Early Analysis: N880Z – Learjet 35A Crash December 27, 2021 El Cajon San Diego, CA

hi i'm richard mcspadden with the aopa air safety institute this is another in our early analysis series and we want to take a look at the learjet 35 alpha crash near gillespie field around the san diego california area last week it's important to remember that the ntsb is early in their investigation they could uncover facts what will change the direction of this analysis but let's uncover what we do know and what we can ascertain from the accident at this time the aircraft was a learjet 35a it requires two pilots to operate it and it was based out of gillespie field landing distance which will be important later on in our analysis landing distance at about mid weight in a learjet 35a on a wet runway is around 3 800 feet that seems to be a factor in this mishap the crew on this learjet 35a included a 42 year old pilot in command who was typed in the lear jet but his type rating still had a pic limitation now the faa puts that limitation on pilots when they achieve their first type rating it requires you to fly your first 25 hours as pic under supervision of another pic once those 25 hours are complete the pic will sign your log book off you can take that to the faa and then they will remove that limitation it's very likely in this case since this pilot was operating as pic that that limitation was simply a a paperwork lag and that that limitation had actually been removed the second in command on this aircraft held a learjet type rating limited to second-in-command privileges there's multiple ways to earn second-in-command privileges one way to earn it only requires that you fly with an instructor or a pilot in command and they sign you off when they believe you're ready to pick up second in command duties there's no practical test involved once they believe you're ready they sign off your logbook you then take that log book down to your local fizdo they'll review it and then grant you the second in command rating it's unclear how this pilot earned a second in command rating which appeared to be the only type rating that he held the learjet was on his final planned leg of the day it was a short trip from john wayne airport down to gillespie field and the weather at gillespie field was reported as 1100 scattered with three miles visibility and light mist 2000 broken winds were variable at five knots that 1100 scattered doesn't appear to be the case based on what we can see from video evidence and what we saw out of the pilots in their maneuvering it appears that there were clouds below that 1100 scattered deck from what we can tell the mountains surrounding gillespie field limit maneuvering to the north and to the east of the field and they limit the approaches that you can fly into that field with some limitations san diego isn't typically thought of as a mountainous area but in fact the mountains that surround that area to the north and out to the east of san diego often cause challenges for pilots in the ways of winds turbulence and unusual procedures and limited approaches to some airfields in the region the crew climbed up to 11 000 feet and from what we can tell take off climb out and in route crews were uneventful as the crew approached gillespie field they made a decision to fly that gps approach to runway 1-7 they then canceled ifr declared vfr flew overhead the field at gillespie and essentially entered a left downwind to land 2-7 right essentially they executed a circling maneuver at night in low visibility and what appeared to be clouds that were lower than 1100 scattered now what's challenging about that is a circling approach to runway 27 right off of that approach is not authorized as you can see on the approach plate here so that's the reason the pilots canceled ifr and went vfr this appears to be a critical decision in this mishap as they entered that left downwind for 2-7 right the pilot calls the tower and asks for the runway lights to be turned up to higher intensity and the tower responds pretty quickly to telling the runway lights are already at full intensity within a couple seconds the pilot can be heard making some frantic exclamations over the radio and the crash occurs somewhere in route to gillespie field as they begin to prepare for the approach the pilots realized they were facing a dilemma to fly the gps approach to runway 1-7 and land straight ahead put them on a runway shorter than what made them comfortable it would leave no margin for error for landing distance in a learjet 35a on a wet runway however circling off that approach to the longer runway 2-7 right which added an additional 1200 feet of runway was not authorized the pilot makes the decision that his solution to this is to fly the gps approach get visual with the field and then cancel ifr and proceed in a night vfr pattern it seems likely that the demanding nature of this maneuver caught him off guard the weather it appears that the weather was lower than what was forecast just based on how low he got adsb data shows him maneuvering to about four to five hundred feet as he comes over the runway and enters the uh the downwind to two seven you really wouldn't do that on a circling approach when you're flying a circling approach you will take every bit as much altitude as you can get without going back into the weather and you'll take every bit as much horizontal separation as you can get without losing sight of the runway those two factors having to stay low enough to stay out of the weather and having to stay close enough so that you can keep side of the runway or what makes circling approaches so difficult in essence it eliminates your turning room both in the vertical and in the horizontal and that's why we occasionally see these stall span type of accidents on circling approaches when pilots get caught too tight to the runway it's early in the ntsb's investigation and they could uncover facts which changed this analysis but at this stage it looks like a pilot flying a demanding circling approach in a learjet in limited visibility and low ceiling conditions lost control of the airplane and a stall spin occurred the interesting question will be if this holds why did the stall spin occur did it happen while the pilot was looking over his left shoulder trying to gain visual with the runway in a clouded in a