N508GT

HISTORY OF FLIGHT

On June 22, 2012, at 1001 eastern daylight time a Raytheon Aircraft Company, C90GT, N508GT, operated by Oz Gas Aviation LLC, was substantially damaged when it struck a communications tower near Morgantown, West Virginia. The certificated airline transport pilot was fatally injured. No flight plan had been filed for the positioning flight from Nemacolin Airport (PA88), Farmington, Pennsylvania, to Morgantown Municipal Airport (MGW), Morgantown, West Virginia conducted under Title14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 91.

At 0924 on the morning of the accident, the airplane departed from Rigrtona Airport (13PA), Tidioute, Pennsylvania for PA88 with the pilot and three passengers onboard. The airplane landed on runway 23 at PA88 at 0944. The pilot then parked the airplane; shutdown both engines, and deplaned the three passengers. He advised them that he would be back on the following day to pick them up. After the passengers got on a shuttle bus for the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort, the pilot started the engines. He idled for approximately 2 minutes, and then back taxied on runway 23 for takeoff. At 0957, he departed from runway 23 for the approximately 19 nautical mile positioning flight to MGW, where he was going to refuel and spend the night.

After departure from PA88, the airplane climbed to 3,100 feet above mean sea level (msl) on an approximately direct heading for MGW. The pilot then contacted Clarksburg Approach Control and was given a discrete code of 0130. When the airplane was approximately nine miles east of the Morgantown airport, the air traffic controller advised the pilot that he had "radar contact" with him. The airplane then descended to 3,000 feet, and approximately one minute later struck the communications tower on an approximate magnetic heading of 240 degrees.

According to a witness who was cutting timber across the road from where the accident occurred; the weather was cloudy with lighting and thunder, and it had just started "sprinkling". He then heard a loud "bang", turned, and observed the airplane descending upside down, and then impact. About 20 minutes later it stopped "sprinkling". He advised that he could still see the top of the tower when it was "sprinkling".

PERSONNEL INFORMATION

The pilot was self-employed and flew and managed the airplane for Oz Gas Aviation LLC. He also flew for a training organization that provided ground and flight instruction in customer's airplanes.

According to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) records, the pilot held an airline transport pilot certificate with ratings for airplane single-engine land and airplane multi-engine land, and type ratings for the CE-500, DA-10, IA-JET, LR-JET, N-265, and CE-525S. He also held commercial privileges for rotorcraft-helicopter, and instrument helicopter, and a flight instructor certificate with ratings for airplane single-engine, airplane multi-engine, rotorcraft-helicopter, instrument airplane, and instrument helicopter.

He held a special issuance FAA second-class medical certificate which was issued on August 1, 2011 and was not valid for any class of certificate after August 31, 2012. Review of FAA and pilot records revealed that the pilot had reported to the FAA during the application of his special issuance medical certificate that he had accrued 22,000 total hours of flight experience, 150 hours of which were in the previous 6 months. He had completed C90GT initial training on February 4, 2008, and C90GT recurrent training on February 9, 2009. No other records of training, or record of completion of an FAA flight review within the two years preceding the accident were discovered during the course of the investigation.

AIRCRAFT INFORMATION

The accident aircraft was a low wing, pressurized, twin engine airplane, of conventional metal construction equipped with retractable landing gear. It was powered by two Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-135A turbopropeller engines capable of producing 550 shaft horsepower, each equipped with a Hartzell 4-bladed, fully reversing, constant speed propeller. It could cruise at 270 knots true airspeed and could operate at altitudes up to 30,000 feet. Its range with full fuel was 1,068 nautical miles.

According to FAA and maintenance records, the airplane was manufactured in 2006. The airplane's most recent phase inspection was completed on May 11, 2011. At the time of the inspection the airplane had accrued 1,305 hours of operation.

At the time of the accident the airplane had accrued 1439.2 hours of operation and was overdue for its next phase inspection.

METEOROLOGICAL INFORMATION

Destination Weather

The reported weather at MGW at 0953, included: winds 220 degrees at 5 knots, 9 miles visibility, a few clouds at 1,700 feet, temperature 24 degrees C, dew point 20 degrees C, and an altimeter setting of 29.95 inches of mercury.

