Lear Jet Down
 

Looks very serious, RIP and thoughts go out to all involved. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...survivors.html

Sickening. I hope its not another visual turn to base/finals stall crash...

That's tough to listen to.
RIP

Just discussing this with a friend.
Thats a tough airport with short(ish) runways for a jet especially when wet.
LOC27 has a 7(!) degree descent angle from 2500’ down in 3 miles.
Circling not authorized at night, that’s why they cancelled IFR.
They were “maneuvering” but not “circling”.

Heard that they hit power lines, visual approach at. Night

That’s not what the doorbell video shows.

I don't think night was the problem, I think the weather bring so bad they lost sight of the runway lights was a problem.

circle to land at night after changing runway. Even though this is an already challenging airport, Always back up with an approach, especially at night with cloud layers and love that stable approach criteria. Looks more like a stall in the circle, similar to the TEB accident or the 650 at Truckee.

Rather sad that people keep repeating the same mistakes .

I think it’s (un)safe to say that this was not the first time the crew was doing this.
It was the last time though.

From the horrible audio recording it’s clear the flight path was unrecoverable from when he starts shouting on the radio, which would indicate either a stall or massively nose down attitude that’s too late to pull up from. The flight path clearly degraded pretty quickly to a loss of control accident. I don’t know much about private jet ops, esp in the states - do both pilots have full type ratings, and do they generally fly leg and leg about, or is the co-pilot more of a radio operator? Clearly there was a loss of SA before loss of control - I wonder how well they had briefed a late runway change and what their bottom line for cancelling IFR was. Does anyone have an Actual met? If both pilots peering out the window trying to acquire the runway lights then perhaps distracted from monitoring of the instruments.

You’re certainly making many assumptions there Propellorhead.
Especially ‘I don’t know much about private jet ops, esp in the states’.

Not assumptions, just speculation. As always I await the NTSB report with interest. Meanwhile if there’s anything we can learn from this then probably worth the discussion.

.

He was supposed to be at 1400 ft to approach Runway 27R .... he was about 800 ft .... then during his north turn above Pepper Drive he came face to face with Rattlesnake mountain which is about 1100 feet ... then the three "OH SHeeT" expletives as he either tried to power up or turn sharp left or both ... then stalled and near vertical onto Pepper Dr.

..

Does the Learjet have enhanced GPWS? But in the landing config the terrain clearance floor may be quite happy until the last minute. Especially in a turn as it only looks straight ahead. Also, the approach plate shows a LOC/DME but with circling minima? Why doesn’t it have minina for the LOC? Too steep?

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....11ff588dd.jpeg

Local opinion is that the pilot decided to switch runways as the aircraft was based here, to save a couple of minutes taxiing time to his hanger. Unfortunately his approach height in positioning to the other runway was too low and he realised that too late, resulting in a stall as he attempted to gain height. It is better to arrive slightly later than not arrive at all, my instructor used to tell me. No high power lines involved, only street height lines lost.

That's a possibility, however, I think it's more likely that they chose 27R because the wet landing performance of the Learjet was insufficient for runway 17.

@Proppellerhead:
Yes, too step, from DEBEY it's a 6.88 ° descent angle to the threshold.

Interesting point too, however, I would have thought that if it was indeed so, they would have made their planned intention known to ATC much sooner. I tend to think that it was a last minute decision which left little time to execute a tricky low altitude manoeuvre (in reduced visibility) effectively.

Circling… or not…
 

The airport has only 3 approaches. Time 7pm (night)
LOC-D from the SE but not aligned directly with 27R and circling N/A at Night. Comes down over terrain and needs 1200’ AGL 1 1/2sm
GPS 9L from the west. LNAV/VNAV down to 1000’ AGL and needs 3 SM aligned with the runway
GPS 17 from the north. LP (not everyone can do an LP) or LNAV down to 1000’ AGL and needs 1 1/2, not aligned and a wet Rwy 17 is only 4300ft long…. Not the best choice.


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....d09a4a0a5.jpeg

At 280255z the metar was issued. Local reports say at top of the hour local visibility dropped to 1 sm
and some 500ft local ceilings in the vicinity
.


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....4c3c55657e.png


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....a970f7a6ed.png


He requested cancel IFR and proceed visually but Flight Aware suggest he was at 1000ft then down to 700ft (400ft AGL) over the airport and in the turn to join downwind left hand 27R. Was the 500’ ceilings in his way? And someone lost sight of the runway when they asked the tower to increase runway lighting intensity… which was already at 100% on what is medium intensity lighting, no approach lights in any runway.

A very difficult objective…. Unfortunately