Greg Biffle was a passenger in his own jet during the final moments of last month’s crash in North Carolina, the National Transportation Safety Board reported Friday in a preliminary account of what investigators have found so far. The report said Biffle, along with two other licensed pilots aboard the Cessna 550, noticed problems with gauges as the aircraft tried to return to Statesville Regional Airport.
According to the NTSB’s preliminary findings, the pilot at the controls was Dennis Dutton, a retired airline pilot, while Biffle was seated elsewhere in the cockpit and Jack Dutton sat in the right seat. While both Duttons were licensed pilots and were at the controls during portions of the flight, the NTSB said the person in the right seat did not have the right endorsement on his pilot’s license to serve as the copilot for that aircraft configuration.
The agency said investigators also found that the cockpit’s thrust reverser indicator light was not working before takeoff, and that after the plane was in the air, the pilot’s altimeter and other instruments were not working on the left side of the cockpit. The NTSB reported that the pilot temporarily transferred control while he attempted to troubleshoot the problems and that the cockpit recording captured part of the exchange among the three pilots.
Aviation safety consultant Jeff Guzzetti, who previously investigated crashes for both the NTSB and the Federal Aviation Administration, said the preliminary report points to crew-qualification and training as a possible contributor. Guzzetti said, “This airplane requires two trained pilots, and if things go wrong and you don’t have a trained pilot, then bad things can happen,” adding, “The airplane might have been able to be landed safely if there were two qualified pilots up front.” He also said the lack of an experienced copilot may have played a key role.
Other safety experts in the report emphasized the emergency context created by the instrument issues. John Cox, CEO of Safety Operating Systems, said he thinks the cockpit instrument problems may have been a bigger factor than the copilot’s inexperience, warning that “In the clouds with failing flight instruments is a serious situation.”
The preliminary account also described how the radio and cockpit recorder evidence were captured during the flight. Over the radio, Jack Dutton announced, “we’re having some problems here,” and the cockpit voice recorder captured part of the conversation between the three pilots about the issues. The NTSB said that after a few minutes of discussion, during which Biffle suggested possibilities about what was wrong, the pilot indicated he had found the problem but did not say what it was; the audio then returned to normal and investigators found no further discussion of the instrument problems before the crash.
Investigators said the cause of the instrument problems remains unclear at this stage, in part because the cockpit voice recorder cut out at times. The report said investigators have only just begun to examine what caused the crash, including why the plane came in “so low and slow” and ultimately clipped two poles of landing lights before it hit the ground about a third of a mile (550 meters) from the runway.
The report said it was not clear why the aircraft’s final approach proceeded as it did, but investigators found that the throttle was in the full forward position in the wreckage. Guzzetti said that detail could suggest the pilot recognized the aircraft was too low and tried to pull up, possibly attempting to go around.
Biffle, 55, died with six others, including his wife, Cristina, and their children Ryder, 5, and Emma, 14, as well as his friend Craig Wadsworth. The jet departed Statesville Regional Airport, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of Charlotte, about 10 minutes before the crash while trying to return and land there quickly because of the reported problems.
The NTSB said the plane’s speed and altitude fluctuated during the brief flight, including a moment when it rose from 1,800 feet (550 meters) to 4,000 feet (1,220 meters) before descending again. Just before the crash, it was only a couple hundred feet off the ground.
An unqualified copilot in that seat would violate FAA rules, the report’s discussion said, and could have led to suspended licenses for the pilot in charge and the unqualified copilot if the agency had learned of it under normal circumstances, though investigators said the FAA might not have known unless someone reported it.