First class medical is no guarantee of even near term health. I speak from personal experience; I passed a 1st class medical and yet had a heart attack at the gym 3 months later.
And That is proof why it is a good idea to stay away from gyms this one over stressed your heart! I flew with a guy that was slim 35 years old ran five miles a day before work at the airport. after his run he came in sat in his desk chair for a cool down be fore his usual shower. I walked out to hangar to put the Jepps in the airplane after the the update party was over. walked into the office and he was gone.
Airline pilots becoming incapacitated in flight is not unknown. In my view the entire medical testing is a waste of time with the exception that blind or deaf pilots shouldn’t be allowed. A friend of mine who was the epitome of fitness and Chief pilot of a 135 operation keeled over and died while he was on his daily run.
@@LimeyTX The medical checks have saved many lives by letting people know they have early warning signs, and ensuring the conditions are treated or managed. Along with blindness and deafness, psychiatric conditions must also be considered. IMO the best solution is to have a copilot or at least a competent adult who can operate the radio and follow instructions. Such passengers have landed planes many times, including a woman in her 80s a few years ago. Such a tragedy that the PPL holder owner of the plane didn't hire a copilot.
@@islandlife756 I agree. I was being a little facetious. But the sad fact is that no matter how strict the rules are people are still going to have unexpected incidents. My point is not that pilots shouldn’t have regular checks. My point is that the checks are no guarantee at all that the pilot is good for another 12 months. I suspect that if you examined enough data you would find incidences where a pilot died on the way home from the AME.
There are no guarantees. Period. Anyone can suffer from an immediately crippling medical emergency at any time, regardless of their otherwise apparently good physical health. For example, there are zero warning signs for aortic or cerebral aneurysms. One moment you're fine, the next moment the pipe bursts and you are down for the count. It can happen to anyone.
I find it unacceptable that passenger jet manufacturers are not required to provide a loud, unmissable alarm system that will fire up the moment O2 levels decrease beyond a certain minimum, with perhaps a warning stage that would engage the moment the derivative of the O2 concentration becomes negative after 8 or 9,000 ft altitude.
You wouldn't even need an oxygen sensor for that, a simple barometer would suffice. I'm sure those already exist as the cabin pressure sensors, the issue in past events like the Olympus Airlines flight seems to be that flightcrew misinterpreted the Master Caution as some other hydraulic issue, or they correctly identified the issue but didn't put their oxygen masks on in time.
In Boeing or Airbus Aircraft you will get a master caution, when the cabin altitude gets above 10.000ft! I guess it would be no problem to install that in bizzjets as well. These planes cost several million dollar so it would be no problem to mandatory install that system for maybe 50.000$.
@@Breenild Exactly. Something better that a caution light on the panel is needed so that cases such as that of the Helios 737 would never happen again. On a somewhat related note, and being a pilot myself (C185 non comercial), I cannot fathom how is it that there is not an "AMBIENT" cockpit-wide indicator of the current (and very critical) state of the different possible AUTO modes (autopilot, autothrottle, and specifics, such as Holding-Altitude, Holding-Speed, etc.)...perhaps through an overall noticeable (though subtler than a warning, of course) coloring of the instrument panelt backlighting (or a simulated equivalent with the newer digital screens), perhaps a change from ambar tones to green tones to blue tones, and so on.
I used to fly a Challenger business jet, it has an aural warning and calls ”cabin pressure”. Modern business jets will, in a case like this, automatically descend to 10,000 feet, or lowest safe altitude, if they lose cabin pressure and there is no pilot action
I met the pilot at 0A9 on the 24th of May. I was doing some contract flying in a Cheyenne and he came over, admiring the Cheyenne and we talked for a while. So sad. He seemed like a very nice guy and very sharp.
That must be very saddening. It seems he was known to many and seen by many on the circuit after his retirement from Southwest, where he was known as the king of safety. i hope we get helpful answers.
From all accounts this was a top notch pilot who would have most likely handled a sudden decompression situation. If he indeed suffered a medical wouldn't a passenger on the plane have been able to radio in the situation or been on the phone calling someone once they overshot thier destination? Seems the insidious decompression as described is at this point the most feasible explanation.
He could have had a heart attack or a massive stroke. He certainly was in that age group. Poor man, could not save his passengers. Hire 2 pilots !!!!!!!!!
@@dcdanger6151 Good evening dcdanger. You said; "wouldn't a passenger on the plane have been able to radio" This was the first time his daughter had flown to New York in the Citation. The F-16 pilots had noted that the shades had been pulled down on all the passenger windows were. Flying in the Citation/Leer is a little like flying in an airliner. You don't chat with the pilot like you do in an Aztec, etc. She probably did not even realize they had turned around. The plane remained at flight level 340. She probably did not see the airport.
I wish people would stop saying the aircraft flew over the White House or that it flew over the US Capitol. It did neither. The aircraft passed well north of both of those buildings. I also wish people would stop saying that the aircraft's heading out of ISP was a heading for those buildings. It was not. The heading after ISP was precisely the heading of the CCC-ISP leg. It seems clear the autopilot flew the aircraft to the end of the flight plan and then continued the last used heading.
I don’t believe that the plane was headed back to Elizabethton. It appears that the autopilot turned the plane to approach heading and held it until they ran out of gas. It just happened to be somewhat toward Elizabethton, but just a coincidence.
Too coincidental. A lot of pilots will put their departure point as the last point when they load their flight plan in the auto pilot. That seems very possible here.
@@richardmcspadden9189 Not too coincidental at all. The last leg of the flight plan was CCC to KISP (253 degrees). The course from KISP to Elizabethton is about 250 degrees. When the autopilot hits the last waypoint and doesn't know where to go they fly the last heading or go to roll mode which is similar. No one puts their departure point as the last waypoint or you will be getting nuisance fuel warnings from the fms for the whole flight unless you have enough to return.
@FunFacts , While I initially had the same thought, I think it's actually just proceeding direct Elizabethton. If you project outward the final heading before the spiral, the track crosses directly over Elizabethan airport. Although the plane did indeed complete at least some sort of approach procedure for Islip Airport, the track does not heading and flight path does not line up with the runway at Islip, though it is somewhat close.
I have over 25K hours, military pilot, retired airline pilot etc etc...I have never put my dep airport as the last point in any FMS I have programmed unless it was the final destination on a round robin flight...just sayin. I agree with the concept it ended up on the final approach heading to ILS 24 at KISP, then at the end of the approach defaulted into heading hold...anyone care to guess what the final approach course is at KISP...239 degrees
I simulated the flight on X-Plane 12 using a G1000 equipped Phenom 300 bizjet. The FMS was programmed with the filed flight plan, which terminated at Long Island airport (KISP) after a final waypoint at Calverton VOR (CCC), which is the initial approach fix for the ILS RWY 24 approach. In normal operation, the pilot would have activated the approach after receiving clearance from ATC, causing the aircraft to fly an intercept for the ILS localiser. However since this did not happen, the aircraft turned before CCC to intercept the track from CCC to KISP, overflew KISP, and then continued to fly in GPS NAV mode (with crosswind compensation) away from KISP along the great circle course that joins CCC and KISP, with an initial course of 251 deg. magnetic (note that the course reported by FlightRadar24 is 239 deg. true which is approx 252 magnetic). This took it to a point 8 nm SSE of Montebello VOR (MOL), which is very close (I think within a mile or two) of the point where N611VG ran out of fuel and began to turn to the right immediately before crashing. May the pilot and passengers rest in peace; condolences to their families.
Well said. I'm still on the fence about NAV vs. HDG, because NAV requires a magenta line and there was no waypoint to proceed to. But the argument that it would be unlikely to fly a straight track for several hundred miles in HDG mode is powerful, too.
F-16 pilot acknowledge that he saw Citation pilot in cockpit. That mean for me, that windows on Cessna were clear from frost, what will cover them in case of depressurisation. I think this is not the thing in this case. Medical is more probable.
My theory is that they had no clue what happened in the cockpit. The door was evidently closed. The pilot died and the autopilot went on to do its " thing", until it ran out of fuel. The F-16's did not get the attention of the women in the back and that is the suspicious question. Were they asleep or were they knocked out ? Maybe they will figure out the possibility of cabin depressurization, if they find adequate tissue to analyze. Everything was in pieces, in a crater.
I agree with your analysis Francisco. If still conscious, you would think the adult adopted daughter would notice pilot slump. Get into the co-pilot seat, try to radio and then later motion to the interceptors. From what I have read, oxygen loss does not always mean window ice over if the cabin temp stays at consistent levels unlike the 1999 Learjet carrying golf pro Payne Stewart which had visible iced windows as seen by the interceptors. Different aircraft, different systems.
Watch cam videos and listen to people lose it when they see an accident. Now put them at 34,000 feet looking at death to themselves and their child and also the nanny. People can't even think to apply the brakes on their car when something is happening in front of them. Many couldn't handle seeing a dead guy
I find myself hoping it's a case of some sort of malfunction that caused hypoxia for everyone on board instead of just for the pilot and everyone else having to watch themselves going down. This one hurts, big time.
Since there is no bulkhead; nor door, between the cockpit area and the passenger compartment, all 4 occupants surely suffered hypoxia... they were probably all dead before the aircraft slammed into the ground.
@@ghostrider-be9ek in that situation, would there be no reaction from the pax? An F-16 flew close enough to verify that the pilot was slumped, but no pax noticed and made any sort of signal?
Would the F-16 pilots been able to see the pilot slumped over if the windows were frosted over? I'm betting on a sudden pilot medical issue since the F-16 jocks never said anything about frosted windows. So, should we allow these jets to be flown by a single pilot?
@@mtkoslowski Good question. And if it was a pilot medical issue, why didn't the passengers do anything? The NTSB has lots of "splainin to do... Heartfelt condolences to the families involved.
@@mtkoslowski I'm guessing on a warm day half hour into FL350 the windows don't freeze? I doubt the passengers would be just sitting there chilling while their plane has no pilot. For sure I would've been on that cockpit at least crying while watching my upcoming death.
The problem with this theory is that the pilot, at 69 years old still had a First Class Medical. Not exactly an easy thing to retain at that age. He had to be in excellent health. Doesn't rule it out, but certainly makes it more unlikely. But a sudden or insidious depressurization are quite a valid possibility. Hypoxia.
Why don’t autopilots have a requirement for some pilot input (even if nothing more than a button push) every so often, else a an alarm sounds that will wake the dead and/or automatically desced to breathable altitude? All this automation and it can’t even detect that the pilot is inop?
Trains actually have something like that, the so called dead man's switch. If the required action is not taken, the train will brake. Not sure about implementing something similar in aircrafts, though
@@emperorofthegreatunknown4394 _There are autopilots being developed for this that will navigate to the nearest airport and contact ATC._ Actually *have been* developed. Search for Garmin Autoland. It's not the autopilot, but the GPS doing this; but the end result is the same.
Great analysis of what the currently known facts are. As someone not from America it was bizarre reading some online commentary from yanks making it about political leanings. Tragic event, hypoxia is always in the back of my mind.
I'm also of the opinion it was a medical issue with the pilot. If it were a cabin depressurization, the interior temperature would also drop to ambient for the flight altitude, and condensation would freeze, frosting the windows as happened with Payne Stewart's incident in 1999. The F-16 pilot could distinctly see the pilot slumped over, indicating clear windows. If this is the true scenario (medical emergency), the question remains, why did the passengers not notice it, or if they did, why did they take no action? This would tend to support a depressurization event, as they would be incapacitated as well, but in either possibility, we may never know the actual facts.
Does the Citation have a locked door separating passengers from the cockpit? In the absence of frosted windows, and so presumably conscious passengers, that's the only thing that would make sense to me.
If the pressurization or oxygen system is malfunctioning or not programmed correctly, it could just hold a much higher cabin altitude and still hold temperature inside the aircraft, leading to hypoxia, but not a frozen cabin.
@@marcoagostoni8827 No. The cabin air in a citation is turned over several times per minute. There is no potential internal source of CO generation either.
We got an identical evaluation from Dan Gryder. In terms of forensics, it will not be easy as the plane and the passengers were certainly not whole.....hard to do autopsies in pieces. Also the best solution to avoid this is to have 2 pilots. One may be dead but the other should be fine as well as the passengers.
Naive layman's thought: Shouldn't the aircraft have some sort of aggressive "low pressure" warning coming early enough that the pilot is still capable of reacting appropriately?
This Cessna Citation V 560 gives a minimum alarm at 10,000 feet. And another alarm at 14,000. The retired Southwest pilot, 69 year old Jeff Hefner was a specialist in cabin pressurization I am saying medical emergency for the pilot. And he had the best monitor of pressurization known to man on that Citation, a 2 year old baby.
I thought the Class 1 Medical Certificate was only valid for 6 Calendar 📆 Months. If he took his last exam in October, it would have expired April 30, 2023. Isn't that correct? If so, he was flying on an expired medical certificate according to this report.
