Mendel, This comment by the charter coordinator could mean that he could see that the flight was approaching the Minimum Descent Altitude (MDA) and the runway was still not in sight. The factory of his contact was still a considerable distance away. After an uneventful flight, the crew contacted Huntington Approach Control at 19:23. Jeppesen is meticulous and extremely complete. I am still confused about the altimeter setting. [5] The accident is the deadliest tragedy to have affected any sports team in U.S. But it's also a month of mourning: on November 14, 1970, on a dark, wet, cold night just after 7:35 p.m., Southern Airways Flight 932 went down in a field near Kenova, killing all 75 people . They were more than a movie. A VFR flight plan had to be filed. In view of the apparent success of the nonstandard glide slope at Huntington, it is unfortunate that such an installation was not made sooner. I was to fly the ILS without at any time looking outside, the captain would monitor my performance and look out. How much would it cost to develop a system that uses directional radar (similar to Civilian Primary Surveillance Radar) that reports elevation relative to the runway, so the air traffic controller could includes that information as a safety check for pilots to verify their own readings/calculations? They were our fathers, mothers, grandparents, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and grandchildren. The 6500 lb, 13 ft-high (2900 kg, 4 m-high) sculpture was completed within a year and a half. At 7:36pm, Southern Airway Flight 932, a chartered DC-9 carrying the Marshall University Football Team, crashed on approach to Huntington Tri-State Airport killing all 75 people on board. 2) He erroneously used the radio altimeter, thus calling out the height over the current terrain rather than over the runway. These are the tales of those who experienced the aftermath of the deadliest tragedy in United States. Aviation is at a virtual standstill. First Officer: A thousand feet above the ground, rate and speed good. Area navigation systems, now in the final proving stages of development, will apparently provide descent guidance capability within the aircraft and should be standard equipment on all future transport category aircraft. Teen & Jeffrey passed away on February 13, 2022 in an . A Louisiana mother and her two children were among the four people killed in a Boulder County plane crash on Sunday, the family said Thursday. It is my life's mission to make sure that our 75 are never forgotten. Southern Airways Flight 932 was a chartered Southern Airways Douglas DC-9 domestic United States commercial jet flight from Stallings Field (ISO) in Kinston, North Carolina, to Huntington Tri-State Airport/Milton J. Ferguson Field (HTS) in Ceredo, West Virginia. All seventy-five that had been on the plane were pronounced dead at 7:36 pm on November 14, 1970 when the plane had clipped a tree on its landing, crashing into the woods. First Officer: Speed a little fast, looks good. Both systems were used to talk-down an aircraft. Here is a table from the report which shows: As you can see, the first call certainly appears to be the height over the runway elevation. Below is the link to the 50th Annual Memorial Service from November 14, 2020. Code Insee. The city of Huntington, West Virginia, and Marshall University suffered an unimaginable loss: the crash of Flight 932, a chartered Southern Airways McDonnell Douglas DC-9-31 jet carrying most of the members of the Marshall University Thundering Herd football team, as well as boosters, coaches, and other passengers. Because it was the Herd's only charter flight of the season, boosters and prominent citizens were on the plane, including a city councilman, a state legislator, and four physicians. On November 14, 1970, a DC-9 carrying members of West Virginia's Marshall University Football Team would crash on a rainy hillside, killing everyone on board. Southern Airways Flight 242 was a DC-9-31 jet, registered N1335U, that executed a forced landing on a highway in New Hope, Paulding County, Georgia, United States after suffering hail damage and losing thrust on both engines in a severe thunderstorm on April 4, 1977. . our approach speed was nearly the cruising speed of the 172. Your email address will not be published. Certainly a qualified and reasonably experienced crew of a DC-9 should know. [22], On Nov. 14, 1970, 75 people died in the worst sports-related air tragedy in U.S. history, when a Southern Airways DC-9 crashed into a hillside nearby.The victims included 36 Marshall University football players, 9 coaches and administrators, 25 fans and air crew of 5.No one survived this horrific disaster.[1]. and the height over the runway, by subtracting the runway elevation (828) from the flight recorder altitude. A China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 with 132 people on board plunged midflight and crashed in a mountainous area of southern China on Monday, according to officials and flight-tracking data. At 19:34, the flight passed the Outer Marker, and they cleared to land. The determination of Cat one minima or decision altitude was NOT achieved with a rad. It was a day that changed a university, a town, a nation and the lives of so many people forever. I find this only slightly better than an explanation that the plane crash was caused by impact with the trees, to be honest. The services can be viewed on Livestream. The captain of that flight was 47 years old who had been hired by Southern in 1949. But one thing sticks out: Many people who react to this forum seem to be hammering on the Rad Alt. Air Canada Flight 797 was an international passenger flight operating