on the 27th of January 2001 members of the Oklahoma State University basketball team were scheduled for a flight back to Oklahoma from Colorado for one of the flights on this King Air 200 this flight would end in disaster the reason for the disaster isn't completely clear but this video will take you through what happened and will bring us closer to understanding why this happened [Music] [Music] I on the 27th of January 2001 this Jets Express Services King Air 200 was set to fly from Broomfield Colorado to Wy post airport near Oklahoma City the reason for the flight was to transport members of the Oklahoma State University basketball team and Associated staff after a basketball game at the University of Colorado at Boulder Oklahoma State University had its own flights department for the purpose of coordinating and organizing flights for events related to the university between the 1st of July 1999 and the 31st of January 2001 62 charter flights had been arranged through the flights Department with 50 of these flights being scheduled for athletic events all chartered flights had to be properly certified under FAA regulations for the trips to go ahead in addition to the organized charter flights several alumni from the University would donate flights for the athletic department to transport players to games and events under osu's policy and procedures document all donated flights had to be certified and approved by the flights Department this included keeping a record of the aircraft's inspection report insurance policy and Pilot's details and certification although for today's flight the OSU flight Department did not have any records on file regarding the pilot second pilot or aircraft when flights were donated the only charges the university would incur was the cost of the Pilot's hotel room meals and telephone usage for the trip we're going to discuss today this flight was donated to the university it was donated by the chairman of an okah City Oil Company who was an OSU alumnus and a friend of the pilot he agreed to pay for the aircraft rental fee Fuel and Associated costs the pilot also agreed not to Bill OSU for his Services as he enjoyed being with the basketball team players and Coach as the aircraft was currently located at Wy post airport near Oklahoma City the day before this flight on the 26th of January 2001 the pilots flew the aircraft to still water Regional Airport in Stillwater Oklahoma where they picked up members of the OSU basketball team and transported them to Jefferson County Airport in Brimfield Colorado this was for the basketball game the next day the flight was uneventful with the crew and passengers arriving around 1700 on the evening of the 26th of January this brings us to the 27th of January 2001 before the basketball game had gone ahead the pilot contacted the Denver automated flight service station at 1100 to obtain a weather briefing and to file IFR flight plans for the return trip to still water and then Wy post airport later that day the weather was forecast to have a slack variable wind of 4 knots visibility was 1 mile in light snow with a temperature of -4° c and the base of the cloud was forecast around 200 ft with layers of overcast broken Cloud at 1,500 ft 4,000 and 6,000 ft after the basketball game was concluded the passengers arrived at the aircraft at 1700 local time the pilots decided to have a second pilot on this trip which meant that they were able to carry eight passengers on board the aircraft with the eight passengers boarded and the crew ready for the return trip they secured the doors and requested starts from Air Traffic Control the pilot on the flights was 55 years old who held an FAA Airline transport pilot certificate with a second class medical certificate the limitation on his medical certificate was that he required lenses to correct for near and distant Vision he had accumulated 5,117 total flying hours including 3,650 as a multi-engine pilot in command and 2520 hours in King Air aircraft he was also Al a certified flight instructor he was described to be in good health with no changes to his personal professional or financial situation in the previous year he was also reported not to suffer from any sleep disorders I know this is a lot of detail but this is all important information to try and understand the circumstances of this incident later on the second pilot was 30 years old with a commercial pilot's license and a first class medical certificate he had a total of 1,828 flying hours with 1,218 hours as a multi-engine pilot he had not received any formal training on King Air aircraft and was present to log flight time and not operate the aircraft the King Air 200 was able to operate single pilots and the Pilot's flying was operating it as such the second pilot wanted to work for an airline so as was logging flight time as quickly as possible he was not trained on the king air but a qualified pilot and also a flight instructor he was not married and had no children he was also not known to have any personal or financial problems with the engine started and the weather checked the crew reported that they were ready to receive taxi instructions they were informed that there was an update to the weather it was now reported that the wind would be variable at 3 knots visibility was 1 Mile in light snow the temperature was -4° C with a due points of -5 C and the alameter set in was 300 in of mercury after the update they were given directions to taxi to the holding point of Runway 29 right during the taxi the crew carried out some final checks and ensured the passengers were ready for departure the aircraft a beachcraft Super King Air 200 was manufactured in 19 76 it had accured around 8,740 hours with both engines operating 2551 hours since their last overhaul as the King Air reached the taxi holding point of Runway 29 right the pilots carried out their pre-take-off checks and then reported to air traffic control that they were ready for departure the ground controller instructed the pilot to hold short of the runway awaiting IFR release 30 seconds seconds later this was granted and the local controller cleared them for takeoff instructing the pilot to turn right after takeoff to a heading of 0 40° at 1718 they took off from Jefferson County Airport on route to still