@@garrettboone4306 You are Wrong. It is still a first class medical because that is the standard that the exam was conducted under after six months It is still a valid first class medical with 2nd class privileges for 12 months from the month the exam was conducted. Not a 3 rd. class as you state. FAR part 91 and that is what he was operating under only requires a 2nd class medical not a first. If he where flying under Far 135 he would require a 1 class medical good for six months as a captain. after 6 months he could fly as a First Officer for additional 6 months.
Nope that is incorrect! It is still a first class medical because that is the standard that the exam was conducted under after six months It is still a valid first class medical with 2nd class privileges for 12 months from the months the exam was conducted.. FAR part 91 and that is what he was operating under only requires a 2nd class medical not a first. If he where flying under Far 135 he would require a 1 class medical good for six months as a captain. after 6 months he could fly as a First Officer for additional 6 months. the report is wrong. This pilot was flying FAR part 91 and that only required a 2nd class Medical not a First. I hope you are not a pilot if you are you need to brush up on FAR part 67.
Still don't understand the flight path...not just the turn back to the Southwest, but the dog leg on the way to Long Island....was there a turn point there assigned??
Yes. The flight plan was as follows: 0A9 PSK GVE SIE BRIGS Q439 SARDI CCC ISP. To translate, 0A9 was the airport of origin (Elizabethton Municipal, in Tennessee), and ISP was the intended destination (Long Island MacArthur Airport). Most of the other waypoints involved some turn; with a 17° left turn at SIE, on Cape May, Delaware, making the dogleg around Washington, DC, and left turns at SARDI and CCC totaling 163° to reverse the direction of flight and line up for an instrument approach to MacArthur Airport-although the approach wasn't in the flight plan, and wasn't flown.
@@ChazToz His justification for why that *has* to be the case is weak though. The windows wouldn’t necessarily frost over in the case of depressurization
Why were they at an even altitude while flying eastward? It's supposed to be odd, right? How common is it to break that rule in one of the busiest areas of the country?
Above 18,000 you are on an IFR flight plan, and ATC will break that rule depending on crossing traffic from time to time. Not a big deal since they are talking to everyone at those altitudes.
They were filed and cleared at FL 390, the correct cardinal altitude for an eastbound flight. FL 340 was an intermediate given them by ATC during the climb; but by the time came to climb to the final altitude, the pilot was already incapacitated.
My question is why did it take so long for Center to do something if the Pilot was not responding to radio calls and where along the flight did this happen? Also I believe he had progamed the FMS (Flight Management system right up to the Approach but with no auto throttles the plane Programed for FL340 stayed at FL340 It was just DUMB luck the runway was in line with a straight route back to the starting airport. If the FMS had been programed for a different runway the auto pilot would have flown that heading because it probably went into HEADING HOLD after the approach attempt. The F-16's were scrambled only the Plane was now going to cross over NOT through the Washington (DC SFRA). witch tops out at FL180.
Mostly correct about the FMS; but the runway actually wasn't in line with a straight route back to the starting airport. The runway heading is 239°, and the course back approximately to the starting point was 253°. The reason it flew this course after overflying the airport is that this was the course of the last leg in the flight plan (CCC to ISP), and the FMS just continued on the course of the last leg when it got to the end of the flightplan.
Thanks. He was on a flight plan going up and the plane flew it. They were worried I’m sure, but saw no National security risk…until it made the 180 and headed back towards DC…not talking…not on a flight plan. Now it’s a security risk. Remember the FRZ goes up beyond 17,999 ft msl.
All great advice for cognitive recognition of a pressurisation problem! That is not applicable if the solo pilot was incapacitated and unable to rcognise and rectify any pressurisation problem - which he was obviously qualified to do so as an expereinced airline pilot. Your highlighting of this depressurisation possibility is appreciated, t os not supported by the F.16 reports the cockpit windscreens clear and the pilot visible ( a de-pressurized flight deck is likely to be frosted over windscreens as per similar corporate jet events) but the problem appears to be an unexpected incapitated solo pilot without any external input to influence the eventual outcome e.g. coaching an inexpereinced, unqualified, passenger on the controls.) Perhaps a suggested FAA regulation based on such incidents, that high performance aircraft (either by speed or Flight Level capability should be the FAA requirement irrespective of Private or Commercial status of the flight) would have surely saved all on board, and the threat to innocent families on the ground for an unguided 'coporate jet missile'. I am a 21,000 hour Airline pilot from the jungles of Papua New Guinea to the most expansive Arabian airline operating B777's, now operating with the voted #1 Airline in The World - I hope this helps in determining my perspective. Allowing private corporate jet owners and operators to allow single pilot operations should be HIGHLY opposed, as the empirical and anecdotal evidence supports the need for a 2nd supporting pilot for incapicitaiton, and pre and in-flight management.windscreens
One big argument against the hypoxia scenario is that the windows were still clear. Given the humidity of a normal cabin, the windows generally freeze over if the plane depressurizes.
Okay, just a stupid question: Why the aviatics still no had some remote control aviability for emergency purpose? That is a computerized plane! And, even the autopilot why not "knows" a special mode to perform emergency descent automatically, when there is pressurization error happens? Yes, that is the last one, which needed more attention, because is only depends some software update. The jets have so advanced autopilot, so they can maintain MSA in event the fail happens over dangerous terrain. Also they have pressurization sensors. Just needed to put that in the program. How many more souls needed to doing that?
@@jimdaw65 you watched the movie? Guys, we already have safe remote controlling options. But, you should read through my comment above, to understand the second option. Is not needed remote control, just extend the abilities of an already existing automation.
Firstly this was a 20 year old aircrft of a model that first flew in 1989 not a brand new state of the art aircraft, think of the computer, cell phone etc. technology we were using then. Even the idea of an automated descent (which BTW requires an autothrottle that this aircraft didn't/doesn't have) wouldn't even have been thought of, let alone some sort of military drone like remote control system which at the start of the century, let alone the 1980's, would have been in the realms of science fiction.
How about not being cheap and hiring a copilot? This never would have happened. It’s actually amazing how many people with money buy aircraft and then operate them on the cheap.
Thank you Don_and_his_stationair. As people have short memories but this does make the news - not front page. I rememeber an airline pilot who had a heart atttack at the controls, he didn't make it. The FO landed. The 1st class medical has stricter standards than the 2nd or 3rd. This pilot had his attack a month after the exam. The AME does what the checklist calls out. Do they add coronary angiograms too from now on? Yet still, it can happen. A friend of mine lost her dad, airline capt, he was having chest pains at home and went into the ER. He had a full attack there in the ER. They did all they could, he didn't make it.
@@chuckschillingvideos If you go back and read through the thread, you'll find I did not go straight to this originally. I agreed that hypoxia was the most likely cause. That being said, I offered fentanyl poisoning as a possibility b/c it is an all too common and serious problem in our country. It crosses all social boundaries including those of economic wealth. This was the only other thing I could think of if not hypoxia. How is it that there was no attempt by any of the adult passengers to even communicate on the radio? Seems possible they were incapacitated. Drugs are pouring into our country at an alarming rate. Perhaps this problem is not well understood and underestimated by those whose lives have not been directly touched by it. If you are one of the folks who fall into that category, you are lucky. But for a vast majority, this is a serious issue that has been taking many lives. Pilots are human. We are subject to the same pitfalls as anyone. There is also a lot of garbage that goes on under the radar in the medical community. The bottom line is it's important to find out what happened, face it honestly whatever it was, learn from it as best we can and hope the family and friends can have genuine closure. Doesn't happen for anyone who can't face the truth, whatever it may be in any circumstance, not just this one. This is why I was asking about the possibility of testing tissue samples for O2 content, or drugs or alcohol. It happens.
I believe you are spot on. Very unfortunate that this happened. I always keep a close eye on my cabin pressurization to hope this would never happen on a flight of mine.
Last year in September a very similar accident happened when a German entrepreneur intended to fly his Austrian registered Cessna Citation II from Spain to Germany (together with parts of his family and friends), experiencing an apparent loss in cabin pressure (last thing he reported to ATC was a problem with the pressurization) leading to everybody on board becoming hypoxic. The plane was intercepted by different fighters as it crossed Europe (with the fighter pilots reporting they saw a slumped over pilot) and eventually plunged into the Baltic Sea when it ran out of fuel. I am not saying the above accident was also hypoxia-induced, but the similarities are apparent. Both are very tragic events, RIP to the victims.
I have been in the chamber and experienced Hypoxia as part of military training and also while in an unpressurized cargo plane at 14,000ft. I was fine in the cargo flight until I stood up, waked to the back of the plane and returned to my seat. I was unaware I was suffering hypoxia onset (didn't think it was possible at that altitude), but the alert plane captain noticed and brought me an oxygen bottle. Under simulated 35,000ft elevation it is amazing how quickly you begin to suffer, to watch fellow students lose awareness and how they react. The more active you are, the quicker you suffer. Each student had a slightly different task, sorting playing cards, touching your nose with an index finger, repeatedly signing your name, etc. The student trying to touch his nose pushed instructors back when tried to replace his mask. He was totally focused and they had to hold his arm to get his mask on and for him to recover. RIP to those lost and prayers to family and friends grieving this tragic loss of life.
ATC lost voice communications approximately 15 minutes after checking with Bristol TN radar they issued an IFR clearance. Cleared as Filed.. He was handed off to Atlanta Air Traffic Center ATZ he check in with ATZ they issued a clearance to FL240 then FL340 Some time after he read back the clearance and set 34,000 in the altitude select window, I feel he suffered from Hypoxic Hypoxia as did the others on board. My guess is that the Bleed Valves where not turned on prior to take off or a pressurization failure occurred.
His altitude was later amended by Atlanta to FL330 before entering Washington Center airspace because of traffic. This change was never acknowledged by the pilot. So whatever happened , happened before he reached FL340
Would such an experienced pilot not check the bleed valves ? I doubt. He was a commercial pilot as he flew for Southwest ; they do nothing without a check list and it would be on it. I don't see that man forgetting it, but I see him having a heart attack and dying. The autopilot would have done its "thing" until the plane ran out of fuel .
If the passengers were not seen by the intercepting F-16s, this could perhaps indicate a pressurization problem, as all on board would have lost consciousness. If someone had been conscious during the flight, it is likely they would have seen the pilot slumped over and might have used the VHF to ask for help (there were two other adults on board). After all the flight lasted way longer than expected with no door between the flight deck and the passenger cabin. Too soon to tell exact,y what happened. What a sad and tragic circumstance.
@stevenwhitcomb9668 This is not necessarily so. They were frosted during the Payne Stewart accident, they were not during the Helios accident. Too soon to know just what happened, too soon to discard any possibility.
I also think it was depressurization, but a slow depressurization. Everyone got sleepy as the plane went up until everybody was passed out. There's no coming back from that. Sadly, I think everyone on board was dead long before the plane hit the ground.
One pilot or two pilots are not a big factor in pressurization failures like this. This crash was one pilot, the Learjet crash with the golfer was two, pilots, and an Olympus Airlines B737 crash was with two pilots.
Pilots are trained to recognize hypoxia and yet the pilots in these incidents did not put on oxygen masks. Oxygen level can be monitored by sensor so it would not be a stretch for the aircraft auto-pilot to descend the plane to breathable altitude. No descent is no return for pilots and passengers.
One of he fighter pilots stated he could see the pilot sitting in the left seat and slumped to the right. Unfortunately....it wasn't a pressurisation failure 😢
Nice job, Rich. It's really nice to see AOPA getting these videos out quickly after an incident. It show engagement with members and answers some questions a lot of us have. I'm trying to learn more everyday. Thanks.
My bet is on a medical issue. If there was a decompression, the intercept jets would have noticed the jet fogged up. If it was a slow leak, the cabin altitude alarm would warn the pilot. Its a master warning and impossible to miss. So my bet is on a medical issue.
You said the aircraft suffered fuel starvation prior to it entering a right spiraling decent. Wouldn’t it have been fuel exhaustion since it ran out of fuel? My understanding has always been that fuel starvation is when the aircraft still has fuel remaining yet for some reason it is not reaching the engine.
The owner’s daughter was likely a frequent passenger on the plane. If the pilot only was incapacitated she would have tried to radio the tower or try to signal the fighter pilots. I’ve flown on a Citation V numerous times. There is no barrier between the pilot and the passengers so they would have seen the pilot incapacitated. We always flew with two pilots. So my belief they all suffered from hypoxia.
Good advice on the altitude chamber. I did that at Joint Base Andrews in the early 90s. We went as a group prior to flying mountain wave in Petersburg WVA. It was an eye opener.
Perhaps it is time to put the cabin altitude altimeter right in the pilot's view instead of in the ceiling or down by a knee depending on an idiot light to warn of problems.
Or have it linked to an audible and visible warning once it drops by 10% of what it should be, with todays technology surely that can’t be too difficult. If it’s a health issue maybe it’s time they regulate two pilot operation for these type jets.
The Citation has a cabin altitude warning which activates if the cabin altitude exceeds 10,000'. A loud horn, a Master Warning Light, and a Cabin altitude or pressure annunciator light. You can not ignore all this. I flew the Citation CE-550/560 (Citation II/V) from 1983 until 1995. This looks like pilot incapacitation to me, not a pressurization issue.
