PBA flight 1039

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PBA flight 1039
Embraer EMB-110P1 Bandeirante, PBA - Provincetown-Boston Airline AN0578560.jpg

An identical Embraer EMB-110 from the PBA
Accident summary
Accident type Structural failure
place 1.5 miles north of Jacksonville International Airport , Florida , United States
United StatesUnited States 
date December 6, 1984
Fatalities 13
Survivors 0
Aircraft
Aircraft type Brazil 1960Brazil Embraer EMB-110P1 Bandeirante
operator United StatesUnited States Princetown-Boston Airline
Mark United StatesUnited States N96PB
Departure airport Jacksonville International Airport , Florida , United States
United StatesUnited States 
Destination airport Tampa International Airport , Florida , United StatesUnited StatesUnited States 
Passengers 11
crew 2
Lists of aviation accidents

On the PBA Flight 1039 (flight number IATA : PT1039 , ICAO : PBA1039 , call sign: PBA 1039 ) took place on 6 December 1984, a serious air accident, when shortly after takeoff from the Jacksonville International Airport the elevator an Embraer EMB-110P1 Bandeirante of airline Princetown-Boston airline broke off and crashed the machine to the ground. All 13 people on board were killed in the incident.

machine

The aircraft in question was an Embraer EMB-110P1 Bandeirante built in 1981 with the serial number 110365. The machine bore the manufacturer's test mark PT-SEK . In November 1981 the machine was delivered to the Princetown-Boston airline. The aircraft had the aircraft registration N96PB . The twin-engined regional aircraft was with 20 seats and two turboprop engines of the type Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-34 equipped. By the time of the accident, the machine had completed a total of 5,662 operating hours, which accounted for 7,858 take-offs and landings.

operator

The planes of the Princetown , Massachusetts based PBA had been grounded from November 10, 1984, because the airline had violated flight safety regulations of the Federal Aviation Administration . The airline was accused of inadequate maintenance, inadequate pilot training and falsification of maintenance documents. On June 30, 1984, the pilot of a Cessna 402 (N120PB) landed his plane too early when approaching Boston Airport, seriously injuring himself and his wife, the only passenger, fatally. On September 7, 1984, another Cessna 402 (N89PB) crashed due to a misfuelling shortly after taking off from Naples Airport in Florida , killing one person. Flight operations could only be resumed on November 25, 1984. Several pilots who were involved in the violations had previously been fired. Before the grounding, the airline had carried more passengers than any other regional airline in the United States.

Crew and passengers

Eleven passengers had taken the flight from Jacksonville. There was a two-person flight crew on board the machine, consisting of a flight captain and a first officer. No flight attendants were provided on the regional flight.

  • The 34-year-old flight captain Thomas Michael Ashby was hired on February 16, 1974 by the PBA. He had type ratings for aircraft Douglas DC-3 , Embraer EMB110, Martin 2-0-2 , Martin 4-0-4 and NAMC YS-11 . At the time of the accident, he had around 10,000 hours of flight experience, of which he had completed around 400 hours in the cockpit of the Embraer EMB110. He had had the type rating for this type of aircraft since October 4, 1983.
  • First Officer Louis Ricardo Fernandez, 25, had been flying for the PBA since July 11, 1984. He had around 3,000 hours of flight experience, of which he had completed around 500 hours in the cockpit of the Embraer EMB110.

the accident

The plane was scheduled to take off from Jacksonville Airport at 6:08 pm local time. The go-ahead was given at 6:12 p.m. The plane took off from runway 31 of the airport at 6:13 p.m. The pilots were then instructed to switch to the departure control frequency, which they confirmed. Just 30 seconds later, eyewitnesses saw the machine fall to the ground at a steep pitch. In flight, the horizontal fins, the elevators, the tailcone and part of the keel fin broke off the machine. At 6:14 p.m. the machine hit about 2,400 meters behind the end of runway 31. The machine was completely destroyed by the impact and the subsequent fire, the passengers were killed by the impact forces.

Accident investigation

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) took over the aircraft accident investigation after the accident . The investigation was made more difficult by the fact that the aircraft was not equipped with either a flight data recorder or a cockpit voice recorder . The horizontal stabilizer was found to have broken off the machine in one piece at a distance of 1,100 feet from the crash site. The tailcone and the keel fin were torn off together with the horizontal fin. The elevators were torn off the horizontal stabilizers after cracks formed in the pivot mounts, which were typical of overloading the material. The investigation focused on the course and cause of the structural failure. Several hypotheses have been made:

  • Structural failure after exceeding the operating limits due to turbulence
  • Structural failure as a result of existing weaknesses in the aircraft structure
  • Structural failure as a result of an aerodynamic phenomenon caused by existing damage
  • Structural failure due to vibrations caused by an imbalance in a propeller
  • Structural failure due to aerodynamic overload caused by defects in the aircraft control system

Due to the lack of flight data storage, the NTSB could not identify a singular cause of the crash, but several possible scenarios that occurred alone or in combination. A malfunction of either the elevator control or the elevator trim was noted as the cause of the accident in the accident report. This led to a loss of controllability along the pitch axis, which ended in the crash. When the crew tried to counteract the loss of control, the operating limits of the control shaft of the left elevator were exceeded, which resulted in an asymmetrical abortion of the elevator.

consequences

As a result of the accident, public confidence in the PBA eroded. The number of bookings fell by 75 percent. The airline had to file for bankruptcy and was bought by People Express in 1986 .

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ accident report Cessna 402, N120PB the Aviation Safety Network
  2. ↑ accident report Cessna 402, N89PB the Aviation Safety Network