waterer Oklahoma after takeoff the pilots retracted the landing gear turned right to 0 40° and began to climb to 8,000 ft during the climb the pilot contacted Denver departure radar and reported that he was climbing through 6,500 ft to 8,000 ft the controller cleared them to continue climb to 12,000 ft and to turn right onto a heading of 0 60° only a few minutes later they were instructed to join the IP key intersection join the Garden City transition and climb 23,000 ft the pilot acknowledged these instructions this transition was part of the Denver International departures and kept them clear of all surrounding traffic 2 minutes later the pilot was instructed to fly on a heading of 110° the pilots acknowledged this and turned to 110° he was then informed to contact the satellite radar 2 controller with the pilot making contact and reporting that he was passing through 16,300 ft for 20 3,000 ft the controller asked if he was flying direct epy to which he responded that he was currently flying on a heading of 110° the controller then cleared them direct to epy the pilots acknowledged this but from this point did not transmit any further Transmissions at 1732 just 14 minutes after takeoff the King Air reached 23,000 ft not long after at 1736 the aircraft which was steady and level started a slow turn to the right this turn to the right gradually became tighter before the aircraft started to spiral towards the ground at 1737 with the aircraft in a graveyard spiral the aircraft broke up before impacting the ground at an elevation of 5,223 Ft all 10 people on the plane lost their lives so what caused this to happen everything appeared to be operating as normal until very quickly this flight turned into disaster there are several factors that could have played a part in this tragedy and we're going to try to unravel this mystery one of the obvious factors here was the weather it was clear that the temperatures were below freezing with ice a potential factor to have built up on the wings bringing the aircraft down several pilots who were flying in the area previously or at the time were in vied about the conditions One Pilot landed at the departure airport 10 minutes before the accident aircraft departed and reported moderate snow but no ice or turbulence there were two other King Air aircraft in the local area which landed at a nearby airport with one of them which had transited through the area at 177,000 FT both Pilots reported that they did not encounter any turbulence or icing on route or during the approach further to the reports for the other aircraft in the area the radar data for the accident aircraft indicated that there was no degradation in the aircraft's performance both in air speed and altitude which could have indicated ice accretion so if icing was not an issue then perhaps a depressurization event on the cabin when the wreckage was examined it was found that the emergency oxygen mask and hose L remained folded and unused it had not been inflated and the hose was still attached to the assembly it could have been that the oxygen mask failed to deploy but there were no other indications that the cabin had depressurized as we discussed at the start of the video we went into great detail on the circumstances surrounding the two pilots on board neither of the pilots showed any signs of external problems with the second Pilots Keen for a future career in the airline industry the flight path was not consistent of any deliberate action and toxicology tests of both Pilots revealed no indications of drugs or alcohol in their systems it was also discovered that during the final stages of the Spiral descent the wings were rolled level and the rate of descent was starting to decrease showing signs of recovery so one of the final areas we need to look at are the aircraft systems to see if anything had failed it was discovered that when the aircraft had reached 23,000 ft just before flying direct to epy the aircraft lost AC power or its alternating current power the investigation team determined that AC power was lost as its mode C transponder stopped working at this time which was powered by the king A's AC power the transponder itself transmits an airplane's identification and altitude in response to interrogation signals received from groundbased radar equipment mode C specifically provides the airplane's altitude in 100t increments the mode C transponder stops providing the aircraft's position but the investigators know of its position because the mode a information continued mode a information provides the aircraft's four-digit Beacon identification code or squark groundbased radar equipment observes this information and calculates the airplane's direction and distance from the radar radar the reason why the investigators know that the AC system was lost was because the mode C was powered by the AC system and the mode a was powered by the DC direct current system which was still operational so if we run through this incident again with the new information we have the cause will become more apparent when the pilots were at 23,000 ft the AC system stopped operating this caused many of the Pilot's instruments to fail as the electrical input for the air data computer was provided by the AC system the pilot in the left hand seat loss his alterer attitude horizontal situation indicator or HSI radio alameter and radio magnetic indicator which provided heading for the pilot in the right seat only the HSI and radio magnetic indicator would be lost as the other instruments received inputs from the Pito static or vacuum systems so in short the pilot only had a working air speeed indicator and turn and slip indicator with the co-pilot or Pilot in the right hand seat having both of those along with a working alameter and attitude indicator another AC run system was the autopilot which would have been disconnected if it was being used so now the pilot who only a second ago had a fully working aircraft was now faced with the autopilot disc connec in most of his instruments failing and in IMC conditions this on its own still doesn't explain why the aircraft started to roll into a spiral the issue the pilots now faced without a workable horizon or visual feature to ascertain the ground was the risk of spatial disorientation to understand what