Why do people assume that airplanes come with nothing but a steering wheel and a brake pedal or that all pilots are comatose, deaf, blind except for 2.5° of foveal vision, unable to swivel their eyes or necks, and as attentive to what's going on in the cockpit as Monty Python's Dead Parrot? I mean, I know some of them are, but…
As a Captain on many Boeings for 2 decades I had a standard check of cabin altitude, rate of climb/descent, and diff. at 20,000 ft on the way up and on the way down. This was not required by SOP's but made good sense to me.
Reminds me of Helios Airways Flight 522 flight crew forgot to set the pressurization to automatic. Alarms, and warnings didn't point directly at the problem, and the crew were hypoxic could not understand what was happening. Some have suggested that the windows would be fogged over if that happened like Payne Stewart in his case that was explosive decompression which caused the windows to fog. Flight 522 F-16's could see in the windows and saw a flight attendant using a portable oxygen tank sitting in the cockpit. The fuel ran out before he was able to do anything. Just because he had a class one medical cert doesn't mean he was healthy. The FAA medical certificate program has many flaws that overlook serious medical conditions that go on diagnosed. Pilots quickly learn that the less you see a doctor the better because the FAA medical is such a convoluted system it's lot easier to just avoid doctors. The actual class 1 medical is so basic and antiquated not a surprised pilots drop dead of heart attacks while in flight.
After so many hypoxia accidents in the last years, especially on single pilot airplanes, I am astonished that either NTSB or FAA have not required some sort of low cabin pressure alarm on pressurized aircraft. This has demonstrated to be an issue much more dangerous than a bad executed checklist.😮😮
It is required and the Citation 5 has a very good high cabin altitude alert system. Goes off at roughly 11,000 feet. It would be very difficult to ignore.
@@michaelgarrow3239 Technically that is a high carbon dioxide indicator. The backup, if I remember correctly is hydrogen ion concentration in the cerebral spinal fluid. The back up for the back up is low oxygen.
I remember during one of my medical exams many years ago back in Poland I had to go through low pressure chamber/cabin training/assessment. During the “ascent” temperature drops to below dew point and fog develops in the chamber. Few seconds later disappears. Almost as if you were climbing through the clouds.
@@marcinpasnicki248 No, cold outside temperatures makes the temperature drop. If it were balmy at 30k feet, it would be equally balmy inside an unpressurized aircraft but the fact is the higher the altitude, the colder the temperature.
@@chuckschillingvideos Don’t forget that low pressure chamber is located at an altitude close to sea level. Inside a building. Stable temperature around it. When you pump the air out of that chamber it causes the temperature inside that chamber to drop at what rate? 2 deg C per 1000ft. The same happens inside unpressurized airplane, glider, balloon… When you climb it will get colder inside the cabin.
Pilot died. FMS programmed where autopilot hit waypoints. Right engine ran out of fuel first cause the right descending bank. Further tightened and steepened until contact with the ground.
The newer aircrafts have automated ways to detect lack of activity in the cockpit, then prompt for response and if not automatically go to a lower altitude or even have an autoland feature. Not foolproof but worth it for a multi-million $$$ machine and the associated risks of hypoxia. Maybe the FAA could allow retrofits for older jets for it.
I fly a private Citation Mustang and I always make sure to tell my passengers to let me know if they ever feel light headedness and what to do if I go unconscious. Also, I do hypoxia training every now and then to feel the signs of it coming. If it were to happen to me then I would know from a mile away what was going on. Sadly a lot of pilots, no matter their skill level, don't assume the worst and don't pay close enough attention to the instruments
Seems to me that a jet carrying passengers should ALWAYS be flown by TWO pilots for this very reason. A co-pilot may have had time to do what the Captain could not and may have been able to make a safe landing with the Captain incapacitated. This is just common sense. I would NEVER get on a private jet with ONLY ONE PILOT FLYING THE PLANE. TWO PILOTS-- ALWAYS.
There was a news report that the aircraft had "buzzed" the White House. At 34,000 ft? I'm just amazed he didn't call it a "Piper Cub" as that seems to be the only GA aircraft they know.
Was just thinking that the most likely case here is that the pressurization setting might not have been set for auto or set correctly and caused the hypoxic event. Sad loss of life that day :( I actually heard the jets scramble over my house, they were hauling I'll tell ya that. Almost sounded like a small explosion in the distance as the shockwave ripped through my area.
I fly this model. Before I bought it the squat switch failed during decent at FL380, the cabin dumped and went to sea level instantly. No lights or alarms, the aircraft thought it was ground. My friend did a emergency decent and got aircraft on ground safely. If the switch failed on takeoff, no warnings other than looking at cabin altitude and diff gauge. I added this to checklist at 10000ft and FL180. This failed item is not on emergency checklist.
This is almost certainly a slow pressurization leak that led to hypoxia for everyone onboard. All the evidence suggests the same thing. This is also the "best case scenario" for everyone involved because if you were conscious during an almost 40,000 ft plunge it would have been the most terrifying final moments imaginable
@@loganbobrow9333 That would only be the case in an rapid decompression where the pressure changes extremely rapidly. Slow decompression would not have the same indicators like that.
February of '22, my 68 yo flight instructor, who also held a Class 1, died of Suddenly. I was the last person outside of his wife to see him alive. He was one of three otherwise healthy but double-vaxxed mid-sixties friends to die in this fashion.
It's ridiculous for fighters to scramble just when it's approaching DC, why not earlier? According to news reports, the pilot stopped communicating with ATC 15 minutes into the flight. Yet this plane was able to fly all the way to LI, near the Hamptons, turn to a course heading to DC still with no communication. Why no jets then? Is NORAD a joke?
Standard IFR lost communications procedure is to continue along your route of flight to your destination if you are not in VFR conditions. We don’t know the exact conditions of the day but it could be that there was IMC present. The aircraft did not necessarily follow the other steps for lost communications procedures, but there is nothing here to indicate the aircraft was a threat to people on the ground. At most it was an aircraft that wasn’t following proper lost communications procedures. After all, the aircraft was still flying it’s filed route. It wasn’t until the aircraft failed to descend and land that ATC would have the smoking gun that this wasn’t just a loss communications issue. I also believe that NORAD was likely tracking this aircraft for quite some time beforehand, they just decided not scramble until the aircraft maneuvered towards D.C.
Yes, I agree. Why fly so long without being intercepted by the jets. Is there some kind of protocol whereby the controllers at Atlanta and New York contact NORAD and report a non responsive aircraft at FL 340? Why over the DC area? The aircraft was above the restricted airspace over DC anyway!
I do believe I read that NY Center , maybe even Washington center, did contact NORAD well before the plane turned over Long Island. After the plane made the 180 degree turn they scrambled F16's out of Atlantic City to intercept. As stated above....The plane was still following it's filed flight plan up to this point and was probably being treated like a lost communication flight by ATC. This procedure does require the pilot to squawk 7600 on his transponder though, and this should have thrown up a red flag to ATC.
@@lyleparadise2764 If the pilot was a victim of hypoxia I doubt that he would have time to set the transponder but the controllers can verify if the pilot is receiving transmissions by simply giving him a heading to fly. If the A/C flys that heading then for sure he can hear you.
How did nobody raise the alarm sooner to an unresponsive airplane flying for a couple hours up the East Coast toward NYC and then back toward DC on an IFR flight plan. The fact the fighters didn't intercept it until it passed over the DC area is a little concerning.
Richard, the Citation has a cabin altitude warning system which activates if the cabin altitude exceeds 10,000'. A loud horn, a Master Warning Light, and a Cabin Altitude or Cabin Pressure annunciator light. You can not ignore all this. I flew the Citation CE-550/560 (Citation II/V) from 1983 until 1995, always with 2 pilots. This looks like pilot incapacitation to me, not a pressurization issue, but we may never know. It appears the autopilot defaulted to a heading mode after passing the airport (KISP) on a course from the last waypoint, the Calverton (CCC) VOR. The heading between the VOR and the airport was very close to a course back to Elizabethton which took the plane over DC. We may never know on this one.
The cabin altitude warning system can fail, there's no reason it can't. I find it far more likely that this would happen than none of the passengers even attempting to take control the aircraft. The F-16 pilots didn't even see the passengers moving in the cabin, so it seems likely they were all out. NTSB will probably find something, they usually do.
@@oltimer5544 No I'm not qualified on jets, nor am I an aircraft mechanic. I work in the marine industry as an engineer, so I have technically inclined, and experience has lead me to believe that anything can and will fail. That being said, there is another possibility here that we haven't brought up, which is pilot misidentification. Probably the most similar commercial accident to this is Helios flight 522, which experienced a depressurization, incapacitation of the pilots, and subsequent crash due to fuel exhaustion. In that case, the pilots misidentified the cabin altitude warning as a take-off configuration warning. They lost crucial minutes trying to troubleshoot and by then hypoxia had already began to set in, impairing their judgement, causing them to focus on what they thought was the problem and not considering the potential for other causes. I'm not familiar with the warning sounds and lights in the Citation series jets, but if it's like the 737 where the sound alarm is the as used by other warnings, then it could lead to confusion.
The passengers probably had cell phones. If they knew the pilot was in distressed they could have made a call. The plane hit so hard I am not sure we will ever know.
Its easy to miss a cabin altitude warning horn if the warning system is not working properly. My argument agains the medical event is that with the pilot slumped to the right,, at some point the passengers would have noticed. Most biz jets have internet capability and the passengers would have been able to send a message somehow.
As retired USAF navigator I went to the alt chamber so many times I lost count. But now as a GA pp where does that training occur on civilian side? outside of major Part 121 or 135 operations even single jet/turboprop corporate pilots can’t get that physiologic refresher easily or inexpensively.
I remember reading a report some time ago about the FAA's justification for this. It amounted to the medical risks inherent with the altitude chamber, the inability for a single person to have identical experiences in multiple sessions (thus denying them the ability to make a reliable prediction for any individual), and the belief that having the knowledge of the symptoms phenomena, and response will be adequate to meet the emergency. I guarantee the costs factored in as well.
If I were a pilot with passengers and no co-pilot, I'm putting the most competent passenger in the co-pilot's seat. It probably wouldn't have changed the outcome of this incident, but there's been lots of incidents where it would.
That really only works when someone aboard is a relative or friend of the pilot. Here, it's a professional pilot and the "client", or worse, the "client's daughter" and it's going to be awkward putting her to work in the snug right seat of a Citation.
@@joshuahudson2170 If that 560 right seat is anything like the 501's I sat in, the prime view thing will become old real fast for a non-aviation enthusiast. Plus I couldn't reach the cookie oven from the right seat. Also imagine telling the daughter of your employer (who hired you because you are supposedly the bullet-proof 30,000 hour "super pilot") "Yeah, I just need you to sit up here in case I keel over". There will be a phone call from baby doll to daddy real fast.
The thing I don’t understand with these hypoxia accidents is how the pilots didn’t notice the excessive rate of climb of their cabin altitude. If your cabin is climbing at 2000ft/min you should definitely be feeling that in your ears and a quick glance at the pressurization gauge would confirm what’s happening. Either way, hopefully the CVR can shed some light on this (if it had one.)
NO CVR was required on this airplane FAr 91.609 . In this case since this airplane could be operated single pilot under a LOA letter of agreement single pilot and special training a CVR is not required.
@@TheFalconJetDriver I don't think it works like that. The 560 was, and still is, certificated for a two pilot crew. Just because there is a special exemption for certain pilots to fly it single pilot is not going to do away with the CVR requirement. In any event, my friend has a 560 just a few serial numbers later than the accident aircraft and it came equipped with a CVR as original equipment.
The pilot knew he had a 2 year old on board and kids have issues with their ears.....I am sure, he was operating the climb, for their comfort. I really feel he died after he programmed the auto pilot. The F-16's could see him, leaning towards the right seat, not moving....not responding. The windows in the back, were closed. The passengers did not notice them and that is the suspicious part. Could they have been asleep ? or maybe, they were passed out. That would be comforting for the families, instead of suffering a spiral descent to the ground. Noting anyone wants. Seconds are horrifying eternity.
Really good presentation. Just an FYI….I lived in East TN and it’s pronounced Eliz-ah-bethton - not Eliz-Beth-ton. Not a big deal but just thought I’d mention it!
Why did it matter if the plane was on a heading over the FRZ. Wouldn't someone NORDO, especially after passing their destination and not squawking 7600, scramble fighters to investigate? I sure thought it would and has.
What about the fact that the F-16 pilots clearly saw the Citation pilot “slumped over to the right”? The Citation’s windows were not frosted over. Wouldn’t this be an indication of the pilot’s medical incapacitation, and NOT a loss of pressurization?
You would assume one of the 3 passangers in the back would do something and attempt to land or reach someone else, instead of just giving up and letting the plane crash
@@yeetandskeet They may not have realized until it was too late. Sounds like passenger window shades may have been closed. Easily could have been asleep, watching movies, or just assumed the flight was taking longer than expected for some reason.
As far as the passengers..... if the airplane had wifi, it would be interesting to see if there was anything being sent from the airplane. Passengers probably either zonked out after takeoff, or buried their noses in their phones
Maybe time for new debates on mandatory O2 mask usage for a single pilot or one pilot in a crew above 30k feet. or some level. Too easy not to die from loss of pressurization.
