Six people from Rhode Island died when a Pilatus PC-12/45 crashed in Pennsylvania on Sunday...

AD PUTS ICING (AGAIN) AT CENTER STAGE...
The next month, according to the FAA, is critical for safe icing operations. Late last year, the NTSB recommended all pilots perform tactile testing for ice on flying surfaces, and the FAA now warns icing accidents/incidents are just as prevalent or more prevalent during the months of March and April as in November, December and January. Specific to Cessna Caravans, an FAA Airworthiness Directive (AD) effective tomorrow requires operators of all Cessna Caravan model 208 and 208b aircraft to modify the Airplane Flight Manual (AFM) to assure that the pilot has enough information to prevent loss of control while flying in icing conditions. The AD is the result of six accidents in the previous two icing seasons and nine events in the past few months involving Caravans in ice, the FAA said, and perhaps with some special attention to an NTSB Alert Letter.

...AFTER NTSB STUDY
The NTSB had raised concerns about the Caravans and icing back in December. The safety board asked the FAA to require that all pilots and

 operators of Cessna 208 Caravan series airplanes carefully check for ice and/or snow on the wings and tail before any flight when temperatures are conducive to frost or ground icing. Also, pilots of Caravans equipped for flight into known icing conditions should be required to undergo annual training on ice safety, the NTSB said. The NTSB based its recommendations on a study of 26 icing-related accidents and incidents involving Caravans between 1987 and 2003, which resulted in at least 36 fatalities.
Officials say crash investigation could take months

BELLEFONTE — The cause behind Saturday’s fatal plane crash remained elusive Sunday, as a federal investigator said that he was ruling out no possibilities and that the investigation could last a year.

“We have nothing to lead us definitively in any direction at this point,” said Paul Cox, a senior air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board.

At a somber news conference in the Willowbank Building on Sunday afternoon, Cox said a preliminary report about the crash and its cause should be available next month. It will be posted online at www.ntsb.gov.

But a more thorough report, including an examination of weather conditions, the plane’s maintenance records and the pilot’s history, will not be complete for another four to six months, Cox said. Pilatus Aircraft Ltd., which manufactured the plane, and Pratt & Whitney, which built its engine,

Mike Jacober, a captain on the Penn State lacrosse team, looks over the wreckage Sunday of the plane crash that killed his parents and younger brother.

 are joining federal authorities in the probe.

Six Rhode Island residents died just before 2 p.m. Saturday when the small propeller plane crashed within yards of the new Centre County Correctional Facility along the Benner Pike. The deceased are Jeffrey, Karen and Eric Jacober and Gregg, Dawn and Leland Weingeroff, Coroner Scott A. Sayers confirmed Sunday.

The families, who were prominent in business and philanthropy in Providence, were flying north from Florida. They had planned to stop at University Park Airport to see a Penn State lacrosse game.

Michael Jacober, 21, a son of Jeffrey and Karen Jacober, is a captain of the lacrosse team. Sayers said Sunday that the families died of blunt-force trauma caused by the impact of the plane. He ruled the deaths accidental. Jeffrey Jacober, 51, the plane’s pilot, did not appear to have suffered a heart attack or any other crippling malady, Sayers said.

Centre County Coroner Scott Sayers, left, and Federal Aviation Administration investigator Bob Drake look over the wreckage Sunday.

It wasn’t clear whether the pilot or the passengers had been wearing seat belts, Sayers said, because their bodies were found strewn through the cabin amid displaced luggage. The Associated Press quoted a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman as saying the pilot was attempting an instrument landing ap proach.

But the FAA has no record of any distress call made from the aircraft to University Park Airport, Cox said. He said Jeffrey Jacober did speak to a flight center in New York as he made his approach to the airport but did not mention any trouble on the plane.

The plane, a 1999 Pilatus PC-12/45, did not contain a cockpit voice data recorder or a flight data recorder, Cox said. Speculation suggested that icing may have been a contributing factor in the crash, a Penn State spokesman said Saturday. And a county administrator said the FAA also indicated, very shortly after the wreck, that icing or an uneven distribution of weight may have been involved.

Autopsies were expected to be complete late Sunday, and the bodies were to be sent back to Rhode Island, Sayers said.

Meanwhile, dozens of Pennsylvania volunteers from the Civil Air Patrol maintained a secure perimeter around the crash site, where debris was scattered across 50 square yards. Motorists on the Benner Pike occasionally lingered on the side of the road to gawk at the wreckage, said Lt. Erin Long, a member of the CAP’s Penn State squadron.

“Every now and then, if one person stops along the road, other people will stop,” she said. CAP members tried to keep the passers-by moving to prevent accidents, Long said.

Cox, the NTSB investigator, said he hopes the wreckage will be removed today. The company that insured the plane will determine where it will be taken, he said.

Tim Knisely, chief of the Bellefonte Fire Department, said firefighters were surprised to find no flames when the plane crashed. He said more than 60 local emergency responders, including paramedics, rushed to the scene Saturday.

For them, the county is offering stress and grief counseling.

James Cox, a 13-year-old visiting from Lancaster, said he was walking with his family in a nearby field when he saw the plane plunge.

“I threw a tennis ball in the air, looked to the right, and I saw this huge plane come down out of the air,” said James Cox, who is not related to the NTSB investigator. “It went straight to the ground” and made “a huge bang.”

The teenager, who dialed 911 on his cell phone, said the pilot “was just revving it and revving it and revving it.” The plane’s engine was still running, and its propeller was spinning when it crashed, he said.