this is we need to look at the basic biology of a human being humans are very good at understanding our position and motion whilst on the ground we've developed two main systems and a third subsystem which all work in unison these are the visual vestibular and somato sensory systems in basic terms the visual system uses our eyes to sense the position we are in the vestibular systems use our inner ear to determ our motion and the Sam sensory system this is more ATT tuned to the forces felt whilst flying using our nerves muscles joints and organs to sense and feel differential pressure and G forces this forms part of what is known as seats of the pants flying where Pilots use these Sensations to correctly interpret motion of the aircraft there are many illusions that can affect pilots in the sky but the one that appears to have played a part in this incident is something called the leans and the unfortunately named graveyard spiral so for the pilots in this incident they had lost visual reference outside the cockpit usually this is not an issue you as your instruments provide that information for you as the Pilot's flying had lost his instruments and did not have a visual reference to look outside it appears that the leans may have started to occur this is where the aircraft starts to bank and start a slow roll at a rate not detected by the human in air this rate is around 2° per second not only is it undetected but the fluid in your semicircular canals also stabilize at this new bank's position telling you that if you were to roll to the left back towards straighten level it would feel that you were then in a banking left turn in this instance the turn continued before turning into a spiral this is consistent with the other illusion of a graveyard spiral in this illusion the aircraft starts to roll at a rate not detected by the human ear as the aircraft begins to turn it starts to lose altitude and descend and The Descent accelerates the pilots will then detect The Descent but not the turn and the reaction is to pull back on the controls to stop the aircraft from descending the problem with this is that pulling back on the controls whilst in an increasing Turn Only tightens the turn and increases the rate of descent and this profile is consistent with the route this flight took to try and understand the difficulty of not having visual reference or instruments are you able to determine if the aircraft is is in a turn that you see on the screen now if I remove the cloud the answer becomes very clear obviously this is not the same but it just gives you an idea of the sorts of Sensations and visual cues that Pilots sometimes really need I've included a link in the description to more information surrounding specual disorientation if you want to know more now just because you've lost your visual reference and instruments it doesn't mean that there is nothing that can be done pilot are trained to fly to known configurations engine settings and to use other available instruments to supplement the issue but like many of the incidents we look at there are also other factors and human factors that play A Part the likely cause of this incident was when the crew had just reached 23,000 ft they had an AC power failure this caused the pilot to lose most of his instruments and the autopilot to disconnect in in the process of attempting to problem solve the aircraft started to roll to the right at a rate not detectable to the human ear this continued with the pilots focused on solving the issue as the second pilot was not familiar with the King Air he was probably less aware of the instruments available on the left and right seats the Pilot's flying before he knew it felt what he believed to be in a descent causing him to pull back on the elevator and as the aircraft was in a banked turn this action tightened the turn causing the aircraft to lose altitude from the resulting loss of vertical lift if at this point the aircraft altitude is noticed to be reducing from the right hand seat alom meter this could again cause the pilot to pitch up to reduce The Descent further increasing the turn and spiral descent as the aircraft was reaching the lowest points of the Spiral before impacting the ground the the speed was in excess of 300 knots at this point the pilot rolled the wings level and attempted to reduce the rate of descent which was at 15,000 ft per minute it's not known if the pilots regained a visual reference or noticed the instruments to start to recover it may have been that the aircraft Broke Free of cloud and the ground came into view this started to take effect but it was too much stress on the aircraft and too low to the ground causing the air craft to break up before hitting the ground this incident even with the vast investigation by the NTSB still has some unanswered questions that will never be answered the loss of the AC power has physical evidence to prove this occurred and is completely believable as the shock factor and focus on the problem could have led the crew into this unusual position which was supplemented by the spatial disorientation when I first read about about this incident hypoxia seemed a plausible explanation but there is not evidence of any loss of pressurization or a slow loss of cognitive ability of the crew It All Happened extremely quickly it is a tragic incident but one that appears to highlight the core emergency tenant of flying the aircraft first before focusing on the issue at hand that being said much of this is speculation backed by an extensive investigation one thing that is certain is that this crash was a tragedy that we hope to never see again please let me know what you think about this incident I would love to hear your theories and look forward to discussing them with you in the comments below if you've been keeping up to date with my community posts I haven't been as consistent with the release of videos over the past couple of months apologies for the delay and thank you for keeping with me if you can please like this video and if you know of others that will find it interesting please share it with them I have many more videos about interesting incidents that rarely get covered so check them out too if you haven't already thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next one [Music]