Really enjoy the well produced and informative videos AOPA puts together!!! Is there anyway to put an eq on the audio to get rid of the whistling. Thanks!
Single pilot operations was a factor. Always have a copilot in jets etc… too many young pilots need to build experience. Citation should have warning when the cabin reaches 10000 feet and the masks drop at 14000 feet (standard in jets). Above 35000 pilot is required to wear masks (never done). Rest in peace and prayers to all family
I still think we need to not just optionally, but it should be a requirement for all Pilots to wear Oxygen Monitors, we have cheap passive ones that can even be setup via Bluetooth to Apple/Android phones and tablets etc. They can give you early warning that your Blood Oxygen level is dropping and I think this would save lots of lives.
By the time it starts dropping and warning it may be too late. The Time of useful Consciousness for FL 340 is 30 seconds or so. So, the O2 sat drop is very rapid.
@jerry kurata good point, I think it would probably depend on that unique symptoms per person thing, how quickly you are beyond help, What is hopeful is with the recent 'Human Malware' we have seen a good percentage, mainly younger people with walking Hypoxia (due to the lung damage) and walking pneumonia, a lot of people affected by human malware (2019-ncov) have not realized how sick they are, and a lot of them have oxygen levels showing 30%,50%,70% ranges give or take (and sadly have been good part of those who end up in ICU) so while oxygen monitor won't save everyone I think it is an extra tool in the tool Luggage carry-on bag.... (ha)
@jerry kurata Additional thought on idea is the data read out can or is saved (and might be able to also be backed up to black boxes down the road) so even if the oxygen detector did not save someone, you have extra record of the pilots abilities. Too many times pilots are blamed for bad choices, yet so many issues with Cockpit Fume events (from small planes all the way to Boeing or Airbus) still unaddressed, and the fact that atmosphere contamination doesn't act like a binary switch (either awake or passed out) there is a scale of wakefulness, and I.M.O. even "minor" fume events have to somewhat impact the "thinking" of a pilot, and thus events outside the pilots control can cause the mistakes in some cases. but until we have better monitoring and actually fix some of the Cockpit fume events (number 1 is Boeing / airbus planes near end of journey having fume events happen as they descend around 10,000ft Alt, over and over again for many years now, and events still not solved. Not every fume event actually has a smell or smoke either so, so many things right now accepted that can cause pilots to have risk to be impaired and risk being fully blamed for "pilot errors" when we don't have a system in place to monitor quality of air, actual oxygen levels, and even recording other substances in the Cockpit air to some sort of black box. Lack of a system to help clear pilots names, and right now Pilots are easy to blame for so many accidents. When again, if something is slowly even just barely impairing them and it is not fair to always blame a pilot when we don't have the recording of Cockpit atmospheric conditions.
Great breakdown. My reasons are the same as yours. 1. Slow depressurization like you said, and the pilot did not catch it. 2. Rapid depressurization and he failed to put on the mask, or the mask did not work. 3. Medical emergency and the passengers did not know what to do.
Every time I go to renew my first class medical, the AME does the absolute bare minimum . Might as well not do any medical as if they aren’t going to do a in depth scan and overview of your body and health. Seriously.
It's all about the mighty dollar. They know if they did a rigorous job, most won't come back. My ame does 10-12 an hour.. Whole day.. At $175pp..2 days a week. Yes that's what's called a cash cow.
Time of useful consciousness assume an average, healthy person. At 69 years old, it’s very very possible that he was far more susceptible to hypoxia. It’s concerning that we have for-hire private jet operators running single-pilot at ages higher than allowed for Part 121.
That's how the owner, John Rumpel, was able to donate so much of his fortune to things like the NRA and Trump: BY CUTTING CORNERS, like not having a co-pilot for his 'adopted 49 year old daughter.' He will likely collect new monies for both the airplane, its crash, and his 'daughter's' life insurance policies. His grieving won't last long, IMO.
A sad reminder that hypoxia can creep up on you slow or fast. The early 525 and 550 Citations have somewhat clunky pressurization systems that can fail for a number of rather simple reasons. I've been flying them for about two years now and have had pressurization related issues in three separate 525/550 aircraft and three (two were at low altitude) decompressions on one single 550 type. One which was a hard fail and it resulted in an emergency descent. This most recent crash makes two pressurization related accidents in less than a year in the 550 type. Just food for thought, the Encore/ Ultra's service ceiling is FL450 and in a rapid decompression the useful consciousness is 9-15 seconds. Add to that, an emergency descent at ~6,000 FPM would still take 5+ minutes to get below 10,000' This is just more more reinforcement for my unyielding opinion that absolutely NO jet/ turboprop larger than a CJ-1/ C-90 should be flown single pilot. And not that there should be an age limit but, sorry, a 70 year old pilot (regardless of medical class) should have never been given the single pilot waiver.
@@davidcampbell8287 not necessarily. Unless part of the aircraft was missing letting outside air in, the heat provided by the bleeds/ ACM could still be contained in the cabin keeping things somewhat warm. Even with a hard pressurization system failure or open outflow valve, the heat proved by the bleeds *should* still be entering the cabin.
Regarding this pilot’s FAA medical, I have been told by a reliable source, that he had and passed, a new 1st class medical 5 days before this flight. He is said to have been a healthy and fit person.
@@garymartin9777 I agree. I’ve had about 80 1st class medical and many EKG’s. These exams are NOT a thorough check that you’d have your GP do. Agree, anyone anytime could keel over from xxx (heart attack, stroke, aneurysm etc.
Windows were clear. You make no mention of this fact. Seems that a depressurization is unlikely. A fatal medical event, with those in the back having no awareness of what was happening in the cocpit, seems likely to me.
Believable up until the point where they made a 180 in NY. A pilot who flew airlines his entire life almost certainly took the time to explain to his wife how to make an emergency call / use the radios
He was just the pilot. Those where not his family. They were just passengers and I think it may have been the first time for them. It was a mother, child, and nanny. They might even have been asleep and not aware of what was unfolding up front. He was up there by himself.
@@garyprince7309 Sure but wouldn’t they have though something was up when the flight lasted 2x longer than it should have? unless they’re total foreigners they would have a general idea of how long that flight would be.
It's a near-universal misconception that you can't have lack of pressurization unless the windows frost over; but windows don't necessarily frost over in a depressurization or lack of pressurization event. In the Payne Stewart Learjet incident, which everyone is using as the model for this belief, the Learjet was a much different plane from this one, with different equipment and different failure modes, and flew at 51,000 feet-half again as high as this one, where the temperature is still lower-the windows *did* frost over. But in a case almost identical to this one just last September, a Cessna Citation II flew from southern Spain all the way to northern Germany, at the same altitude as this plane, with an incapacitated pilot, and crashed into the Baltic, and the windows *didn't* frost over . Search for Citation OE-FGR for details of this incident. It just depends on many factors, whether they will or won't. It this was medical incapacitation of the pilot alone, first you would have to have the pilot suffer complete and immediate incapacitation, and during the three minutes between when he acknowledged one call and failed to acknowledge the next; while climbing though around 28,000 feet, the altitude where pressurization failures often manifest themselves. Then you'd have to have the two adults in the back, who would have known how long the flight should be and were likely anxious to get on the ground, ignore a sweeping 180 at about the time they were expecting to land; ignore an extra hour's flight, with the sun on the other side of the plane; ignore the pilot slumped to his right; ignore F16s alongside, and firing flares; all without someone moving into the copilot seat and at least attempting to do something-likely the daughter, who had presumably been on flights in this plane before. Or, you could have failure of a single component, or a single inappropriate control setting by the pilot, causing depressurization, or more likely lack of pressurization. Occam's razor suggests the latter.
@@joe_DWilson I'm not sure they would. From my understanding, it was there first time, and it wasn't like it lasted 6 hrs. Two women with a child who knew nothing about aviation, and trusted there pilot. I think he had a heart attack, died at the controls, and the auto pilot flew until it ran out of fuel. Hence the clear windows. The interseptors reported that the pilot was slumped in his seat and the shades were pulled in the rear. They well may have just been asleep.
First class medical is no guarantee of even near term health. I speak from personal experience; I passed a 1st class medical and yet had a heart attack at the gym 3 months later.
And That is proof why it is a good idea to stay away from gyms this one over stressed your heart! I flew with a guy that was slim 35 years old ran five miles a day before work at the airport. after his run he came in sat in his desk chair for a cool down be fore his usual shower. I walked out to hangar to put the Jepps in the airplane after the the update party was over. walked into the office and he was gone.
Airline pilots becoming incapacitated in flight is not unknown. In my view the entire medical testing is a waste of time with the exception that blind or deaf pilots shouldn’t be allowed.
A friend of mine who was the epitome of fitness and Chief pilot of a 135 operation keeled over and died while he was on his daily run.
@@LimeyTX The medical checks have saved many lives by letting people know they have early warning signs, and ensuring the conditions are treated or managed. Along with blindness and deafness, psychiatric conditions must also be considered. IMO the best solution is to have a copilot or at least a competent adult who can operate the radio and follow instructions. Such passengers have landed planes many times, including a woman in her 80s a few years ago. Such a tragedy that the PPL holder owner of the plane didn't hire a copilot.
@@islandlife756
I agree. I was being a little facetious. But the sad fact is that no matter how strict the rules are people are still going to have unexpected incidents. My point is not that pilots shouldn’t have regular checks. My point is that the checks are no guarantee at all that the pilot is good for another 12 months.
I suspect that if you examined enough data you would find incidences where a pilot died on the way home from the AME.
There are no guarantees. Period. Anyone can suffer from an immediately crippling medical emergency at any time, regardless of their otherwise apparently good physical health. For example, there are zero warning signs for aortic or cerebral aneurysms. One moment you're fine, the next moment the pipe bursts and you are down for the count. It can happen to anyone.
I find it unacceptable that passenger jet manufacturers are not required to provide a loud, unmissable alarm system that will fire up the moment O2 levels decrease beyond a certain minimum, with perhaps a warning stage that would engage the moment the derivative of the O2 concentration becomes negative after 8 or 9,000 ft altitude.
It's inconveivable, really.
You wouldn't even need an oxygen sensor for that, a simple barometer would suffice. I'm sure those already exist as the cabin pressure sensors, the issue in past events like the Olympus Airlines flight seems to be that flightcrew misinterpreted the Master Caution as some other hydraulic issue, or they correctly identified the issue but didn't put their oxygen masks on in time.
In Boeing or Airbus Aircraft you will get a master caution, when the cabin altitude gets above 10.000ft!
I guess it would be no problem to install that in bizzjets as well.
These planes cost several million dollar so it would be no problem to mandatory install that system for maybe 50.000$.
@@Breenild Exactly. Something better that a caution light on the panel is needed so that cases such as that of the Helios 737 would never happen again.
On a somewhat related note, and being a pilot myself (C185 non comercial), I cannot fathom how is it that there is not an "AMBIENT" cockpit-wide indicator of the current (and very critical) state of the different possible AUTO modes (autopilot, autothrottle, and specifics, such as Holding-Altitude, Holding-Speed, etc.)...perhaps through an overall noticeable (though subtler than a warning, of course) coloring of the instrument panelt backlighting (or a simulated equivalent with the newer digital screens), perhaps a change from ambar tones to green tones to blue tones, and so on.
I used to fly a Challenger business jet, it has an aural warning and calls ”cabin pressure”. Modern business jets will, in a case like this, automatically descend to 10,000 feet, or lowest safe altitude, if they lose cabin pressure and there is no pilot action
I met the pilot at 0A9 on the 24th of May. I was doing some contract flying in a Cheyenne and he came over, admiring the Cheyenne and we talked for a while. So sad. He seemed like a very nice guy and very sharp.
When someone whom we personally know to be sharp gets in a snag, it always hits us a little harder. Makes us think more! At least it does me.
That must be very saddening. It seems he was known to many and seen by many on the circuit after his retirement from Southwest, where he was known as the king of safety. i hope we get helpful answers.
From all accounts this was a top notch pilot who would have most likely handled a sudden decompression situation. If he indeed suffered a medical wouldn't a passenger on the plane have been able to radio in the situation or been on the phone calling someone once they overshot thier destination?
Seems the insidious decompression as described is at this point the most feasible explanation.
He could have had a heart attack or a massive stroke. He certainly was in that age group. Poor man, could not save his passengers. Hire 2 pilots !!!!!!!!!
@@dcdanger6151 Good evening dcdanger. You said; "wouldn't a passenger on the plane have been able to radio"
This was the first time his daughter had flown to New York in the Citation. The F-16 pilots had noted that the shades had been pulled down on all the passenger windows were.
Flying in the Citation/Leer is a little like flying in an airliner. You don't chat with the pilot like you do in an Aztec, etc.
She probably did not even realize they had turned around. The plane remained at flight level 340. She probably did not see the airport.
I wish people would stop saying the aircraft flew over the White House or that it flew over the US Capitol. It did neither. The aircraft passed well north of both of those buildings. I also wish people would stop saying that the aircraft's heading out of ISP was a heading for those buildings. It was not. The heading after ISP was precisely the heading of the CCC-ISP leg. It seems clear the autopilot flew the aircraft to the end of the flight plan and then continued the last used heading.
