Pinnacle Airlines Flight 3701
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On October 14, 2004, Pinnacle Airlines Flight 3701 (ICAO: FLG3701, IATA: 9E3701, or Flagship 3701) crashed near Jefferson City, Missouri, while flying from
Little Rock National Airport Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport , also known as Adams Field, is a joint civil-military airport on the east side of Little Rock, Arkansas.. Federal Aviation Administration. effective December 30, 2021. It is operated by the Little Rock ...
to
Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport , also less commonly known as Wold-Chamberlain Field, is a joint civil-military public-use international airport located in Fort Snelling Unorganized Territory, Minnesota, United States. Although ...
. Flight 3701 was a repositioning flight with no passengers aboard; both pilots were killed. Federal investigators determined the crash was due to the pilots' unprofessional behavior and disregard for training and procedures.


Aircraft and crew

Pinnacle Airlines Endeavor Air is an American regional airline that operates as Delta Connection for Delta Air Lines. The airline was founded as Express Airlines I in 1985 and was renamed Pinnacle Airlines in 2002. In 2012, Pinnacle's parent company filed for Cha ...
Flight 3701, operating under the
Northwest Airlink Northwest Airlink was the brand name of Northwest Airlines' regional airline service, which flew turboprop and regional jet aircraft from Northwest's domestic hubs in Minneapolis, Detroit, and Memphis. Service was primarily to small-to-medium-siz ...
banner, was a repositioning flight of an empty 50-seat
Bombardier CRJ200 The Bombardier CRJ100 and CRJ200 (previously Canadair CRJ100 and CRJ200) is a regional jet designed and manufactured by Bombardier Aerospace between 1991 and 2006, the first of the Bombardier CRJ family. The ''Canadair Regional Jet'' (CRJ) ...
(aircraft registration ). The aircraft was built in 2000 and had accumulated 10,168 hours of flight time and completed 9,613 flight cycles at the time of the crash. On October 14, 2004, a different Pinnacle Airlines flight crew was scheduled to fly the incident aircraft from Little Rock National Airport to Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport, but this crew received an error message and aborted their take-off. Pinnacle Airlines dispatched maintenance crews to Little Rock to resolve the problem. The problem was identified and fixed. Because the aircraft was needed in Minneapolis the next morning, Flight 3701 was scheduled overnight as a repositioning flight, to move the plane from Little Rock to Minneapolis. The only persons on board Flight 3701 were the two pilots, Captain Jesse Rhodes (31) and First Officer Peter Cesarz (23). Cesarz trained at Gulfstream Academy, and Rhodes trained at Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University, both in
Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
. Both pilots flew for
Gulfstream International Airlines Gulfstream International Airlines was a United States airline that operated from 1988 to 2010. The airline primarily operated codeshare flights for major airlines. In December 2010, the airline went bankrupt and its assets were sold. Silver Air ...
before being hired for Pinnacle Airlines. Rhodes had logged a total of 6,900 flight hours, including 973 hours on the CRJ-200, and Cesarz had 761 hours, with 222 of them on the CRJ-200.


Accident

Flight 3701 departed Little Rock at 21:21 Central Daylight Time (CDT). The flight plan from Little Rock to Minneapolis indicated a planned cruising altitude of Flight Level (FL) 330, or about . After departing Little Rock, the plane pitched up sharply several times during its ascent, briefly reaching . At 21:35, Flight 3701 requested clearance to climb to , the maximum operating altitude of the Bombardier CRJ series. Clearance was granted by
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 ...
(ATC) at 21:36, and the plane climbed to its new cruising altitude shortly thereafter. At 21:54, the pilots began to struggle with control of their plane. Both engines lost power and the plane's
stick shaker A stick shaker is a mechanical device designed to rapidly and noisily vibrate the control yoke (the "stick") of an aircraft, warning the flight crew that an imminent aerodynamic stall has been detected. It is typically present on the majority of ...
warned the pilots of an impending stall. The pilots declared an emergency and descended, temporarily regaining control of their aircraft at . The pilots attempted to restart the engines, but could not do so. At 22:09, Flight 3701 asked ATC to direct them to the nearest airport for an emergency landing, and the controller on duty directed them to
Jefferson City Memorial Airport Jefferson City Memorial Airport is two miles (3 km) northeast of Jefferson City, in Callaway County, Missouri. It is owned by the City of Jefferson City. Ozark DC-3s and M404s stopped there from 1954 until Columbia Regional Airport open ...
in Jefferson City, Missouri. At 22:14, the pilots realized they were not going to reach the airport and began looking for a road or highway on which to land. Around 22:14, the captain was heard on the CVR stating that the gear should be up to avoid houses. About a minute later, the plane crashed into the ground outside Jefferson City. Both crew members were killed, but no casualties occurred on the ground.


