T & T
TRAINING
& TECHNIQUE
22 | SEPTEMBER 2019 FLYINGMAG.COMAFTERMATH Accident Analysis
O
n a sunny afternoon in May 2017,
a Learjet 35A on a Part 91 posi-
tioning f light from Philadelphia to
Teterboro, New Jersey, crashed in an
industrial area half a mile from the
approach end of Teterboro’s Runway 1,
killing both pilots.
It was a day of scattered clouds,
good visibility and gusty northwest
winds. A high probability of moder-
ate low-level turbulence and wind
shear had been forecast, and pilots
were reporting 20-knot speed losses
at nearby airports. Teterboro Tower
issued warnings of gusts to 32 knots.
The weather was consistent with the
forecast, and though the Learjet pilots
had not—as far as investigators could
ascertain—obtained more recent
weather information after their first
briefing at 6:30 a.m., they knew what
they needed to know.
The cockpit voice recorder tran-
script for the fatal f light revealed
a surprising lack of professional-
ism. The captain seemed unaware
of where the airplane was but kept
up a profanity-filled dialogue with
the second-in-command, who was
the pilot f lying—although, percompany policy, he should not have
been—but who appeared more like
a bewildered student.
The captain, 53 years old, was a
6,900-hour ATP with 353 hours as
PIC in the Learjet. He held SIC rat-
ings for Beechjet 400 and Mitsubishi
MU-300 and had f lown right seat in
those aircraft before his being hired
as a PIC by the company that oper-
ated the accident Learjet. Upon being
hired, he had gone to Learjet train-
ing in Dallas, where he had repeatedly
been judged “not yet proficient” in anumber of maneuvers, one of them
being the circling approach.
He had successfully completed a
proficiency check two months before
the accident, but former colleagues,
whom the National Transportation
Safety Board interviewed afterward,
described him as “ineffective” in the
role of the “pilot monitoring” (what
they used to call the pilot not f lying)
and not ready to be a PIC.
The right-seat pilot, 33, had
1,170 hours. He had gotten off to
a somewhat rocky start in his f ly-
ing career, failing his private
check ride twice, but he was now a
commercial pilot with single-engine
and multiengine airplane, instru-
ment, and Learjet SIC ratings. He
still had problems, however. After
a simulator session late in 2016, the
instructor recorded a remarkable lit-
any of faults, including not knowing
how to start the engines, crashing
on his first takeoff, going inverted
during an unusual attitude recov-
ery and crashing on landing during
an ILS approach. Pilots who had
f lown with him described him as
“ hit-or-miss” and error-prone.UNSTABILIZED APPROACH
THE PILOTS OF A LEARJET GET MILES BEHIND THE AIRPLANE—AND EACH OTHERBy Peter GarrisonTHE COCKPIT
VOICE RECORDER
TRANSCRIPT
FOR THE FATAL
FLIGHT REVEALED
A SURPRISING
LACK OF
PROFESSIONALISM.