USAir flight 1016
| USAir flight 1016 | |
|---|---|
 A Douglas DC-9-31 of the USAir, similar to the accident machine |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | Wind shear and falling gusts , pilot errors due to spatial disorientation |
| place |
Charlotte , North Carolina , United States
|
| date | 2nd July 1994 |
| Fatalities | 37 |
| Survivors | 20th |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type |
Douglas DC-9-31
|
| operator |
USAir
|
| Mark |
N954VJ
|
| Departure airport |
Columbia Metropolitan Airport , South Carolina , United States
|
| Destination airport |
Charlotte Douglas International Airport , North Carolina , United States
|
| Passengers | 52 |
| crew | 5 |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
On USAir flight 1016 (flight number: US1016 ) a Douglas DC-9-31 crashed on July 2, 1994 on a flight from Columbia (South Carolina) to Charlotte (North Carolina) after it was approaching Charlotte Douglas International Airport was caught in wind shear and a falling gust . 37 passengers died in the accident. There were 20 survivors, 16 of whom were injured.
plane
The aircraft involved in the accident was a Douglas DC-9-31 with registration number N954VJ . The machine was built at the McDonnell-Douglas site in Long Beach and had the serial number 47,590. It was the 703rd DC-9 from ongoing production. The twin- engined , narrow -body aircraft was equipped with two Pratt & Whitney JT8D-7B engines. The machine was delivered to Allegheny Airlines in August 1973 , after the merger of the company with USAir the machine was approved for the latter in October 1979. At the time of the accident, the DC-9 had completed 53,917 flight hours and 63,147 take-offs and landings.
Passengers and crew
For the 35-minute flight from Columbia Metropolitan Airport to Charlotte / Douglas International Airport , 52 passengers were seated in the DC-9. The 38-year-old captain Mike Greenlee, the 41-year-old first officer Phil Hayes and three flight attendants were on board as crew members.
Flight history
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The flight took off at 6.15 p.m. and proceeded without any special incidents until the approach to Charlotte. Shortly before the planned landing, the pilots noticed that a thunderstorm was gathering over the city. At 18:36 the crew received clearance for an ILS approach on runway 18R. The machine, which was controlled by the first officer on approach, reached Charlotte in heavy rain. At 18:39, air traffic control gave the pilots permission to land. Captain Greenlee asked about the current weather report. The air traffic controller replied that the captain of a Fokker 100 that had just landed had reported slightly windy weather. After the crash, survivors of the accident testified that the flight had proceeded normally up to the point in time when the aircraft approached a severe storm.
the accident
At 6:40 p.m. the air traffic controller on duty warned all machines in the area of wind shear , but used a different radio frequency than the one over which he communicated with the pilots of flight 1016. When the captain noticed a minute later on the approach for landing the unfortunate position of the DC-9, he tried to abort the landing and instructed the first officer to make a right turn. He reported a missed approach. Air traffic control confirmed this and instructed the crew to climb to 3000 feet (approx. 910 meters). The machine barely gained any height, however, and eventually turned right and began to sink rapidly. The pilots tried to keep the machine under control.
At 6:42 p.m., the DC-9 hit a field within the airport grounds, just 800 meters from runway 18R. The machine then broke through the airport fence, hit several trees and broke into four parts. The bow section with the cockpit and the first-class compartment, in which no one had been sitting, slid along the main thoroughfare next to the airport, while the stern slid over private property and crashed into the garage of an apartment building.
Victim
In the accident, 37 of the 52 passengers died of severe multiple trauma , burns or carbon monoxide poisoning . Of the 15 surviving passengers, 14 suffered serious injuries and one person suffered minor injuries. All 5 crew members survived the accident. Both pilots and a flight attendant were only slightly injured, their two colleagues seriously. There were no injuries on the ground.
Accident investigation
The NTSB immediately dispatched investigators to secure the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder at the crash site . After a lengthy investigation, the authorities found that the thunderstorm had caused a gust of wind that was over the airport at the time of the crash. It was one of the largest gusts that have ever been measured. The first officer had been fighting to keep the machine in the air during the flight through the falling gust, when the captain called out to him, probably due to spatial disorientation, to push the machine down, which he did. However, this maneuver led to the crash, as flying through the thunderstorm would have required continuous pulling up.
A Honeywell engineer said in the course of the investigation that the crew should normally have been warned of wind shear eight to nine seconds before impact by a flashing control lamp and an acoustic warning signal. It turned out that the sensors of the detection system were fed with data by adjusting the buoyancy aids from 40 to 15 degrees, which prevented the software from registering the wind shear.
The NTSB finally noted that the following factors contributed to the accident:
- The crew would have continued the approach to an area in which there was a high probability of falling winds
- Because of the malfunction in the software, the crew had not recognized the wind shear in time
- The crew did not manage to maintain the engine power and angle of climb required for a fly through
- Air traffic control had not transmitted the latest weather data to the crew in good time during the rapid change in weather.
Situation today
On November 20, 2008, runway 18R, which the plane flew to by flight 1016, was renamed 18C, as an additional runway was to be built to the west of the existing airport. As a result of the expansion, the crash site of Flight 1016 is now on the airport grounds, in the middle between runway 18C / 36C and the "new" runway 18R / 36L.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Accident Report DC-9-31, N954VJ , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on March 9, 2019.
- ↑ a b c Operating history DC-9-31, N954VJ Planespotters.net, accessed on March 9, 2019.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Aircraft Accident Report, Flight Into Terrain During Missed Approach, USAir Flight 1016, DC-9-31, N954VJ, Charlotte / Douglas International Airport, Charlotte, North Carolina , July 2, 1994 (PDF), National Transportation Safety Board , April 4, 1995, AAR-95-03. Retrieved March 9, 2019.
Coordinates: 35 ° 13 ′ 3.9 ″ N , 80 ° 57 ′ 33.6 ″ W.