...Cockpit voice recorder data indicated that the SIC was the pilot flying (PF) from PHL to TEB, despite a company policy prohibiting the SIC from acting as PF based on his level of experience. Although the accident flight was likely not the first time that the SIC acted as PF (based on comments made during the flight), the PIC regularly coached the SIC (primarily on checklist initiation and airplane control) from before takeoff to the final seconds of the flight. The extensive coaching likely distracted the PIC from his duties as PIC and pilot monitoring, such as executing checklists and entering approach waypoints into the flight management system.
Collectively, procedural deviations and errors resulted in the flight crew’s lack of situational awareness throughout the flight and approach to TEB. Because neither pilot realized that the airplane’s navigation equipment had not been properly set for the instrument approach clearance that the flight crew received, the crew improperly executed the vertical profile of the approach, crossing an intermediate fix and the final approach fix hundreds of feet above the altitudes specified by the approach procedure...
Probable Cause
The NTSB determines that the probable cause of this accident was the PIC’s attempt to salvage an unstabilized visual approach, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall at low altitude. Contributing to the accident was the PIC’s decision to allow an unapproved SIC to act as PF, the PIC’s inadequate and incomplete preflight planning, and the flight crew’s lack of an approach briefing. Also contributing to the accident were Trans-Pacific’s lack of safety programs that would have enabled the company to identify and correct patterns of poor performance and procedural noncompliance and the FAA’s ineffective SAS procedures, which failed to identify these company oversight deficiencies.