18th of August 2024, Communication Issue, Blog #716
- V2Aviation
- Aug 18
- 2 min read
After an uneventful flight, a Cessna 680 Citation Sovereign was operating a positioning flight under FAA Part 91 regulation from Goldsboro-Wayne Municipal Airport to Washington-Warren Field (both in North Carolina, USA).
During the flight, some issues with the aircraft's communication system became apparent, which the crew discussed. The communication panel had given problems before, and the crew debated ways to deal with the system limitations. The weather was good, and VMC conditions prevailed. The weather during the visual approach was fine;
Cloud base - 4500 ft AGL, scattered
Visibility - 10 miles
Wind - 210° at 12 knots, gusting 18 knots
Temperature - 33°C
Dewpoint - 21°C
QNH - 29.80 inHg / 1009 mBar
During the approach, the captain removed his headset due to a 500Hz tone disturbing him. The rest of the approach and landing appeared to be normal. Up to the moment of touchdown. At this point, it became clear that the landing gear was not extended. The aircraft slid down the runway before coming to a stop. A post-crash fire broke out on the right-hand side of the aircraft as the crew completed the emergency shutdown checklist and evacuated the aircraft through the main door. There were no injuries.
The aircraft sustained substantial damage as a result of the fire and was written off.
An investigation was launched by the National Transportation Safety Board, the CVR was analysed, the crew was interviewed, and the remnants of the aircraft were inspected. Review of the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) confirmed the limitations of the airplane’s communication system, that the crew was aware of them, and that they discussed and debated how to mitigate the system’s limitations. The review also revealed that during the flights on the day of the accident, the performance of Before-Starting-Engines, Engine Start, Before Taxi, Before Takeoff, Before Landing and other tasks did not comply with the manufacturer’s checklists and were sometimes performed without any verbal communication between crewmembers.
The first officer stated during her (telephone) interview that the gear warning was only audible in the left seat (Captain’s) headset and was not heard in her headset (right seat) or the overhead speaker, and that the c
ommunications panel had a “history” of problems. The CVR recording further revealed that the captain removed his headset due to a 500Hz “squeal” that he failed to identify as the gear warning horn, and consequently missed the repeating, “too low, gear” aural warning that followed. There were no mechanical issues with the landing gear that would have prevented deployment of the landing gear and a successful landing.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determines the probable cause(s) of this accident to be:
The flight crew’s failure to properly configure the airplane before landing and the captain’s subsequent failure to recognise the landing gear aural warning which resulted in a gear-up landing. Contributing to the accident were the flight crew’s inadequate checklist use and crew coordination, and the known diminished capability of the airplane’s communication system.
The NTSB Aviation Investigation Final Report, which was the source for this blog, can be accessed by clicking on the .pdf below;
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