crowded uh environment with likely a lot of light pollution which could have camouflaged the runway did that distract him and the co-pilot from the airspeed uh indications we don't know that yet at this stage it'll be interesting if we can hear a cockpit recorder if they have one or did the pilot lose sight of the airfield and in losing sight of the air fruit perhaps he regained side of the airfield real quick and maneuver too aggressively in maneuvering for that for that turn to final that part's unknown but that'll be the question to understand is if a stall has been occurred why did it occur and the thing that kind of uh is uh concerning about this theory a little bit of a disconnect is if you look at the adsb data the pilot flew very close to vref on his approach down to the gps on runway one seven looking at looking at his airspeed off adsb he flew overhead the field and accelerated up to about 130 knots v-ref is around 122 knots in a in a learjet in that ballpark for for where they were flying as he entered the once he went on the go from one way one seven to enter that downwind to 2-7 he accelerated and maintained 130 knots or above throughout the maneuver so one of the troubling questions that will have to be answered is if he lost control and the stall spin occurred then how did that occur when it appears as if he kept his airspeed up one of the factors could have been his configuration we don't know yet what his configuration was as he came down flying the approach runway one seven and then went on the go and did he maintain that configuration as he flew up into uh the left downwind for runway two seven his configuration there would make a big difference in the stall speed and the handling characteristics of the learjet under these conditions another thing we didn't hear was the pilot held the microphone down during the latter's part of this accident and we don't hear any kind of stall warning or sink rate warnings or anything in the background going off in the cockpit this does seem something that needs to be investigated as to potential disconnects to the theory of a of a stall spin accident i think the ntsb is also very likely to look at spatial disorientation for this accident so in an area like gillespie field where there were mountains to the north and to the east of the airfield as the pilots flying that approach and remember limited visibility conditions missed he's having trouble picking up the runway if he's looking at his left and glancing forward and trying to pick up maintaining his attitude by visual reference lights on a hillside can blend into lights on the ground in mountainous areas and give you a false sense of a horizon so there is a potential that during this maneuver as he's transitioning from looking over his shoulder to looking back uh ahead and out the front of the airplane that he got a sense of a false horizon from lights in the distance from stars from lights on the hillside or traffic all of those can blend for a false horizon effect under these kinds of conditions when visual acuity is low which it certainly was at this night and a third area the ntsb will investigate is airframe and engine operation it doesn't appear to be a factor in this flight but they'll want to rule that out entirely as best they can determine the engines we're running fully and operating normally throughout the flight as were the flight controls and that was not a contributing factor this accident it doesn't appear to be but i'm sure they'll run that down and completely eliminate it so for this accident a crew on their planned final flight of the day coming home at night face a dilemma land on our runway that doesn't give them the landing distance they're comfortable with or circle the land to a longer runway at night in marginal vfr conditions the challenge they faced was circling to land 27 right wasn't authorized so they developed a workaround and their work around was to cancel ifr and go vfr the problem with that that is they back themselves into a corner now they've cancelled vfr if they lose sight of the field which it appears they may have on downwind or at the very least they were struggling to keep side of the field they had no ability now to go missed approach because they were off of an ifr clearance and so they were cornered into keeping side of the airfield and staying in the in that uh with the direction that they'd chosen and it appears as if that train of thought that decision is likely uh the critical decision for this mishap what's really uncertain here and i hope the ntsb can uncover is what was the co-pilot doing while the pilot in command is looking at his left side trying to keep side of the runway and struggling to do so the co-pilot should have been focused on the flight instruments the air speed the attitude indicator and if necessary making callouts to the pilot when those occurred whether or not that occurred and why it didn't occur will be an interesting point of discussion for crew coordination for people flying all kinds of airplanes the whole benefit of flying with the crew is under those kind of demanding scenarios to be able to share the workload to keep the airplane safe it's likely the ntsb and the faa both will take a look at the training of both the pilot and command and the co-pilot and they will take a look at that procedure of flying in a gps approach to runway one seven and canceling at night and in essence uh flying a circling approach the workaround of canceling ifr to go vfr to do that gets around the intent of preventing that kind of maneuver and it's very likely they'll take a long hard look at that for future operations at gillespie field stay tuned and as things develop we'll update you on this accident through our various air safety institute channels thanks for watching and thanks for supporting aopa and air safety institute you

Channel: Air Safety Institute

Views: 174,938

Keywords: institute, aopa, aviation, pilot, fly, flying, flight, plane, airplane, airport, air, safety, asi, air safety, training, aircraft, owners, pilots, accident, analysis, ntsb, crash, mishap, fatal, lear, learjet, jet, n880z, breaking, news, Richard, McSpadden, lear35, learjet35, san, diego, ksee, Gillespie Field, gillespie, El Cajon, cajon

Id: S71maBUL5wM

Length: 13min 41sec (821 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 05 2022