft in the hard landing but I believe nobody was seriously hurt.

An attempt to go around without realising the severity of the damage would have you running out of energy very rapidly with partial or no thrust on both engines.
 
The Phenom has plenty of power for a single engine go around. Whether or not the pilot can keep it under control would be the concern as it takes more than the expected amount of rudder. If it was fully configured and on speed (as he should be at 3 miles), I could see a scenario where he pushed the thrust lever forward after flaming out an engine and then lost control.

The other scenario that I could see as a possibility has to do with the way the stall system works. When you activate the boots, the stall speed protection goes up by about 20-30 knots. I have no idea what the weather was at the time of the accident, but if he had come down through an overcast layer and decided to blow the boots one more time after slowing to final speed, the stall pusher would have activated. I'm not sure that would be recoverable from 900 ft.

No matter what happened, it happened quickly. He calls 3 mile final and is on the ground 3 seconds later. That's a pretty quick turn of events.
 
Last edited:
From the NTSB - stick shaker from 20s before impact. Large pitch & roll changes, power increased 2s after lowest speed. Engines responded, no evidence of any bird strikes.

Not sounding very pretty. Failure to advance thrust after configuring? Oops.
 
http://www.wusa9.com/story/news/2014/12/09/plane-crash-gaithersburg-md-investigation/20131661/

Excerpts from the center of that news story:

(NTSB spokesman Robert) Sumwalt discussed the NTSB's finding from the plane's cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder. The cockpit voice recorder contained 57 minutes of good quality audio, according to the NTSB.

About 20 seconds before the end of the recording, there was an automated stall-warning call out which continued until the end. A stall warning announces an impeding aerodynamic stall which happens when airflow over top of the wings gets disrupted, Sumwalt said.

The lowest recorded airspeed was approximately 88 knots (101 mph), as determined using the flight data recorder. At that point there were "large excursions in pitch and in roll," according to preliminary findings by the NTSB.

A structure group spent Tuesday morning diagramming the wreckage and located all four corners of the plane. That includes the nose, tail and both wing tips, and verifies that the plane was intact prior to impact.

An operations group is gathering information about the pilot, identified as Michael Rosenberg. He had 4500 flying hours and had been involved in a prior accident in March 2010, according to the Sumwalt.

There were three instructor pilots in area at the time of the crash, one in the traffic pattern of the plane and two on the ground. Two pilots reported seeing the plane, and both reported seeing pitch and roll, according to the NTSB's findings.
 
Joshwa said:
From the NTSB - stick shaker from 20s before impact. Large pitch & roll changes, power increased 2s after lowest speed. Engines responded, no evidence of any bird strikes.

Not sounding very pretty. Failure to advance thrust after configuring? Oops.
Click to expand...

Ugh......

Bp244
 
Just to keep facts straight, the Phenom does not have a shaker. It has an audible "stall, stall" and a pusher, but no shaker.
 
So rich owner tries to follow a C172 to the runway by.......... Flying his Phenom jet like a C172.

As I stated, stall/spin accident into the ground by a pilot in over his head with a sophisticated light jet while operating as single pilot. His previous crash doesn't bode well either.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top