The video title states "Nation's Capital", not "Capitol," implying the jet flew over Washington D.C., not the Capitol building itself.
Not only that, it was at an altitude that, while it'll trigger military action, invariably it's merely an intercept and attempt communications.
Wish in one hand and take a shit in the other hand and see which one gets filled first.
@@kellanbradshaw461 he is probably not referring to this video but to mainstream media
I don’t believe that the plane was headed back to Elizabethton. It appears that the autopilot turned the plane to approach heading and held it until they ran out of gas. It just happened to be somewhat toward Elizabethton, but just a coincidence.
Too coincidental. A lot of pilots will put their departure point as the last point when they load their flight plan in the auto pilot. That seems very possible here.
@@richardmcspadden9189 Not too coincidental at all. The last leg of the flight plan was CCC to KISP (253 degrees). The course from KISP to Elizabethton is about 250 degrees. When the autopilot hits the last waypoint and doesn't know where to go they fly the last heading or go to roll mode which is similar. No one puts their departure point as the last waypoint or you will be getting nuisance fuel warnings from the fms for the whole flight unless you have enough to return.
@FunFacts , While I initially had the same thought, I think it's actually just proceeding direct Elizabethton. If you project outward the final heading before the spiral, the track crosses directly over Elizabethan airport. Although the plane did indeed complete at least some sort of approach procedure for Islip Airport, the track does not heading and flight path does not line up with the runway at Islip, though it is somewhat close.
@@jonasasplund1423 agreed
I have over 25K hours, military pilot, retired airline pilot etc etc...I have never put my dep airport as the last point in any FMS I have programmed unless it was the final destination on a round robin flight...just sayin. I agree with the concept it ended up on the final approach heading to ILS 24 at KISP, then at the end of the approach defaulted into heading hold...anyone care to guess what the final approach course is at KISP...239 degrees
I simulated the flight on X-Plane 12 using a G1000 equipped Phenom 300 bizjet. The FMS was programmed with the filed flight plan, which terminated at Long Island airport (KISP) after a final waypoint at Calverton VOR (CCC), which is the initial approach fix for the ILS RWY 24 approach. In normal operation, the pilot would have activated the approach after receiving clearance from ATC, causing the aircraft to fly an intercept for the ILS localiser. However since this did not happen, the aircraft turned before CCC to intercept the track from CCC to KISP, overflew KISP, and then continued to fly in GPS NAV mode (with crosswind compensation) away from KISP along the great circle course that joins CCC and KISP, with an initial course of 251 deg. magnetic (note that the course reported by FlightRadar24 is 239 deg. true which is approx 252 magnetic). This took it to a point 8 nm SSE of Montebello VOR (MOL), which is very close (I think within a mile or two) of the point where N611VG ran out of fuel and began to turn to the right immediately before crashing. May the pilot and passengers rest in peace; condolences to their families.
Well said. I'm still on the fence about NAV vs. HDG, because NAV requires a magenta line and there was no waypoint to proceed to. But the argument that it would be unlikely to fly a straight track for several hundred miles in HDG mode is powerful, too.
F-16 pilot acknowledge that he saw Citation pilot in cockpit. That mean for me, that windows on Cessna were clear from frost, what will cover them in case of depressurisation. I think this is not the thing in this case. Medical is more probable.
The frosted windows aren’t a given with depressurization or hypoxia.
Great initial analysis. Thanks for sharing.
Really good analysis! It is surprising that the passengers didn't appear to intervene.. to me, that reinforces the slow depressurization theory.
My theory is that they had no clue what happened in the cockpit. The door was evidently closed. The pilot died and the autopilot went on to do its " thing", until it ran out of fuel. The F-16's did not get the attention of the women in the back and that is the suspicious question. Were they asleep or were they knocked out ? Maybe they will figure out the possibility of cabin depressurization, if they find adequate tissue to analyze. Everything was in pieces, in a crater.
I agree with your analysis Francisco. If still conscious, you would think the adult adopted daughter would notice pilot slump. Get into the co-pilot seat, try to radio and then later motion to the interceptors. From what I have read, oxygen loss does not always mean window ice over if the cabin temp stays at consistent levels unlike the 1999 Learjet carrying golf pro Payne Stewart which had visible iced windows as seen by the interceptors. Different aircraft, different systems.
Watch cam videos and listen to people lose it when they see an accident. Now put them at 34,000 feet looking at death to themselves and their child and also the nanny. People can't even think to apply the brakes on their car when something is happening in front of them. Many couldn't handle seeing a dead guy
I find myself hoping it's a case of some sort of malfunction that caused hypoxia for everyone on board instead of just for the pilot and everyone else having to watch themselves going down. This one hurts, big time.
Me too man. Simply terrible.
Since there is no bulkhead; nor door, between the cockpit area and the passenger compartment, all 4 occupants surely suffered hypoxia... they were probably all dead before the aircraft slammed into the ground.
@@DonVideoGuy007 thats assunming the pilot was NOT the only one incapacitated - what happens if the pilot has a stroke?
@@ghostrider-be9ek in that situation, would there be no reaction from the pax? An F-16 flew close enough to verify that the pilot was slumped, but no pax noticed and made any sort of signal?
@@williamstrachan pax were prob sleeping or on their ipads , window shades down
Would the F-16 pilots been able to see the pilot slumped over if the windows were frosted over? I'm betting on a sudden pilot medical issue since the F-16 jocks never said anything about frosted windows. So, should we allow these jets to be flown by a single pilot?
Perhaps the cockpit windows would not have been frosted over if death was sudden from the hypoxia?
@@mtkoslowski Good question. And if it was a pilot medical issue, why didn't the passengers do anything? The NTSB has lots of "splainin to do... Heartfelt condolences to the families involved.
@@mtkoslowski I'm guessing on a warm day half hour into FL350 the windows don't freeze? I doubt the passengers would be just sitting there chilling while their plane has no pilot. For sure I would've been on that cockpit at least crying while watching my upcoming death.
@@h.martinez
🤣 Not a pilot are you?
The problem with this theory is that the pilot, at 69 years old still had a First Class Medical. Not exactly an easy thing to retain at that age. He had to be in excellent health. Doesn't rule it out, but certainly makes it more unlikely. But a sudden or insidious depressurization are quite a valid possibility. Hypoxia.
Dumb question but why is incapacitation so fast at over 40k feet? I mean you can hold your breathe for a couple minutes so why would this be different
I'm pretty sure the difference in pressure would force the air out of your lungs. It might be too painful to hold your breath.
Why don’t autopilots have a requirement for some pilot input (even if nothing more than a button push) every so often, else a an alarm sounds that will wake the dead and/or automatically desced to breathable altitude? All this automation and it can’t even detect that the pilot is inop?
Trains actually have something like that, the so called dead man's switch. If the required action is not taken, the train will brake. Not sure about implementing something similar in aircrafts, though
I would pay a lot of money for an alarm that can wake the dead. 😁🧟♂️⏰
Commercial flights need clearance from air traffic control to change altiture, for traffic separation.
There are autopilots being developed for this that will navigate to the nearest airport and contact ATC.
@@emperorofthegreatunknown4394 _There are autopilots being developed for this that will navigate to the nearest airport and contact ATC._
Actually *have been* developed. Search for Garmin Autoland. It's not the autopilot, but the GPS doing this; but the end result is the same.
Check the maintenance log to determine last inspection of emergency oxygen system and interview inspector for any issues discovered.
Great analysis of what the currently known facts are. As someone not from America it was bizarre reading some online commentary from yanks making it about political leanings. Tragic event, hypoxia is always in the back of my mind.
I'm also of the opinion it was a medical issue with the pilot. If it were a cabin depressurization, the interior temperature would also drop to ambient for the flight altitude, and condensation would freeze, frosting the windows as happened with Payne Stewart's incident in 1999. The F-16 pilot could distinctly see the pilot slumped over, indicating clear windows. If this is the true scenario (medical emergency), the question remains, why did the passengers not notice it, or if they did, why did they take no action? This would tend to support a depressurization event, as they would be incapacitated as well, but in either possibility, we may never know the actual facts.
Does the Citation have a locked door separating passengers from the cockpit? In the absence of frosted windows, and so presumably conscious passengers, that's the only thing that would make sense to me.
agree about the passengers, nobody is mentioning that. Also, could it be carbon monoxide? Can CO accumulate in a plane?
If the pressurization or oxygen system is malfunctioning or not programmed correctly, it could just hold a much higher cabin altitude and still hold temperature inside the aircraft, leading to hypoxia, but not a frozen cabin.
@@marcoagostoni8827 No. The cabin air in a citation is turned over several times per minute. There is no potential internal source of CO generation either.
@@marcoagostoni8827 yes, and it sounds about like this
We got an identical evaluation from Dan Gryder. In terms of forensics, it will not be easy as the plane and the passengers were certainly not whole.....hard to do autopsies in pieces. Also the best solution to avoid this is to have 2 pilots. One may be dead but the other should be fine as well as the passengers.
so when southwest flies at FL410 one of their pilots has an oxygen mask on? very skeptical here
No frosted windows?
Naive layman's thought: Shouldn't the aircraft have some sort of aggressive "low pressure" warning coming early enough that the pilot is still capable of reacting appropriately?
This Cessna Citation V 560 gives a minimum alarm at 10,000 feet. And another alarm at 14,000. The retired Southwest pilot, 69 year old Jeff Hefner was a specialist in cabin pressurization
I am saying medical emergency for the pilot. And he had the best monitor of pressurization known to man on that Citation, a 2 year old baby.
@@mark9531 What kind of alarm does it have at 14,000 feet? And how would a 2 year old detect a slow depessurisation?
I thought the Class 1 Medical Certificate was only valid for 6 Calendar 📆 Months. If he took his last exam in October, it would have expired April 30, 2023. Isn't that correct? If so, he was flying on an expired medical certificate according to this report.
Technically its a valid class 1 with 3rd class privileges. Theoretically it’s legal if he wasn’t flying for hire
@@garrettboone4306 You are Wrong. It is still a first class medical because that is the standard that the exam was conducted under after six months It is still a valid first class medical with 2nd class privileges for 12 months from the month the exam was conducted. Not a 3 rd. class as you state. FAR part 91 and that is what he was operating under only requires a 2nd class medical not a first. If he where flying under Far 135 he would require a 1 class medical good for six months as a captain. after 6 months he could fly as a First Officer for additional 6 months.
Nope that is incorrect! It is still a first class medical because that is the standard that the exam was conducted under after six months It is still a valid first class medical with 2nd class privileges for 12 months from the months the exam was conducted.. FAR part 91 and that is what he was operating under only requires a 2nd class medical not a first. If he where flying under Far 135 he would require a 1 class medical good for six months as a captain. after 6 months he could fly as a First Officer for additional 6 months. the report is wrong. This pilot was flying FAR part 91 and that only required a 2nd class Medical not a First.
I hope you are not a pilot if you are you need to brush up on FAR part 67.
Still don't understand the flight path...not just the turn back to the Southwest, but the dog leg on the way to Long Island....was there a turn point there assigned??
Yes. The flight plan was as follows: 0A9 PSK GVE SIE BRIGS Q439 SARDI CCC ISP. To translate, 0A9 was the airport of origin (Elizabethton Municipal, in Tennessee), and ISP was the intended destination (Long Island MacArthur Airport). Most of the other waypoints involved some turn; with a 17° left turn at SIE, on Cape May, Delaware, making the dogleg around Washington, DC, and left turns at SARDI and CCC totaling 163° to reverse the direction of flight and line up for an instrument approach to MacArthur Airport-although the approach wasn't in the flight plan, and wasn't flown.
there surely must have been a low oxygen indicator alarm on this plane which points to a medical cause for the crash.
Plane crashed within walking distance of a vor 10:08 ⁹
Think Dan Gryder hit the nail on the head on this case study.
I concur with Dan's opinion. Not hypoxia, but a medical emergency with the retired airline pilot flying single pilot. R.I.P.
At least we know that it had nothing to do with vaccination status. As we all know, they are safe and effective.
@@ChazToz His justification for why that *has* to be the case is weak though. The windows wouldn’t necessarily frost over in the case of depressurization
@@ejag7375 Because Dan "Goober" Gryder is an imbecile. His numbskull "theory" is the pilot stroked out from Covid vaccine.
Why were they at an even altitude while flying eastward? It's supposed to be odd, right? How common is it to break that rule in one of the busiest areas of the country?
Above 18,000 you are on an IFR flight plan, and ATC will break that rule depending on crossing traffic from time to time. Not a big deal since they are talking to everyone at those altitudes.
They were filed and cleared at FL 390, the correct cardinal altitude for an eastbound flight. FL 340 was an intermediate given them by ATC during the climb; but by the time came to climb to the final altitude, the pilot was already incapacitated.