Investigation

The investigation into the accident focused mainly on information contained on the
flight data recorder A flight recorder is an electronic recording device placed in an aircraft for the purpose of facilitating the investigation of aviation accidents and incidents. The device may often be referred to as a "black box", an outdated name which has ...
and the
cockpit voice recorder A flight recorder is an electronic recording device placed in an aircraft for the purpose of facilitating the investigation of aviation accidents and incidents. The device may often be referred to as a "black box", an outdated name which has ...
. This is the official version of events as determined by that investigation. Investigators determined that the two pilots were exploring the performance limits of the empty CRJ-200 on the flight. The pilots decided to test the limits of the CRJ and join the "410 club", referring to pilots who pushed CRJs to their maximal approved altitude of
flight level In aviation and aviation meteorology, a flight level (FL) is an aircraft's altitude at standard air pressure, expressed in hundreds of feet. The air pressure is computed assuming an International Standard Atmosphere pressure of 1013.25 hPa ...
410 (FL410) or above sea level. The accident sequence started when the pilots performed several nonstandard maneuvers at , including a pitch-up at 2.3 ''g'' (23 m/s) that induced a stall warning. They set the
autopilot An autopilot is a system used to control the path of an aircraft, marine craft or spacecraft without requiring constant manual control by a human operator. Autopilots do not replace human operators. Instead, the autopilot assists the operator' ...
to climb at to FL410. This exceeded the manufacturer's recommended climb rate at altitudes above FL380. In the attempt to reach FL410, the plane was pulled up at over 1.2 ''g'', and the angle of attack became excessive to maintain climb rate in the thinner upper atmosphere. After reaching FL410, the plane was cruising at indicated airspeed, barely above
stall speed In fluid dynamics, a stall is a reduction in the lift coefficient generated by a foil as angle of attack increases.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', p. 486. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 1997. This occurs when t ...
, and had over-stressed the engines. The plane's antistall devices activated while they were at altitude, but the pilots repeatedly overrode the automatic nose-down that would increase speed to prevent stall. After four overrides, both engines experienced
flameout In aviation, a flameout (or flame-out) is the run-down of a jet engine or other turbine engine due to the extinction of the flame in its combustor. The loss of flame can have a variety of causes, such as fuel starvation, excessive altitude, com ...
and shut down. The plane then stalled, and the pilots recovered from the stall at FL380 or while still having no engine thrust. At that altitude, six
diversion airport Diversion airports are airports capable of handling a particular ETOPS ETOPS () is an acronym for ''Extended-range Twin-engine Operations Performance Standards''—a special part of flight rules for one-engine-inoperative flight conditions. The I ...
s were within reach for a forced landing. This led the pilots to pitch nose down in an attempt to restart the engines, which requires a dive sharp enough to attain the required airspeed for a windmill restart to make the blades in the turbines windmill at 10% N2 (turbine rotational speed). The captain did not take the necessary steps to ensure that the first officer achieved the needed airspeed or greater required for the windmill engine restart procedure and then did not demonstrate command authority by taking control of the airplane and accelerating it to at least that speed. The crew ended the descent when they had reached indicated airspeed, but neither engine core (N2) ever indicated any rotation during the entire descent. Since they were too high for an
auxiliary power unit An auxiliary power unit (APU) is a device on a vehicle that provides energy for functions other than propulsion. They are commonly found on large aircraft and naval ships as well as some large land vehicles. Aircraft APUs generally produce 115& ...
(APU) start, the
ram air turbine A ram air turbine (RAT) is a small wind turbine that is connected to a hydraulic pump, or electrical generator, installed in an aircraft and used as a power source. The RAT generates power from the airstream by ram pressure due to the speed o ...
(known as an "air-driven generator" on Bombardier products) was deployed to provide electric power for the aircraft, and the crew donned oxygen masks, as the cabin slowly depressurized due to loss of pressurization air from the engines. The crew glided for several minutes and then tried to restart engines using the APU at . This was again unsuccessful. They then declared to ATC that they had a single-engine flameout. At this point, they had four diversion airports available to them. They lost considerable altitude while continuing unsuccessfully to attempt to restart both the left engine (two times) and the right engine (two times) for over 14 minutes, using the emergency restart procedure. Despite their four auxiliary APU-assisted engine restart attempts, the pilots were unable to restart the engines because their cores had locked. Without core rotation, recovery from the double engine failure was not possible. At that point, the pilots finally declared to ATC that they had, in fact, lost both engines. The NTSB also determined from flight data recorder information that the
turbofan The turbofan or fanjet is a type of airbreathing jet engine that is widely used in aircraft propulsion. The word "turbofan" is a portmanteau of "turbine" and "fan": the ''turbo'' portion refers to a gas turbine engine which achieves mechanic ...
jet engine ( General Electric CF34-3B1) engine 2 turbine was operating at above the maximal redline temperature of at . Engine 1 HPT stayed below the redline. On January 9, 2007, the National Transportation Safety Board issued its final report on Flight 3701, which concluded that the probable causes of the accident were: * The pilots' unprofessional behavior, deviation from standard operating procedures, and poor airmanship * The pilots' failure to prepare for an emergency landing in a timely manner, including communicating with air traffic controllers immediately after the emergency about the loss of both engines and the availability of landing sites * The pilots' improper management of the double engine failure checklist


Aftermath

Thomas Palmer, former manager of Pinnacle Airlines' training program, said about the crash: "It's beyond belief that a professional air crew would act in that manner." After the accident, the airline restricted CRJ-200 flights to a maximum altitude of FL370. It also changed its training program to include ground school and simulator training in high-altitude operations. In the year following the accident, each Pinnacle pilot was given simulator training up to FL410 and shown what occurred on Flight 3701. Pinnacle Airlines was renamed
Endeavor Air Endeavor Air is an American regional airline that operates as Delta Connection for Delta Air Lines. The airline was founded as Express Airlines I in 1985 and was renamed Pinnacle Airlines in 2002. In 2012, Pinnacle's parent company filed for Chap ...
in 2013 following Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring.


Notes


References


External links


Crash From Dual Engine Flameout Spurs Wide Ranging Review
(Air Safety Week)
ALPA responds to the crash of Pinnacle Flight 3701
– Air Line Pilot
Accident Report
– National Transportation Safety Board
Full NTSB docket
{{Aviation incidents and accidents in 2004 2004 in Missouri Airliner accidents and incidents in Missouri Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 2004 Cole County, Missouri Disasters in Missouri Jefferson City, Missouri Accidents and incidents involving the Bombardier CRJ200 October 2004 events in the United States Airliner accidents and incidents caused by engine failure Airliner accidents and incidents involving in-flight depressurization Aviation accidents and incidents in 2004