Agency Makes Additional Safety Recommendations To FAA, DOT

ANN REALTIME UPDATE 05.02.06 1520 EST: The NTSB has just issued its Probable Cause report on the November 2004 accident of a Challenger 601 business jet at Colorado's Montrose Regional Airport. The board ruled the probable cause of the accident was "the flight crew's failure to ensure that the airplane's wings were free of ice or snow contamination that accumulated while the airplane was on the ground.  This failure resulted in an attempted takeoff with upper wing contamination that induced the subsequent stall and collision with the ground."

The NTSB also reiterated its recommendation to the FAA (A-03-02) that calls on Part 135 on-demand charter operators that conduct dual-pilot operations to establish and implement a Federal Aviation Administration-approved crew resource management training program for their flight crews, as specified in 14 CFR Part 121, subparts N and O.

The agency has also made two additional safety recommendations stemming from the Montrose accident. The first would require the FAA to develop visual and tactile training aids to accurately depict small amounts of upper wing surface contamination, and make such training a requirement for all commercial operators in initial and recurrent training.

Secondly, the NTSB called upon the Department of Transportation to require all Part 135 air taxi flights that the name of the company with operational control of the flight, including any "doing business as" names contained in the Operations Specifications; the aircraft owner; and the name(s) of any brokers involved in arranging the flight, be provided to customers at the time the flight is chartered.

The NTSB is expected to release the full Probable Cause report shortly on its website, at the FMI link below.

Original Report

As the National Transportation Safety Board met Tuesday to consider approving the Probable Cause report in the November 2004 accident in Montrose, CO that claimed the lives of three people, board members told the Associated Press it seems clear that icing on the plane's upper wing surface led to the accident.

Those members also said the pilots should have recognized the danger of that condition -- especially as the NTSB has warned of such conditions before.

"We have too long been advocating changes and sensitivity to flying in icy conditions," acting NTSB chairman Mark Rosenker said before Tuesday's meeting. "It is on our most wanted list. This is an accident that should not have happened."

* The NTSB expressed frustration that, for the past 15 years, the agency has warned repeatedly that even trace amounts of ice on wings can bring down aircraft -- a lesson, Board member Ellen Engleman Conners told the AP, that it appears the pilots in Montrose failed to heed.

"The whole aspect of deja vu on this accident is disheartening," she said. "Somehow, between the ear and the head, [the agency's message about icing] is not making a connection."

As was reported by Aero-News, the Canadair Challenger 601 bizjet (file photo of type, above) failed to takeoff from Montrose Regional Airport November 28, 2004. As the plane struggled to climb approximately 20-50 feet off the ground, the aircraft rocked its wings before the left wing dipped and impacted terrain, shearing the wing off and causing the cockpit area to separate from the fuselage.

Pilot Luis Alberto Polanco and flight attendant Warren Richardson III were killed in the accident, as was 14-year-old Teddy Ebersol, the son of television executive Dick Ebersol. The senior Ebersol was injured, as was his 21-year-old son Charlie and co-pilot Eric Wicksell.

The NTSB's Factual Report on the accident indicates "moderate" snow was falling moments before the aircraft took off, and that "chunks" of slush and water came off the plane's fuselage as it taxied to the runway. Cockpit voice recordings show the pilots examined the wings visually from the cockpit just before takeoff, but that they believed they were clear.

After the accident -- and a similar runway overrun accident weeks later at New Jersey's Teterboro Airport that also involved a Challenger -- the FAA issued an Airworthiness Directive calling on pilots to conduct physical checks of Challenger wings, instead of relying on visual checks, to detect even trace amounts of icing that could adversely affect aerodynamic lift.

FMI: www.ntsb.gov