My question is why did it take so long for Center to do something if the Pilot was not responding to radio calls and where along the flight did this happen? Also I believe he had progamed the FMS (Flight Management system right up to the Approach but with no auto throttles the plane Programed for FL340 stayed at FL340 It was just DUMB luck the runway was in line with a straight route back to the starting airport. If the FMS had been programed for a different runway the auto pilot would have flown that heading because it probably went into HEADING HOLD after the approach attempt. The F-16's were scrambled only the Plane was now going to cross over NOT through the Washington (DC SFRA). witch tops out at FL180.
Mostly correct about the FMS; but the runway actually wasn't in line with a straight route back to the starting airport. The runway heading is 239°, and the course back approximately to the starting point was 253°. The reason it flew this course after overflying the airport is that this was the course of the last leg in the flight plan (CCC to ISP), and the FMS just continued on the course of the last leg when it got to the end of the flightplan.
Thanks. He was on a flight plan going up and the plane flew it. They were worried I’m sure, but saw no National security risk…until it made the 180 and headed back towards DC…not talking…not on a flight plan. Now it’s a security risk. Remember the FRZ goes up beyond 17,999 ft msl.
All great advice for cognitive recognition of a pressurisation problem! That is not applicable if the solo pilot was incapacitated and unable to rcognise and rectify any pressurisation problem - which he was obviously qualified to do so as an expereinced airline pilot. Your highlighting of this depressurisation possibility is appreciated, t os not supported by the F.16 reports the cockpit windscreens clear and the pilot visible ( a de-pressurized flight deck is likely to be frosted over windscreens as per similar corporate jet events) but the problem appears to be an unexpected incapitated solo pilot without any external input to influence the eventual outcome e.g. coaching an inexpereinced, unqualified, passenger on the controls.) Perhaps a suggested FAA regulation based on such incidents, that high performance aircraft (either by speed or Flight Level capability should be the FAA requirement irrespective of Private or Commercial status of the flight) would have surely saved all on board, and the threat to innocent families on the ground for an unguided 'coporate jet missile'. I am a 21,000 hour Airline pilot from the jungles of Papua New Guinea to the most expansive Arabian airline operating B777's, now operating with the voted #1 Airline in The World - I hope this helps in determining my perspective. Allowing private corporate jet owners and operators to allow single pilot operations should be HIGHLY opposed, as the empirical and anecdotal evidence supports the need for a 2nd supporting pilot for incapicitaiton, and pre and in-flight management.windscreens
Oxygen level sensors/warnings wouldn't save lives, in this kind of situations?
Yes, it could. They have much more reliable and robust systems, sensors and indicators in the newer aircraft.
One big argument against the hypoxia scenario is that the windows were still clear. Given the humidity of a normal cabin, the windows generally freeze over if the plane depressurizes.
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. The didn't in the similar Helios Flt. 522 crash.
Okay, just a stupid question: Why the aviatics still no had some remote control aviability for emergency purpose? That is a computerized plane!
And, even the autopilot why not "knows" a special mode to perform emergency descent automatically, when there is pressurization error happens?
Yes, that is the last one, which needed more attention, because is only depends some software update.
The jets have so advanced autopilot, so they can maintain MSA in event the fail happens over dangerous terrain.
Also they have pressurization sensors.
Just needed to put that in the program.
How many more souls needed to doing that?
Remote control = hacking, that's why.
@@jimdaw65 you watched the movie? Guys, we already have safe remote controlling options.
But, you should read through my comment above, to understand the second option.
Is not needed remote control, just extend the abilities of an already existing automation.
Firstly this was a 20 year old aircrft of a model that first flew in 1989 not a brand new state of the art aircraft, think of the computer, cell phone etc. technology we were using then. Even the idea of an automated descent (which BTW requires an autothrottle that this aircraft didn't/doesn't have) wouldn't even have been thought of, let alone some sort of military drone like remote control system which at the start of the century, let alone the 1980's, would have been in the realms of science fiction.
Wouldn't that be fuel exhaustion rather than fuel starvation?
Yes.
How about not being cheap and hiring a copilot? This never would have happened. It’s actually amazing how many people with money buy aircraft and then operate them on the cheap.
Are there Warning lights for losing pressurization?
Yes. But they have to work, and the pilot has to take appropriate action when it illuminates.
Sounds like Helios.
Only one "crew" member, the pilot.
Wouldn't an aircraft that can fly at 40000 ft. have an alarm that goes off if cabin pressurization reaches dangerous levels?
Yes, it had such an alarm.
I can't believe defence failed once again in intercepting prior to it flying over Washington.
I am a physician. Passing a Class 1 medical does not make a medical emergency unlikely.
Agree, Don. I'm a retired EMT, studied nursing, armchair taildragger pilot. Though unlikely, I was wondering about fentanyl poisoning.
Thank you Don_and_his_stationair. As people have short memories but this does make the news - not front page. I rememeber an airline pilot who had a heart atttack at the controls, he didn't make it. The FO landed. The 1st class medical has stricter standards than the 2nd or 3rd. This pilot had his attack a month after the exam. The AME does what the checklist calls out. Do they add coronary angiograms too from now on? Yet still, it can happen. A friend of mine lost her dad, airline capt, he was having chest pains at home and went into the ER. He had a full attack there in the ER. They did all they could, he didn't make it.
Very true. An incapacitating medical emergency can occur to anyone, anywhere, at any time, regardless of their general physical health.
@@nancychace8619 Why the hell would you go straight to that? That's an absolutely ridiculous leap to make.
@@chuckschillingvideos If you go back and read through the thread, you'll find I did not go straight to this originally. I agreed that hypoxia was the most likely cause. That being said, I offered fentanyl poisoning as a possibility b/c it is an all too common and serious problem in our country. It crosses all social boundaries including those of economic wealth. This was the only other thing I could think of if not hypoxia. How is it that there was no attempt by any of the adult passengers to even communicate on the radio? Seems possible they were incapacitated. Drugs are pouring into our country at an alarming rate. Perhaps this problem is not well understood and underestimated by those whose lives have not been directly touched by it. If you are one of the folks who fall into that category, you are lucky. But for a vast majority, this is a serious issue that has been taking many lives. Pilots are human. We are subject to the same pitfalls as anyone. There is also a lot of garbage that goes on under the radar in the medical community.
The bottom line is it's important to find out what happened, face it honestly whatever it was, learn from it as best we can and hope the family and friends can have genuine closure. Doesn't happen for anyone who can't face the truth, whatever it may be in any circumstance, not just this one. This is why I was asking about the possibility of testing tissue samples for O2 content, or drugs or alcohol. It happens.
I believe you are spot on. Very unfortunate that this happened. I always keep a close eye on my cabin pressurization to hope this would never happen on a flight of mine.
Thanks for watching, Steveo.
Steveo!
Last year in September a very similar accident happened when a German entrepreneur intended to fly his Austrian registered Cessna Citation II from Spain to Germany (together with parts of his family and friends), experiencing an apparent loss in cabin pressure (last thing he reported to ATC was a problem with the pressurization) leading to everybody on board becoming hypoxic. The plane was intercepted by different fighters as it crossed Europe (with the fighter pilots reporting they saw a slumped over pilot) and eventually plunged into the Baltic Sea when it ran out of fuel. I am not saying the above accident was also hypoxia-induced, but the similarities are apparent. Both are very tragic events, RIP to the victims.
So clearly losing cabin altitude does not always equal windows being frosted over on the inside.
These two accidents may be the death knell for Citation single pilot ops.
@@lbowsk I think the cause is certain design choices or a defective component
@@lbowsk Was the Payne Stewart accident the death knell for Learjet two pilot ops?
Wow. Even reports a pressurization problem and STILL allows a crash and burn.
I have been in the chamber and experienced Hypoxia as part of military training and also while in an unpressurized cargo plane at 14,000ft. I was fine in the cargo flight until I stood up, waked to the back of the plane and returned to my seat. I was unaware I was suffering hypoxia onset (didn't think it was possible at that altitude), but the alert plane captain noticed and brought me an oxygen bottle.
Under simulated 35,000ft elevation it is amazing how quickly you begin to suffer, to watch fellow students lose awareness and how they react. The more active you are, the quicker you suffer. Each student had a slightly different task, sorting playing cards, touching your nose with an index finger, repeatedly signing your name, etc. The student trying to touch his nose pushed instructors back when tried to replace his mask. He was totally focused and they had to hold his arm to get his mask on and for him to recover.
RIP to those lost and prayers to family and friends grieving this tragic loss of life.
ATC lost voice communications approximately 15 minutes after checking with Bristol TN radar they issued an IFR clearance. Cleared as Filed.. He was handed off to Atlanta Air Traffic Center ATZ he check in with ATZ they issued a clearance to FL240 then FL340 Some time after he read back the clearance and set 34,000 in the altitude select window,
I feel he suffered from Hypoxic Hypoxia as did the others on board. My guess is that the Bleed Valves where not turned on prior to take off or a pressurization failure occurred.
His altitude was later amended by Atlanta to FL330 before entering Washington Center airspace because of traffic. This change was never acknowledged by the pilot. So whatever happened , happened before he reached FL340
Would such an experienced pilot not check the bleed valves ? I doubt. He was a commercial pilot as he flew for Southwest ; they do nothing without a check list and it would be on it. I don't see that man forgetting it, but I see him having a heart attack and dying. The autopilot would have done its "thing" until the plane ran out of fuel .
@@linanicolia1363I agree with you.
If the passengers were not seen by the intercepting F-16s, this could perhaps indicate a pressurization problem, as all on board would have lost consciousness. If someone had been conscious during the flight, it is likely they would have seen the pilot slumped over and might have used the VHF to ask for help (there were two other adults on board). After all the flight lasted way longer than expected with no door between the flight deck and the passenger cabin. Too soon to tell exact,y what happened. What a sad and tragic circumstance.
Oh yeah I forgot the whole not having a door between the flight deck and the cabin thing
The windows weren't opaque or frosted over, so it wasn't a pressurization issue
@stevenwhitcomb9668 This is not necessarily so. They were frosted during the Payne Stewart accident, they were not during the Helios accident. Too soon to know just what happened, too soon to discard any possibility.
Earlier report indicated the window shades were closed when it was intercepted. When I flew charter it was quite common for passengers to nap.
I also think it was depressurization, but a slow depressurization. Everyone got sleepy as the plane went up until everybody was passed out. There's no coming back from that. Sadly, I think everyone on board was dead long before the plane hit the ground.
If it was hypoxia, at least no one was likely to have known anything. Just lean over and fall asleep peacefully.
One pilot or two pilots are not a big factor in pressurization failures like this. This crash was one pilot, the Learjet crash with the golfer was two, pilots, and an Olympus Airlines B737 crash was with two pilots.
Pilots are trained to recognize hypoxia and yet the pilots in these incidents did not put on oxygen masks. Oxygen level can be monitored by sensor so it would not be a stretch for the aircraft auto-pilot to descend the plane to breathable altitude. No descent is no return for pilots and passengers.
Thanks Capt. Obvious.
One of he fighter pilots stated he could see the pilot sitting in the left seat and slumped to the right. Unfortunately....it wasn't a pressurisation failure 😢
@@bendietrees How do you reach that conclusion?
@@bendietrees What would the fighter pilot have seen if it was a pressurization failure?
Nice job, Rich. It's really nice to see AOPA getting these videos out quickly after an incident. It show engagement with members and answers some questions a lot of us have. I'm trying to learn more everyday. Thanks.
My bet is on a medical issue. If there was a decompression, the intercept jets would have noticed the jet fogged up. If it was a slow leak, the cabin altitude alarm would warn the pilot. Its a master warning and impossible to miss. So my bet is on a medical issue.
You said the aircraft suffered fuel starvation prior to it entering a right spiraling decent. Wouldn’t it have been fuel exhaustion since it ran out of fuel? My understanding has always been that fuel starvation is when the aircraft still has fuel remaining yet for some reason it is not reaching the engine.
You are correct. Misspeak on my part. Thank you.
The owner’s daughter was likely a frequent passenger on the plane. If the pilot only was incapacitated she would have tried to radio the tower or try to signal the fighter pilots. I’ve flown on a Citation V numerous times. There is no barrier between the pilot and the passengers so they would have seen the pilot incapacitated. We always flew with two pilots. So my belief they all suffered from hypoxia.
She might have been napping since the shades were down.
@@loudidier3891 Two adults with a toddler - not sure that they could have all napped that long.
@@loudidier3891 No one said the shades were down. The intercept pilots just didn't report on the passengers.
@@BigBen621 Other sources have said the F-16 pilots reported the shades were down.
@@loudidier3891 What are these other sources? Who did these pilots actually talks to?
Good advice on the altitude chamber. I did that at Joint Base Andrews in the early 90s. We went as a group prior to flying mountain wave in Petersburg WVA. It was an eye opener.
With all the speculation I’ve seen all over about what happened with this flight, it’s so nice to have this calm and informed report
Thanks for watching!
And thank goodness for it!
Perhaps it is time to put the cabin altitude altimeter right in the pilot's view instead of in the ceiling or down by a knee depending on an idiot light to warn of problems.
And some sort of a more assertive aural caution or warning regarding cabin pressure decrease.
