This was sent to me by a friend. Sorry I don't know the source. Images did not reproduce and I don't see how to attach to this post. Full post with images should be here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9...1JLSDMzUHhZVzg
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As a pilot that has flown in and out of the Akron Fulton airport hundreds of times and utilized the very same instrument approach procedure that was being used by the Hawker jet, here is My assessment of what happened to the plane that crashed at Akron Fulton.
I've been looking at all sorts of evidence available online. I've looked at the FlightAware radar tracks. The coordinates, the altitude, the airspeed, the flight path. I have listened to the recordings of the air-traffic control exchanges with the pilots which indicate nothing remarkable. I have made overlays of the flight path and transferred coordinates onto the approach plates and the aviation navigation charts.
Here's what I have concluded based on everything I can see. Understand that I am relying on data from sources I believe to be accurate and also that I presume I have correctly interpreted.
All the information gleaned indicates the plane was flying normally and was vectored by Akron-Canton approach control to intercept the final approach course for the localizer 25 approach into Akron Fulton airport. The radar coordinates log shows that at 2:48 PM as they turned west to intercept, they were at the proper intercept altitude of 3000 feet for the localizer final approach course. They were still traveling pretty quickly at this point (at 180 knots). Vref in a Hawker is 108 knots.
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You can see above that as they turned Southwest to align themselves with the localizer approach course they were pretty much leveled and beginning to reduce their excess airspeed. Note the trend with from 2:49-2:50 pm with the ground speed slowing from 178 mph down to 146 mph. Of course if you are trying to slow down significantly you normally cannot begin the descent at the same time as you're trying to bleed off (slow) the airspeed as the two dynamics counter one another. The last line on the above chart shows that they were still at 2800 feet and slowed to 146 mph. This would be Vref + 20 for a Hawker or right about where they'd want to be at that point.
Notably, when you plot the latitude and longitude coordinates shown in that last line of position track onto the aviation chart, that is exactly at the point of the localizer outer marker beacon (LOM) but they're still a bit high at 2,800 feet. Referring to the approach plate, you ideally want to be at 2,300 feet by the time you reach the localizer outer marker. With that extra 500 feet of altitude, instead of just descending at a more stabilized rate of 500 ft./m, the pilots were faced with losing 1,300 feet of altitude to get down to the minimum permitted descent altitude of 1,540 feet and they now only had about 3 miles in which to accomplish that descent.
Considering the speed at which they were flying, they'd had to have reduce power rather drastically (to high idle) and descend at about 1,000 + feet/min to get down to the MDA of 1,540 in the time and distance available. In fact, they reached the impact point in just 1.8 miles so they lost 1800 feet of altitude in less than one minute meaning my guess that they were descending very quickly is probably an accurate one - probably 1500 to 1800 ft./m descent over that short stretch .
Incidentally, an Akron-Canton air traffic control communication that occurred just seconds after the accident pilots made their frequency change to Akron Fulton read off weather conditions to another pilot of 400 feet overcast, 1-1/2 miles in rain. So even when our subject plane reached the permitted MDA of 1540 feet MSL it would still have been in the clouds at about 500 feet above the ground. Descending so rapidly and being consumed with looking outside the cockpit for Visual ground contact probably created a recipe for disaster.
So they inadvertently descended right down through the MDA, break out of the clouds at just 400 feet above the ground and they're descending at 1,500 fpm with the power throttled way back. This leaves virtually no time to pull up or spool up the engine power to level off. In just 12 seconds you drop 300 feet.
Result -- the plane flies right into the ground in essentially "controlled" flight. The house which which they impacted lies exactly under the extended centerline of the runway, which would seem to indicate the plane was tracking the approach path very precisely from a horizontal standpoint but there is no vertical electronic guidance for altitude on this approach. The altitude must be carefully managed by the pilots on this type of instrument approach and that needed to start well before the outer marker. Having not done so, the pilots then needed to descend at an abnormally high rate resulting in a non-stabilized approach. Particularly Bad news when weather is at or below minimums.
The FlightAware plot below shows the flight path of the plane (in blue line) and that their turn in to the final approach course occurred sufficiently far enough out to the East (approximately at the Akron VOR) to allow getting the plane properly stabilized from an altitude and airspeed perspective.
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Here are the Akron Fulton weather observations 10 minutes before and 10 minutes after the crash. At best the ceiling was 500 feet and at worst it was 400 feet which put the conditions right at or below the permitted minimums for the instrument approach that was being attempted
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Here is an excerpt from the instrument approach plate diagram for the approach that was being flown. Note the recommended altitude of 2300 feet at the localizer outer marker (LOM). Also note the minimum descent altitude of 1540 feet
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