Accident · 2004-10-14

What the record says

Event date

2004-10-14

Event type

Accident

Highest injury level

Fatal injury

Aircraft

Canadair CL-600 (N8396A)

Operating rule

Part 91

Operator

PINNACLE AIR INC Operator named in NTSB report

Operated by (per NTSB report)

PINNACLE AIR INC

Probable cause

(1) the pilots’ unprofessional behavior, deviation from standard operating procedures, and poor airmanship, which resulted in an in-flight emergency from which they were unable to recover, in part because of the pilots’ inadequate training; (2) 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; and (3) the pilots’ improper management of the double engine failure checklist, which allowed the engine cores to stop rotating and resulted in the core lock engine condition. Contributing to this accident were (1) the core lock engine condition, which prevented at least one engine from being restarted, and (2) the airplane flight manuals that did not communicate to pilots the importance of maintaining a minimum airspeed to keep the engine cores rotating.

Flight crew

Flight-crew details for this event aren't in the NTSB database extract we hold (its coverage starts with 2008 events) — a gap in our data, not an absence of crew.