dive and drive
I agree, a Citation X had no business on a runway this short, especially at night in anything but the best of conditions. I know there will be some "Chuck Yeager" types out there who will proudly assert that they can and have landed there, but the fact of the matter is even if it is possible, and indeed it is, the margin for error there even in the best of conditions is simply too narrow to consider landing such a jet except in all but the best of conditions, on which occasion this was demonstrably not, despite again the rantings of the "Ueberprofis" regarding the semantics of VMC, VFR or MVFR or it either being IN or OUT of limits performance wise. Despite assertions to the contrary, a game with unknown variables cannot always strictly be black or white, despite our best efforts to make it so. Charts and graphs and calculated performance numbers are fine and all, but they do not take into account all the variables that can change at the last minute, a fog bank, or a sudden tailwind or another plane exiting the runway too slowly, a blown tire or a reverser that won't deploy or whatever. Those unexpected things are why the prudent pilots pad their performance calculations where they can. I don't know of many pilots who daily fly with exactly minimum fuel as per flight plan either without putting a little extra on for things like the inevitable holds in Moscow that are not etched into the regulations and thus not officially taken into account either, despite their daily reality. Quite simply this plane should have gone to EDDF in the first place.
Part of the puzzle seems to have been set in place if I am to believe the assertions that the Commander was the Owner also. There seems to be a peculiar characteristic of highly successful people (or simply people who inherited too much money and thus think they are highly successful), that they are invincible. In America the term for high performance airplanes affordable to the wealthy and overly risk adverse is "Doctor killer". I used to work for such a fellow, and there but for the grace of God goes he (and many of his pilots) because when you push things to the limit, eventually you snag a ragged edge somewhere and the whole game stops. In any case, when I started feeling uncomfortable there, I quit, and though I was jobless for many months as a result, at least I slept well. But the cocky self sure boss will never be convinced of his mortality and fallibility despite a hundred flashy CRM courses, he will always think he can get it on where "lesser mortals" can or will not. And it's always too bad that other people have to die when the "driver" thinks he's the best driver in the world and does something stupid.
My thinking is that this fellow did a dive and drive in his shiny Citation X. And he hit something he didn't see in the dark, which is obviously what happened. He didn't expect to hit cumulo-granite or nimbus-pine of course, but he did. Why? Because of a false sense of security no doubt, followed by an overabundance of self confidence also no doubt. We all know that following the VASIS or PAPI leaves us quite comfortably down the runway on touchdown (as well as comfortably above the terrain and obstacles on final approach!). However, in daytime when we can see the terrain and obstacles and runway we are often led into a false sense of security with regard to the margins of safety built in. So a lot of times when approaching such fields, one tends to prefer being "a little low" on the PAPI in order to squeeze as much asphalt out of the landing as possible, rather than aiming for the touchdown zone and possibly floating and ending even one inch off the other end of the runway as a result. It's the aeronautical equivalent of taking money out of your left pocket to put into your right, you are in the end no richer, you are "kiting checks" and in the end will have to pay for the deficit one way or the other some day. Most of the time if you drove it on with a red over red approach, you know you will still not clip any trees or rocks and land right on the threshold or close to it. MOST OF THE TIME. Just watch the action at Lugano or Samedan or London City or Egelsbach or anywhere else the performance charts say you can get in there because the runway is 3500 feet long and your charts say you can land on 3450 feet and the boss says it can be done so you must go. "Flieg, oder flieg raus" as they say in German (fly or get fired). And too many pilots risk it for their jobs, and too many cocky "owners" risk it because they think they are "Uebermenschen" who are capable of such feats without fail.
I don't know Egelsbach personally but there are plenty of other crashes where the pilot had sight of the runway and went below the glide path or the published flight path and hit a rock that was invisible of course in the dark until it is hit. I imagine with the toys this airplane had, that the crash was right on centerline though. Also noteworthy and true is the comment that executive aviation is given the short shrift at Frankfurt. Really it is a disgrace that such an important global player economic powerhouse city relegates its executives to a mickey mouse short single runway airport with no instrument approaches. Again, the tail is wagging the dog, where someone will wail that extending the runway will cause more noise or endangers the flock of yellow bellied sap suckers that roosts in a marsh near there once every decade. Personally I prefer the hushed noise of a hundred landing airplanes to the loud dull noise of even one crashing. But that is economics and politics, not to mention the side effects of NIMBY thinking (not in my back yard!).
Though I am surprised that the "Jet Set" doesn't have more influence in German politics even at the municipal level to get the runway there extended and to build an ILS, or to offer a suitable alternative. That may be the only good news here, because anywhere else, the money would have greased the political skids a long time ago and the runway would be extended even if they had to bulldoze Grandma's house to begin with. And to hell with the yellow bellied sap sucker.
Finally, if the owner was Commander, then very likely the FO again meekly went to his death like so many others in the pre-CRM era without uttering any protest to the act of attempting that landing in that aircraft in those conditions. The history of accident investigation is replete with FO's who knew something (or everything!) wasn't kosher, but fearing for their jobs, they said nothing and crossed their fingers, or trusted in their Captain's skill and judgement. It sucks being a co-pilot knowing you may not get another job with your low hours if you speak up and get fired. But I have always said it is better to be alive and out of work than dead on the job, and it is better to arrive late in this world rather than early in the next. And I have one rule that I stick to, that I have already sadly had to use, and that is that I consider my priorities in the following order only: Life, License, and finally job. I've lost a job once or twice, but I still have a clean License (and Certificate even for those who might get involved in semantics - I have both), and I have my life, and a good conscience too.
This was indeed another needless tragedy, and I await the outcome of the official report not with morbid curiosity or Monday morning quarterbacking in mind, but out of genuine interest in what measures (tombstone legislation) will be taken to help prevent such a needless tragedy from happening again. The only prediction I will make is that one way or another, this will be another "classic" case ruminated over in many a CRM class. Hopefully the lessons learned here will continue to at least save lives down the road.
My condolences to all who lost loved ones in this terrible accident also.