There were clouds around 1,500 to 2,000 feet above ground level (agl) with a slight reduction in visibility due to haze. With the haze that was present there was likely more reduced visibility in the horizontal direction than the vertical direction and though 9 miles visibility was reported, it was likely slightly less than that, looking up or down at an angle, but nothing below 7 miles visibility. The clouds would have likely been most prominent near the mountainous terrain given the weather in the Mid-Atlantic region, and mountain and valley breeze circulations present during the morning hours.

Accident Area

From 0900 to 1100, there was an increase in mid- level clouds as satellite images of the area taken at 0945, 1045, and 1145 showed an increase in cloud cover, indicating that the pilot would have had reduced visibility and possibly instrument meteorological conditions from clouds at 1,500 to 3,000 feet agl.

A witness statement also indicated that light rain and thunder was present at the time of the accident, and review of a photograph taken of the communications tower at 1130, revealed the presence of cumulus clouds in close proximity to the top of the communications tower.

FLIGHT RECORDERS

Per federal regulation, because the aircraft was certificated to be operated by one pilot, it was not required to be equipped with a cockpit voice recorder (CVR). The aircraft, however, was equipped with a solid-state CVR that recorded the last 30 minutes of aircraft operation; this was accomplished by recording over the oldest audio data. When a CVR is deactivated or removed from the airplane, it retains only the most recent 30 minutes of CVR operation. This model CVR, the L-3/Fairchild FA2100-1010, recorded 30 minutes of digital audio, which was stored in solid-state memory modules. Four channels of audio information were retained: one channel for each flight crew and one channel for the cockpit area microphone (CAM).

The CVR had sustained only minor physical damage. The audio information was extracted from the recorder normally, without difficulty.

The recording consisted of two channels of audio information. One of the channels contained audio information from the pilot's audio panel. The quality of this channel was good. One channel contained audio information from the CAM. The quality of this channel was also good. The third and fourth channel did not contain audio, nor was it required by regulation to do so. The quality of these channels was unknown.

The following is a summary of the recorded audio information:

At 9:24:28.7, recording started.

At 9:25:00.3, the airplane was in a VFR climb to 8,000 feet msl, destined for PA88 talking to Cleveland Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC).

At 9:26:48.4, the pilot can be heard talking to a male passenger about the destination.

At 9:27:28.9, the pilot advises Cleveland ARTCC that he was descending to 6,000 feet msl.

At 9:27:51.5, unintelligible background conversation of passenger can be heard during most of the flight.

At 9:28:09.6, the pilot contacted the Johnstown approach controller.

At 9:38:29.8, the pilot advised Johnstown approach that he was descending to 4,500 feet.

At 9:40:38.2, Johnstown approach advised the pilot that that the airport was at 12 o'clock and 10 miles. Pilot advised the airport was in sight and canceled flight following.

At 9:40:57.8, the pilot made a radio call to Nemacolin traffic that he was landing on runway 23.

At 9:43:14.8, the sound of a radio altimeter aural call of "five hundred feet" was recorded.

At 9:43:21.8, a passenger makes a comment to the pilot that "he didn't hear any terrain warning alert" pilot's response was that he "turned it off".

At 9:44:00.0, the sound of touchdown was recorded.

At 9:45:01.5, the engines were shutdown.

At 9:45:13.0, electrical power was removed from the CVR.

At 9:50:58.5, recording started again.

At 9:51:04.1, sound of first engine start was recorded.

At 9:51:47.3, sound of second engine start was recorded.

At 9:55:25.3, the pilot made a radio call to Nemacolin traffic that he was back taxiing on runway 23 for takeoff.

At 9:57:07.1, sound of increasing engine noise was recorded.

At 9:57:29.1, sound similar to a gear retract motor was recorded.

At 9:57:48.5, sound of altitude alert was recorded.

At 9:58:35.7, the pilot attempted to contact Morgantown approach.

At 9:59:01.8, the pilot contacted Morgantown again.

At 9:59:06.9, Clarksburg approach answered.

At 9:59:11.5, the pilot reported his position as 14 miles to the northeast landing Morgantown.

At 9:59:58.2, Clarksburg approach reported that he had radar contact nine miles east of the Morgantown airport at 3,100 instructed pilot to maintain VFR and to expect runway 18 and advise you have the Morgantown weather.

At 10:00:20.5, sound of altitude alert tone was recorded.

At 10:00:27.7, sound of Morgantown automated weather broadcast starts and continues until the end of the recording.

At 10:01:00.1, sound of first impact was recorded.

At 10:01:01.9, recording ended.

WRECKAGE AND IMPACT INFORMATION

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