“I said a small prayer to myself as I saw it twirl towards the ground,”
James Cox wrote in an earlier e-mail. “That was all I could think of for those poor people stranded in the plane.”
from this link

3 pilots reported icing near site of Pa. crash

 

An airport official says the pilots declared emergencies both before and after the crash that killed six people from Providence.

01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, March 30, 2005

BY TOM MOONEY
Journal Staff Writer

Icing conditions were so severe Saturday over University Park Airport in central Pennsylvania that three small planes declared emergencies on approach, the airport's director says, scrambling rescue crews into action.

Firefighters watched as all three planes landed safely. But about eight minutes after the first emergency call, Jeffrey Jacober's plane crashed two miles from the airport, killing him, his wife, a son, and three members of the Weingeroff family, all of Providence.

"It is a very unusual circumstance to have that many aircraft in that period of time have that sort of problem," airport director Bryan Rodgers said yesterday.

Rodgers said Saturday's icing conditions were the worst he'd seen since becoming director in January 2004.

And his predecessor, Robert Dannaker, who held the post for 16 years, said he could not recall a single day with so many ice-related emergencies.

The first emergency declaration came at 1:32 p.m., Rodgers said, from a small twin-engine plane on approach.

The airport sits in a rural setting in Benner Township, five miles from Penn State University, where the Jacobers and Weingeroffs were heading, after a week in Florida visiting relatives, to watch the Jacobers' son, Michael, play in a lacrosse game.

Gray skies and mist hung over the airport, said Rodgers, with the air temperature at ground level slightly above freezing.

The pilot of the twin-engine plane reported ice on his aircraft to a Federal Aviation Administration flight center in Jamaica, N.Y., on Long Island. In turn, the flight center notified the airport that an incoming aircraft had declared an emergency and to clear a path for a quick landing.

Accumulating ice can affect a plane in two ways, Dannaker said.

It adds weight and disturbs the air flow over the wings, altering the plane's aerodynamics. It can also raise the speed threshold for when a plane's engine stalls. For instance, if the stall speed of a plane is normally 80 mph, accumulating ice can make the plane stall at 85 or 90 mph, Dannaker said.

The twin-engine plane landed safely while Jeffrey Jacober was still working the controls of his Pilatus PC-12/45, a high-end, single-prop plane that friends said he had purchased in 2003.

From his pilot seat, Jacober counted as his passengers his wife, Karen, their 15-year-old son, Eric, his friend and business partner Gregg Weingeroff, his wife, Dawn, and their son, Leland, 10.

The Pilatus aircraft is FAA-certified to fly into "known icy conditions" and is equipped with deicing technology that can either break off or melt ice from its wings, prop and windshield.

Jacober, 51, was an experienced pilot, friends have said, who had flown for years for both business and pleasure.

As Jacober approached University Park Airport, he received clearance to land from the same Long Island flight center that minutes earlier had received an emergency declaration from the twin-engine aircraft.

"There was no indication from the aircraft of any problem," FAA eastern region spokesman Jim Peters said Saturday after Jacober's plane crashed.

Because the crash is under investigation, FAA cannot say whether an air controller briefed Jacober on the weather when he called to receive clearance, or whether the FAA issued an ice advisory to pilots in the area, spokeswoman Arlene Murray said yesterday.

Jacober's plane crashed about 1:40 p.m., according to a Pennsylvania State Police dispatcher.

About 40 minutes later, at 2:21 p.m., a second plane on approach to University Park Airport declared an emergency because of ice build-up, Rodgers said. A third plane issued the same declaration at about 6:45 p.m.

Both those cases involved single-engine aircraft.

Funerals for Jeffrey, Karen and Eric Jacober were scheduled for this morning in Temple Beth-El, in Providence. Funerals for Gregg and Dawn Weingeroff and their son Leland were scheduled for tomorrow at Temple Beth-El.

from this link

January 3, 2005

NTSB Suggests Tactile Ice Testing...
 

Just Looking Is Not Enough

In an unusual move last week, the NTSB issued an Alert Letter directly to pilots, advising them to conduct visual and tactile inspections of airplane wing upper surfaces to check for ice and frost. The safety board said that the Nov. 28 accident at Montrose, Colo., involving a Bombardier Challenger 604 that crashed on takeoff, killing three people, has generated much discussion about the effects of wing upper-surface ice accumulations. The safety board said that many pilots do not recognize that minute amounts of ice adhering to a wing can cause severe aerodynamic and control penalties. The board also said that many pilots have misconceptions about coping with icing, such as that they can "power through" any degradation in performance from ice on the wings. But engine power will not prevent a stall and loss of control at lift-off, where the highest angles of attack are normally achieved, the NTSB said. Although the Montrose crash investigation is still underway, the NTSB said its preliminary findings show that atmospheric conditions conducive to upper-wing-surface ice accumulation existed at the time of the accident. The Alert Letter follows a Safety Recommendation that was issued to the FAA on Dec. 15, regarding icing issues relevant to Cessna Caravans.

Pilot Training Called For To Avoid Accidents...
 

Caravan's Icing Record Raises Alarm

The NTSB last week asked the FAA to require that all pilots and operators of Cessna 208 Caravan series airplanes carefully check for ice and/or snow on the wings and tail before any flight when temperatures are conducive to frost or ground icing. Also, pilots of Caravans equipped for flight into known icing conditions should be required to undergo annual training on ice safety, the NTSB said. The NTSB based its recommendations on a study of 26 icing-related accidents and incidents involving Caravans between 1987 and 2003, which resulted in at least 36 fatalities. The FAA has 90 days to respond to the recommendation. Cessna said in a statement that it cooperated fully with the NTSB study and "is committed to the safe operation of all its aircraft," The Wichita Eagle reported.

to Safety Menu