AVAir Flight 3378, was a scheduled flight under the

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branding from

Raleigh–Durham International Airport Raleigh–Durham International Airport , locally known by its IATA code RDU, is an international airport that serves Raleigh, Durham, and the surrounding Research Triangle region of North Carolina as its main airport. It is located in unincorpo ...

Richmond International Airport Richmond International Airport is a joint civil-military airport in Sandston, Virginia, United States, an unincorporated community (in Henrico County). The airport is about 7 miles (11 km) southeast of downtown Richmond, the capital of t ...

which crashed after takeoff from Raleigh-Durham International Airport late on the night of February 19, 1988. All 12 people on board were killed in the accident.

Accident sequence

The weather at the time of the accident included a low ceiling and low visibility. The flight crew consisted of Captain Walter R. Cole Jr., 38, and First Officer Kathleen P. Digan, 28. The aircraft did not carry a cockpit voice recorder (CVR) or a flight data recorder (FDR) and was not required to at the time. AVAir Flight 3378 took off from

at 21:25 local time and climbed to a height of . Shortly after, the last transmission from the aircraft to the

air traffic control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airs ...

was heard. The aircraft maintained an appropriate climb

speed In everyday use and in kinematics, the speed (commonly referred to as ''v'') of an object is the magnitude of the change of its position over time or the magnitude of the change of its position per unit of time; it is thus a scalar quanti ...

but at an excessive rate of turn, 40 to 45 degrees; a standard turn rate would have been 22 degrees. Due to the turn, the plane started to descend. The aircraft then struck the water in a

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

from the

shoreline A shore or a shoreline is the fringe of land at the edge of a large body of water, such as an ocean, sea, or lake. In physical oceanography, a shore is the wider fringe that is geologically modified by the action of the body of water past a ...

, at a point 5100 feet west of

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...

23R. The wreckage then continued onto land and into a forest. Some post-crash fires also were seen at the crash site, but were quickly extinguished. According to the local controller, he heard but could not see the immediate previous plane, an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

MD-80 The McDonnell Douglas MD-80 is a series of five-abreast single-aisle airliners developed by McDonnell Douglas. It was produced by the developer company until August 1997 and then by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The MD-80 was the second gener ...

, depart. He saw the MD-80 on radar and cleared AVAir 3378 for departure. He briefly saw AVAir 3378 in the air, observed it on radar, and then cleared a

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airplane to depart. In the next 3 minutes, he cleared a Cessna to land, coordinated with the departure controller, and attempted to locate AVAir 3378. At 2131:45, the RDU local controller alerted the emergency systems. This accident was rated as unsurvivable by the

NTSB The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and incid ...

due to extreme destruction of the aircraft.

Investigation

The NTSB published its report into the disaster on December 13, 1988. They found that the preliminary cause of the accident was the failure of the

flight crew Aircrew, also called flight crew, are personnel who operate an aircraft while in flight. The composition of a flight's crew depends on the type of aircraft, plus the flight's duration and purpose. Commercial aviation Flight deck positions ...

to maintain a proper

flight path In the United States, airways or air routes are defined by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in two ways: "VOR Federal airways and Low/Medium Frequency (L/MF) (Colored) Federal airways" These are designated routes which aeroplanes ...

because of the improper instrument scanning by the first officer and the flight crew's response to a perceived fault in the

stall warning In fluid dynamics, a stall is a reduction in the lift coefficient generated by a foil (fluid mechanics), foil as angle of attack increases.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', p. 486. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 199 ...

system. Contributing features were the lack of company response to documented indications of difficulties in the first officer's piloting, and the lack of FAA surveillance of AVAir. In 1993, the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) filed a

petition A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer called supplication. In the colloquial sense, a petition is a document addressed to some offici ...

against the findings of the investigation and asked it to be reconsidered. The NTSB accepted the petition in part. The causes of the crash were changed to: "The probable cause of this accident was the failure of flight crew to maintain a proper flightpath. Contributing factors were the ineffective management and supervision of flight crew training and operations and inappropriate FAA surveillance of AVAir."

References

{{Aviation accidents and incidents in 1988 1988 in North Carolina Accidents and incidents involving the Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 1988 Aviation accidents and incidents in North Carolina Aviation accidents and incidents caused by pilot error February 1988 events in the United States