Or have it linked to an audible and visible warning once it drops by 10% of what it should be, with todays technology surely that can’t be too difficult. If it’s a health issue maybe it’s time they regulate two pilot operation for these type jets.
The Citation has a cabin altitude warning which activates if the cabin altitude exceeds 10,000'. A loud horn, a Master Warning Light, and a Cabin altitude or pressure annunciator light. You can not ignore all this. I flew the Citation CE-550/560 (Citation II/V) from 1983 until 1995. This looks like pilot incapacitation to me, not a pressurization issue.
Why do people assume that airplanes come with nothing but a steering wheel and a brake pedal or that all pilots are comatose, deaf, blind except for 2.5° of foveal vision, unable to swivel their eyes or necks, and as attentive to what's going on in the cockpit as Monty Python's Dead Parrot? I mean, I know some of them are, but…
As a Captain on many Boeings for 2 decades I had a standard check of cabin altitude, rate of climb/descent, and diff. at 20,000 ft on the way up and on the way down. This was not required by SOP's but made good sense to me.
Colonel McSpadden,
Thank you for this video and your expert analysis. A terrible tragedy.
Paul (in MA)
Reminds me of Helios Airways Flight 522 flight crew forgot to set the pressurization to automatic. Alarms, and warnings didn't point directly at the problem, and the crew were hypoxic could not understand what was happening. Some have suggested that the windows would be fogged over if that happened like Payne Stewart in his case that was explosive decompression which caused the windows to fog. Flight 522 F-16's could see in the windows and saw a flight attendant using a portable oxygen tank sitting in the cockpit. The fuel ran out before he was able to do anything. Just because he had a class one medical cert doesn't mean he was healthy. The FAA medical certificate program has many flaws that overlook serious medical conditions that go on diagnosed. Pilots quickly learn that the less you see a doctor the better because the FAA medical is such a convoluted system it's lot easier to just avoid doctors. The actual class 1 medical is so basic and antiquated not a surprised pilots drop dead of heart attacks while in flight.
After so many hypoxia accidents in the last years, especially on single pilot airplanes, I am astonished that either NTSB or FAA have not required some sort of low cabin pressure alarm on pressurized aircraft.
This has demonstrated to be an issue much more dangerous than a bad executed checklist.😮😮
Many private jets nowadays have low pressure warnings. Not sure why it's not required though.
It is required and the Citation 5 has a very good high cabin altitude alert system. Goes off at roughly 11,000 feet. It would be very difficult to ignore.
Um,,, your body is equipped with a low oxygen indicator.
To test just hold your breath..
😡
@@michaelgarrow3239 Standby. I'm attempting to override my LOI right now....🤢
@@michaelgarrow3239 Technically that is a high carbon dioxide indicator. The backup, if I remember correctly is hydrogen ion concentration in the cerebral spinal fluid. The back up for the back up is low oxygen.
I remember during one of my medical exams many years ago back in Poland I had to go through low pressure chamber/cabin training/assessment. During the “ascent” temperature drops to below dew point and fog develops in the chamber. Few seconds later disappears. Almost as if you were climbing through the clouds.
Does the temperature drop, or does the pressure decrease move the dew point through a fairly-well controlled temperature in the chamber?
@@williamstrachan Pressure decrease causes the temperature to drop. I remember it got pretty cold inside.
@@marcinpasnicki248 No, cold outside temperatures makes the temperature drop. If it were balmy at 30k feet, it would be equally balmy inside an unpressurized aircraft but the fact is the higher the altitude, the colder the temperature.
@@chuckschillingvideos Don’t forget that low pressure chamber is located at an altitude close to sea level. Inside a building. Stable temperature around it. When you pump the air out of that chamber it causes the temperature inside that chamber to drop at what rate? 2 deg C per 1000ft. The same happens inside unpressurized airplane, glider, balloon… When you climb it will get colder inside the cabin.
This is essentially why we have Air Conditioning. All about the pressure! 👍🏻
Pilot died. FMS programmed where autopilot hit waypoints. Right engine ran out of fuel first cause the right descending bank. Further tightened and steepened until contact with the ground.
The newer aircrafts have automated ways to detect lack of activity in the cockpit, then prompt for response and if not automatically go to a lower altitude or even have an autoland feature. Not foolproof but worth it for a multi-million $$$ machine and the associated risks of hypoxia. Maybe the FAA could allow retrofits for older jets for it.
Not true.
I fly a private Citation Mustang and I always make sure to tell my passengers to let me know if they ever feel light headedness and what to do if I go unconscious. Also, I do hypoxia training every now and then to feel the signs of it coming. If it were to happen to me then I would know from a mile away what was going on. Sadly a lot of pilots, no matter their skill level, don't assume the worst and don't pay close enough attention to the instruments
That’s what I call due diligence. Thank you on behalf of your passengers.
Seems to me that a jet carrying passengers should ALWAYS be flown by TWO pilots for this very reason. A co-pilot may have had time to do what the Captain could not and may have been able to make a safe landing with the Captain incapacitated. This is just common sense. I would NEVER get on a private jet with ONLY ONE PILOT FLYING THE PLANE. TWO PILOTS-- ALWAYS.
There was a news report that the aircraft had "buzzed" the White House. At 34,000 ft? I'm just amazed he didn't call it a "Piper Cub" as that seems to be the only GA aircraft they know.
Was just thinking that the most likely case here is that the pressurization setting might not have been set for auto or set correctly and caused the hypoxic event. Sad loss of life that day :( I actually heard the jets scramble over my house, they were hauling I'll tell ya that. Almost sounded like a small explosion in the distance as the shockwave ripped through my area.
I fly this model. Before I bought it the squat switch failed during decent at FL380, the cabin dumped and went to sea level instantly. No lights or alarms, the aircraft thought it was ground. My friend did a emergency decent and got aircraft on ground safely. If the switch failed on takeoff, no warnings other than looking at cabin altitude and diff gauge. I added this to checklist at 10000ft and FL180. This failed item is not on emergency checklist.
This is almost certainly a slow pressurization leak that led to hypoxia for everyone onboard. All the evidence suggests the same thing. This is also the "best case scenario" for everyone involved because if you were conscious during an almost 40,000 ft plunge it would have been the most terrifying final moments imaginable
Just curious, would a depressurization not lead to a fogging of the windows making it impossible to see into the aircraft?
@@loganbobrow9333 That would only be the case in an rapid decompression where the pressure changes extremely rapidly. Slow decompression would not have the same indicators like that.
February of '22, my 68 yo flight instructor, who also held a Class 1, died of Suddenly. I was the last person outside of his wife to see him alive. He was one of three otherwise healthy but double-vaxxed mid-sixties friends to die in this fashion.
Salute Sir. thank you for your balanced insight.
Thank you for watching and commenting.
It's ridiculous for fighters to scramble just when it's approaching DC, why not earlier? According to news reports, the pilot stopped communicating with ATC 15 minutes into the flight. Yet this plane was able to fly all the way to LI, near the Hamptons, turn to a course heading to DC still with no communication. Why no jets then? Is NORAD a joke?
Standard IFR lost communications procedure is to continue along your route of flight to your destination if you are not in VFR conditions. We don’t know the exact conditions of the day but it could be that there was IMC present. The aircraft did not necessarily follow the other steps for lost communications procedures, but there is nothing here to indicate the aircraft was a threat to people on the ground. At most it was an aircraft that wasn’t following proper lost communications procedures. After all, the aircraft was still flying it’s filed route. It wasn’t until the aircraft failed to descend and land that ATC would have the smoking gun that this wasn’t just a loss communications issue. I also believe that NORAD was likely tracking this aircraft for quite some time beforehand, they just decided not scramble until the aircraft maneuvered towards D.C.
Yes, I agree. Why fly so long without being intercepted by the jets. Is there some kind of protocol whereby the controllers at Atlanta and New York contact NORAD and report a non responsive aircraft at FL 340? Why over the DC area? The aircraft was above the restricted airspace over DC anyway!
I do believe I read that NY Center , maybe even Washington center, did contact NORAD well before the plane turned over Long Island. After the plane made the 180 degree turn they scrambled F16's out of Atlantic City to intercept. As stated above....The plane was still following it's filed flight plan up to this point and was probably being treated like a lost communication flight by ATC. This procedure does require the pilot to squawk 7600 on his transponder though, and this should have thrown up a red flag to ATC.
@@lyleparadise2764 If the pilot was a victim of hypoxia I doubt that he would have time to set the transponder but the controllers can verify if the pilot is receiving transmissions by simply giving him a heading to fly. If the A/C flys that heading then for sure he can hear you.
How did nobody raise the alarm sooner to an unresponsive airplane flying for a couple hours up the East Coast toward NYC and then back toward DC on an IFR flight plan. The fact the fighters didn't intercept it until it passed over the DC area is a little concerning.
Richard, the Citation has a cabin altitude warning system which activates if the cabin altitude exceeds 10,000'. A loud horn, a Master Warning Light, and a Cabin Altitude or Cabin Pressure annunciator light. You can not ignore all this. I flew the Citation CE-550/560 (Citation II/V) from 1983 until 1995, always with 2 pilots. This looks like pilot incapacitation to me, not a pressurization issue, but we may never know. It appears the autopilot defaulted to a heading mode after passing the airport (KISP) on a course from the last waypoint, the Calverton (CCC) VOR. The heading between the VOR and the airport was very close to a course back to Elizabethton which took the plane over DC. We may never know on this one.
The cabin altitude warning system can fail, there's no reason it can't. I find it far more likely that this would happen than none of the passengers even attempting to take control the aircraft. The F-16 pilots didn't even see the passengers moving in the cabin, so it seems likely they were all out. NTSB will probably find something, they usually do.
@@_lime. Possible, but not as likely as pilot incapacitation, IMO. Are you a pilot (jets) or certified mechanic, by any chance?
@@oltimer5544 No I'm not qualified on jets, nor am I an aircraft mechanic. I work in the marine industry as an engineer, so I have technically inclined, and experience has lead me to believe that anything can and will fail.
That being said, there is another possibility here that we haven't brought up, which is pilot misidentification. Probably the most similar commercial accident to this is Helios flight 522, which experienced a depressurization, incapacitation of the pilots, and subsequent crash due to fuel exhaustion. In that case, the pilots misidentified the cabin altitude warning as a take-off configuration warning. They lost crucial minutes trying to troubleshoot and by then hypoxia had already began to set in, impairing their judgement, causing them to focus on what they thought was the problem and not considering the potential for other causes.
I'm not familiar with the warning sounds and lights in the Citation series jets, but if it's like the 737 where the sound alarm is the as used by other warnings, then it could lead to confusion.
The passengers probably had cell phones. If they knew the pilot was in distressed they could have made a call. The plane hit so hard I am not sure we will ever know.
Its easy to miss a cabin altitude warning horn if the warning system is not working properly. My argument agains the medical event is that with the pilot slumped to the right,, at some point the passengers would have noticed. Most biz jets have internet capability and the passengers would have been able to send a message somehow.
Superb early analysis. Thank you for your efforts Richard and AOPA. Supremely valuable insights.
As retired USAF navigator I went to the alt chamber so many times I lost count. But now as a GA pp where does that training occur on civilian side? outside of major Part 121 or 135 operations even single jet/turboprop corporate pilots can’t get that physiologic refresher easily or inexpensively.
The FAA puts on hypoxia training at Sun N Fun every year which includes the chamber
FAA has a chamber in Oklahoma City available for all pilots. It is also free training so it's just a matter of getting there.
I remember reading a report some time ago about the FAA's justification for this. It amounted to the medical risks inherent with the altitude chamber, the inability for a single person to have identical experiences in multiple sessions (thus denying them the ability to make a reliable prediction for any individual), and the belief that having the knowledge of the symptoms phenomena, and response will be adequate to meet the emergency. I guarantee the costs factored in as well.
We did as part of the Coast Guard Aux training. Pretty eye opening.
If I were a pilot with passengers and no co-pilot, I'm putting the most competent passenger in the co-pilot's seat. It probably wouldn't have changed the outcome of this incident, but there's been lots of incidents where it would.
That really only works when someone aboard is a relative or friend of the pilot. Here, it's a professional pilot and the "client", or worse, the "client's daughter" and it's going to be awkward putting her to work in the snug right seat of a Citation.
@@igclapp Work nothing. Unless an emergency happens it's prime viewing. I'm not putting a non pilot to work.
@@joshuahudson2170 If that 560 right seat is anything like the 501's I sat in, the prime view thing will become old real fast for a non-aviation enthusiast. Plus I couldn't reach the cookie oven from the right seat.
Also imagine telling the daughter of your employer (who hired you because you are supposedly the bullet-proof 30,000 hour "super pilot") "Yeah, I just need you to sit up here in case I keel over". There will be a phone call from baby doll to daddy real fast.
The thing I don’t understand with these hypoxia accidents is how the pilots didn’t notice the excessive rate of climb of their cabin altitude. If your cabin is climbing at 2000ft/min you should definitely be feeling that in your ears and a quick glance at the pressurization gauge would confirm what’s happening.
Either way, hopefully the CVR can shed some light on this (if it had one.)
