Talk:Pinnacle Airlines Flight 3701

AfC Request: December 14, 2005 (WP:AFC)

Untitled

Pinnacle Airlines Flight 3701 (FLG3701, 9E3701 or Flagship 3701) crashed on October 14, 2004, near Jefferson City, Missouri. Both pilots were killed.

Pinnacle Airlines Flight 3701 was a passenger-less 50-seat Bombardier Canadair Regional Jet CRJ-200 on a reposition flight ("repo") from Little Rock, Arkansas (Little Rock National Airport) to Minneapolis, Minnesota (Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport), crewed with two pilots, Captain Jesse Rhodes and First Officer Peter Cesarz. The CRJ crashed when the engines could not be restarted, and they could not reach an airport.

The incident

The two pilots were flying a CRJ-200 on an equipment reposition flight. The pilots decided to test the limits of the CRJ, and join the 410 Club (referring to pilots who pushed CRJs to their flight ceilings). (Flight Level 410 or FL410 refers to 41,000 feet ASL)

The incident started when the pilots performed excessive maneuvers at 15,000 feet which included a pitch-up at 2.3 G, which induced a stall warning. They set the autopilot to climb at 500 ft/min to 41,000 ft. This exceeded the manufacturers recommended climb rate at altitudes above 38,000 ft. In the attempt to reach FL410, the plane was pushed at over 1.2G, and the angle of attack became excessive to maintain climb rate in the thinner upper atmosphere. After reaching FL410, the plane was cruising at 150 knots, which is just barely above stall speed, and had overstressed the engines. The anti-stall devices activated while they were at altitude, but the pilots overrode the automatic nose down that would increase speed to prevent stall. After four overrides, both engines experienced flameout, and shutdown. The plane then stalled, and the pilots recovered from stall at 38,000 ft, while still having no engines. This lead the pilots to pitch nose down in an attempt to restart the engines. The crew failed to dive sharply enough to attain the required 300 kt for a windmill restart, ending the dive when they had reached 230 kt. The crew then tried to restart engines using the APU at 13,000 ft. This was again unsuccessful. They then declared to air traffic control that they had a single engine flameout. At this point they had 4 diversion airports available to them. As they continued to not be able to restart, they declared to ATC that they had infact had both engines flameout, whereupon only 2 airports were available. They crashed outside of Jefferson City, Missouri, behind a row of houses, (600 block of Hutton Lane) and the plane caught fire, killing both pilots. No one on the ground was hurt.

Aftermath

Pinnacle Airlines has restricted flights to a maximum of 38,000 feet.

The NTSB has determined that the engines were operating at 600F above maximum redline temperature at 41,000ft, and that the high speed compressor blades melted, which then dripped onto the low speed compressor. After the flameout, the low speed compressor became welded to the rest of the engine. Intially, it was thought that a core lock had occurred in the engines, however this more serious condition infact occurred.

External links

• Pinnacle Airlines (d.b.a. Northwest Airlink) Flight 3701 Jefferson City, Missouri October 14, 2004 DCA05MA003 (NTSB)
• Crash From Dual Engine Flameout Spurs Wide Ranging Review (Air Safety Week)

Discussion

needs redirects

• This article requires redirects from
  • FLG3701
  • 9E3701
  • N8396A

• Pinnacle Airlines requires redirects from
  • FLG (ICAO code)
  • 9E (IATA code)

• 132.205.45.148 18:50, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

What does "pushed at 1.2g" mean?

In the attempt to reach FL410, the plane was pushed at over 1.2g,

How was this aircraft pushed at 1.2g, and what's bad with 1.2g to an aircraft?

Aircraft in a level turns regularly experience much higher than 1.2g.

Unless it's engaged in some form of ballistic flight, my understanding of an aircraft climbing to it's max flight level would be a standard 1g climb, that is, an aircraft basically in straight and level flight, with engines maxed out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.39.78.68 (talk) 18:15, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Could a pilot express their opinion?

Could a pilot or two express their opinion? Was this high spirits, or recklessness, or normal "pushing the envelope" to test aircraft capability? What was going on? Piano non troppo (talk) 13:49, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

It was arrogant recklessness of the 2nd worst kind (1st worst kind would be if they done it with innocent passengers on board). They were not certified test pilots on a certified test flight, so they had no business operating the plane in that manner, which was outside of the SOP boundaries. Had they survived, they would have lost their jobs and licenses. Sad that they had to pay the ultimate price for such stupidity, but many other stupid pilots have ended up the same way, too often with innocent victims on board going down with them. 66.81.52.150 (talk) 08:41, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I think it is also important to note that they did not just "scientifcally" gain experience with the aircraft but actually appeared at least partially oblivious to the natural consequences of their doing, or in other words they brought them self into a situation which they did not understand. Which is strange since the problems of minimum and maximum possible i.a. speed becoming the same at maximum altitude are no secret at all. Intentionally bringing your aircaft into a state that your knowledge does not nearly cover ... how would you call that ? Having written all this - if pilots had never risked their neck ... but the pioneering decades are long past and it was not their aircraft to risk (not to mention the people and property below them). JB. --92.193.129.35 (talk) 01:02, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Urgent but routine?

What is "urgent but routine maintenance" supposed to mean? My best guess is that it actually means someone discovered the morning of October 14 that some annual required maintenance was due at noon. But I don't know. Superm401 - Talk 06:21, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I actually found this in the full accident report (p. 11/23). Apparently, the original crew of the plane noticed a warning that said, "R 14TH DUCT". It was ultimately determined that there was chafing in a air duct sensing loop, so it had to be replaced. Superm401 - Talk 10:07, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Your link repaired to http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/reports/2007/aar0701.pdf. NTSB moved it. 71.198.81.105 (talk) 18:44, 12 December 2011 (UTC)