NO CVR was required on this airplane FAr 91.609 . In this case since this airplane could be operated single pilot under a LOA letter of agreement single pilot and special training a CVR is not required.
@@TheFalconJetDriver I figured
@@TheFalconJetDriver I don't think it works like that. The 560 was, and still is, certificated for a two pilot crew. Just because there is a special exemption for certain pilots to fly it single pilot is not going to do away with the CVR requirement. In any event, my friend has a 560 just a few serial numbers later than the accident aircraft and it came equipped with a CVR as original equipment.
The pilot knew he had a 2 year old on board and kids have issues with their ears.....I am sure, he was operating the climb, for their comfort. I really feel he died after he programmed the auto pilot. The F-16's could see him, leaning towards the right seat, not moving....not responding. The windows in the back, were closed. The passengers did not notice them and that is the suspicious part. Could they have been asleep ? or maybe, they were passed out. That would be comforting for the families, instead of suffering a spiral descent to the ground. Noting anyone wants. Seconds are horrifying eternity.
Really good presentation.
Just an FYI….I lived in East TN and it’s pronounced Eliz-ah-bethton - not Eliz-Beth-ton.
Not a big deal but just thought I’d mention it!
Thank you.
Surely there is some kind of cabin pressure altitude warning system in this aircraft?
There is!
I wasn't expecting you guys to cover this so quickly! Hope for something more in depth once the final report is released
Why did it matter if the plane was on a heading over the FRZ. Wouldn't someone NORDO, especially after passing their destination and not squawking 7600, scramble fighters to investigate? I sure thought it would and has.
What about the fact that the F-16 pilots clearly saw the Citation pilot “slumped over to the right”? The Citation’s windows were not frosted over. Wouldn’t this be an indication of the pilot’s medical incapacitation, and NOT a loss of pressurization?
Possibly. Depends on a few factors. We haven’t heard reports of what the windows looked like.
Not always. Some days you leave a contrail, some days you don't.
You would assume one of the 3 passangers in the back would do something and attempt to land or reach someone else, instead of just giving up and letting the plane crash
@@yeetandskeet They may not have realized until it was too late. Sounds like passenger window shades may have been closed. Easily could have been asleep, watching movies, or just assumed the flight was taking longer than expected for some reason.
@@richardmcspadden9189 you have heard from the F16 pilots stating pilot was slumped over the the left. So, window condition was not fgged up.
Thank you for the excellent discussion. Question: there is no alarm/light to warn the pilots that pressurization is not functioning as expected ?
Yes there is. They are more robust and reliable in newer aircraft.
@@richardmcspadden9189 And this aircraft; at 32+ years old, was very far from being a "newer aircraft".
@@richardmcspadden9189 What, exactly, is more robust and reliable?
I hope it was hypoxia so everyone on board did not know what was happening when it ran out of fuel
If he lost the cabin, wouldn't the interior windows be iced over?
Exactly what I was wondering. The Payne Stewart Lear experienced that.
That seems very probable.
It all depends on the plane and conditions. In general the Cessna isn't likely to ice over because of the equipment on board.
I've been told that it only ices over if the depressurization is rapid and total. Slow loss of pressurization doesn't show it.
Why would the windows be iced over?
As far as the passengers..... if the airplane had wifi, it would be interesting to see if there was anything being sent from the airplane.
Passengers probably either zonked out after takeoff, or buried their noses in their phones
Maybe time for new debates on mandatory O2 mask usage for a single pilot or one pilot in a crew above 30k feet. or some level. Too easy not to die from loss of pressurization.
Please do more of accident case study. That is your top videos. You need to do more of that. We want more of the accident case study videos.
Really enjoy the well produced and informative videos AOPA puts together!!! Is there anyway to put an eq on the audio to get rid of the whistling. Thanks!
gracias a mamá por cocinar y a hypoxia por los gritos! 😮
Single pilot operations was a factor. Always have a copilot in jets etc… too many young pilots need to build experience. Citation should have warning when the cabin reaches 10000 feet and the masks drop at 14000 feet (standard in jets). Above 35000 pilot is required to wear masks (never done). Rest in peace and prayers to all family
I'm kinda old, my first wings were in 1965 in a FUCorsier (sp?) yes I knew Pappy Boyington in the Marines... Many stories to share
Oh, how I would love to spend some time with you and hear those stories.
I still think we need to not just optionally, but it should be a requirement for all Pilots to wear Oxygen Monitors, we have cheap passive ones that can even be setup via Bluetooth to Apple/Android phones and tablets etc. They can give you early warning that your Blood Oxygen level is dropping and I think this would save lots of lives.
By the time it starts dropping and warning it may be too late. The Time of useful Consciousness for FL 340 is 30 seconds or so. So, the O2 sat drop is very rapid.
@jerry kurata good point, I think it would probably depend on that unique symptoms per person thing, how quickly you are beyond help, What is hopeful is with the recent 'Human Malware' we have seen a good percentage, mainly younger people with walking Hypoxia (due to the lung damage) and walking pneumonia, a lot of people affected by human malware (2019-ncov) have not realized how sick they are, and a lot of them have oxygen levels showing 30%,50%,70% ranges give or take (and sadly have been good part of those who end up in ICU) so while oxygen monitor won't save everyone I think it is an extra tool in the tool Luggage carry-on bag.... (ha)
@jerry kurata Additional thought on idea is the data read out can or is saved (and might be able to also be backed up to black boxes down the road) so even if the oxygen detector did not save someone, you have extra record of the pilots abilities. Too many times pilots are blamed for bad choices, yet so many issues with Cockpit Fume events (from small planes all the way to Boeing or Airbus) still unaddressed, and the fact that atmosphere contamination doesn't act like a binary switch (either awake or passed out) there is a scale of wakefulness, and I.M.O. even "minor" fume events have to somewhat impact the "thinking" of a pilot, and thus events outside the pilots control can cause the mistakes in some cases. but until we have better monitoring and actually fix some of the Cockpit fume events (number 1 is Boeing / airbus planes near end of journey having fume events happen as they descend around 10,000ft Alt, over and over again for many years now, and events still not solved. Not every fume event actually has a smell or smoke either so, so many things right now accepted that can cause pilots to have risk to be impaired and risk being fully blamed for "pilot errors" when we don't have a system in place to monitor quality of air, actual oxygen levels, and even recording other substances in the Cockpit air to some sort of black box.
Lack of a system to help clear pilots names, and right now Pilots are easy to blame for so many accidents. When again, if something is slowly even just barely impairing them and it is not fair to always blame a pilot when we don't have the recording of Cockpit atmospheric conditions.
Great breakdown. My reasons are the same as yours. 1. Slow depressurization like you said, and the pilot did not catch it. 2. Rapid depressurization and he failed to put on the mask, or the mask did not work. 3. Medical emergency and the passengers did not know what to do.
Every time I go to renew my first class medical, the AME does the absolute bare minimum . Might as well not do any medical as if they aren’t going to do a in depth scan and overview of your body and health. Seriously.
They do the bare minimum unless they have reason to suspect literally *anything*
@@JetSkiSuper7I see what you did there. 🤣🤣🤣🤣👍
It's all about the mighty dollar. They know if they did a rigorous job, most won't come back. My ame does 10-12 an hour.. Whole day.. At $175pp..2 days a week. Yes that's what's called a cash cow.
So if you are concerned about this you should probably fine a new AME for yourself!
Put a mirror under your nose, if it steams up, you pass, if not, call the coroner.
Always look forward to watching a new episode of accident case study. Please make some more.
We’re working on it! Should have our next one out this summer.
@@richardmcspadden9189 Thank you :)
@@richardmcspadden9189 I pray you never have to do another one, or, if you do, that all aboard get home uninjured.
@@elcastorgrande like most of my colleagues in safety. Our hope (and prayer) is to work ourselves out of a job.
Time of useful consciousness assume an average, healthy person. At 69 years old, it’s very very possible that he was far more susceptible to hypoxia. It’s concerning that we have for-hire private jet operators running single-pilot at ages higher than allowed for Part 121.
This was a Part 91 op
That's how the owner, John Rumpel, was able to donate so much of his fortune to things like the NRA and Trump: BY CUTTING CORNERS, like not having a co-pilot for his 'adopted 49 year old daughter.' He will likely collect new monies for both the airplane, its crash, and his 'daughter's' life insurance policies. His grieving won't last long, IMO.
@@davidpeterson7197 No WAY you found a way to make this about Trump. Incredible. Hats off to you, bud.
@@davidpeterson7197 Way to go doofus. Politics have no place in this discussion.
Cry more you two
Wouldn't a cabin altitude alarm sound if the cabin gets above 10k?
Yes, big red master waring light
A sad reminder that hypoxia can creep up on you slow or fast. The early 525 and 550 Citations have somewhat clunky pressurization systems that can fail for a number of rather simple reasons. I've been flying them for about two years now and have had pressurization related issues in three separate 525/550 aircraft and three (two were at low altitude) decompressions on one single 550 type. One which was a hard fail and it resulted in an emergency descent. This most recent crash makes two pressurization related accidents in less than a year in the 550 type.
Just food for thought, the Encore/ Ultra's service ceiling is FL450 and in a rapid decompression the useful consciousness is 9-15 seconds. Add to that, an emergency descent at ~6,000 FPM would still take 5+ minutes to get below 10,000'
This is just more more reinforcement for my unyielding opinion that absolutely NO jet/ turboprop larger than a CJ-1/ C-90 should be flown single pilot. And not that there should be an age limit but, sorry, a 70 year old pilot (regardless of medical class) should have never been given the single pilot waiver.
Thank you for commenting.
Not hypoxia. F16 pilots could see the pilot slumped over. Windows would be fogged up if a pressure issue.
@@davidcampbell8287 not necessarily. Unless part of the aircraft was missing letting outside air in, the heat provided by the bleeds/ ACM could still be contained in the cabin keeping things somewhat warm. Even with a hard pressurization system failure or open outflow valve, the heat proved by the bleeds *should* still be entering the cabin.
@@SuperMillerman10 so there is no depressure warning? At 34k 30-60 seconds useful conciousness or so its said.
and more if at climbout as is stated here....whats the explanation for that?
Regarding this pilot’s FAA medical, I have been told by a reliable source, that he had and passed, a new 1st class medical 5 days before this flight. He is said to have been a healthy and fit person.
doesn't mean anything. stroke & heart attack cannot be foreseen by physical exam.
@@garymartin9777 I agree. I’ve had about 80 1st class medical and many EKG’s. These exams are NOT a thorough check that you’d have your GP do. Agree, anyone anytime could keel over from xxx (heart attack, stroke, aneurysm etc.
Windows were clear. You make no mention of this fact. Seems that a depressurization is unlikely. A fatal medical event, with those in the back having no awareness of what was happening in the cocpit, seems likely to me.
Believable up until the point where they made a 180 in NY. A pilot who flew airlines his entire life almost certainly took the time to explain to his wife how to make an emergency call / use the radios
He was just the pilot. Those where not his family. They were just passengers and I think it may have been the first time for them. It was a mother, child, and nanny. They might even have been asleep and not aware of what was unfolding up front. He was up there by himself.
@@garyprince7309 Sure but wouldn’t they have though something was up when the flight lasted 2x longer than it should have? unless they’re total foreigners they would have a general idea of how long that flight would be.
It's a near-universal misconception that you can't have lack of pressurization unless the windows frost over; but windows don't necessarily frost over in a depressurization or lack of pressurization event. In the Payne Stewart Learjet incident, which everyone is using as the model for this belief, the Learjet was a much different plane from this one, with different equipment and different failure modes, and flew at 51,000 feet-half again as high as this one, where the temperature is still lower-the windows *did* frost over. But in a case almost identical to this one just last September, a Cessna Citation II flew from southern Spain all the way to northern Germany, at the same altitude as this plane, with an incapacitated pilot, and crashed into the Baltic, and the windows *didn't* frost over . Search for Citation OE-FGR for details of this incident. It just depends on many factors, whether they will or won't.
It this was medical incapacitation of the pilot alone, first you would have to have the pilot suffer complete and immediate incapacitation, and during the three minutes between when he acknowledged one call and failed to acknowledge the next; while climbing though around 28,000 feet, the altitude where pressurization failures often manifest themselves. Then you'd have to have the two adults in the back, who would have known how long the flight should be and were likely anxious to get on the ground, ignore a sweeping 180 at about the time they were expecting to land; ignore an extra hour's flight, with the sun on the other side of the plane; ignore the pilot slumped to his right; ignore F16s alongside, and firing flares; all without someone moving into the copilot seat and at least attempting to do something-likely the daughter, who had presumably been on flights in this plane before.
Or, you could have failure of a single component, or a single inappropriate control setting by the pilot, causing depressurization, or more likely lack of pressurization. Occam's razor suggests the latter.
@@joe_DWilson I'm not sure they would. From my understanding, it was there first time, and it wasn't like it lasted 6 hrs. Two women with a child who knew nothing about aviation, and trusted there pilot. I think he had a heart attack, died at the controls, and the auto pilot flew until it ran out of fuel. Hence the clear windows. The interseptors reported that the pilot was slumped in his seat and the shades were pulled in the rear. They well may have just been asleep.