from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to Montral-Dorval International Airport, with an intermediate stop at Toronto Pearson International Airport.On 2 June 1983, the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 operating the service developed an in-flight fire in air around the rear lavatory that spread between the outer skin and . The controller gave them clearance to land. [23] The tribute was repeated for the rest of the season, including when Marshall met Rice in the 2013 Conference USA Football Championship game. They still are the golden standard. This could also at least partly explain why the crew seemed uncertain of their terrain clearance. In that case it could simply be sloppiness that he hadnt slowed his descent in preparation, so the DC-9 did not immediately level out. Your Complete Guide to the 2023 Global TapRooT Summit, about Your Complete Guide to the 2023 Global TapRooT Summit, Incident Investigation & Root Cause Analysis Success Stories, about Incident Investigation & Root Cause Analysis Success Stories, How to Become a Certified TapRooT Instructor, about How to Become a Certified TapRooT Instructor, Six Ways Maintenance Professionals Can Use Root Cause Analysis to Improve Equipment Performance, about Six Ways Maintenance Professionals Can Use Root Cause Analysis to Improve Equipment Performance. Your email address will not be published. His first officer that day was less experienced. The video made by the student is surprisingly professional and certainly heartbreaking. So yes, we did learn the importance of looking at the charts carefully. In the transcript of their cockpit communications in the final minutes, the pilots briefly debated that their autopilot had "captured" for a glide slope descent, although the airport was only equipped with a localizer. Thats not the only thing thats changed over the past fifty years. The aircraft "dipped to the right, almost inverted, and had crashed into a hollow 'nose-first'". Sylvia mentions the MDH, again: pointed to last week, but the report indicates that the airport finally got a vertical-axis ILS (albeit nonstandard) between the crash and the report date, so I guess the writer(s) figured recommending clearing some of the trees on the top of the adjacent peak wasnt useful. Improved highways and an increasing willingness among passengers to drive to airports farther away for more convenient flights made many of Southern's routes obsolete. Southern is the only US Commuter Airline serving America's 5 Busiest Airports! [1] Mendel: does modern TAWS (aka EGPWS) have a terrain database, or only an airfield database? Regulations, entry requirements, class 2 Notams, interpretation of TAFs, METARs, de-icing priocedures, emergency procedures, you name it: it can all be found in the Jeppy, combined with airway charts, area charts and the various and very detailed STARs, SIDs, airport charts and approach charts. Southern Airlines Flight 932 departed Kinston, North Carolina, USA at 18:38 to return members of the Marshall University . Consider that if you have a moving map display in the aircraft, you have access to the same amount of data. Now if we look at the callouts in the table again, we can see that each is about 200 feet higher than the FDR reference to the actual altitude of the aircraft. Another theory was that the pilot and first officer were using their radio altimeters to determine the planes altitude. The probable cause was cited as the descent below Minimum Descent Altitude. An aside guys: Last week we discussed the effects of the Corona virus outbreak on aviation. There were no survivors when Southern Airways Flight 932 crashed on Nov. 14, 1970. Airports are kept open for emergencies, mainly cargo flights with emergency supplies for .hospitals and other medical facilities; most passenger flights that still operate are special flights for the repatriation of nationals who were stranded in other countries. That the FAA evaluate the need for the installation and use of ground proximity warning devices on air carrier aircraft. Publication Date: 1978: Personal Author: Metcalf, J. I. Other than that, though, the conversation doesnt really help us to know what they were thinking or why they continued the approach past the MDA. [2][7] The plane burst into flames and created a swath of charred ground 95ft (29m) wide and 279ft (85m) long. I repeat again what was posted on the panel of the aircraft in the fleet of my beloved Tiger Club at Redhill, Surrey, of which I used to be an active member in the seventies: [7]:37, On November 15, 1970, a memorial service was held at the indoor, 8,500-seat Veterans Memorial Fieldhouse with moments of silence, remembrances, and prayers. . In addition, Jeppesen publishes spot heights indicated by a black dot and a height. ATC at Dubllin Airport could give approach guidance to aircraft heading for Weston, a small strip to the west of Dublin. First Officer: A thousand feet above the ground, rate and speed good. Itd be interesting to know which airports they were used to flying to, and how much experience they had with mountain operations. Now, this isnt an exact science. You are correct in your history; however, the merger between Southern and North Central did not occur until the late 1970's. (NTSB) On the 4th of April 1977, a brief flight from Huntsville, Alabama to Atlanta, Georgia took a terrifying turn when the DC-9 encountered a powerful thunderstorm at 17,000 feet. Jeppesen has been the main producer of route manuals, and for a very long time. I mentioned that in 1970, cockpit resource management was nothing like as important an aspect of aviation as it is now. I remember when I was new in Ryanair and still a F/O on the BAC 1-11. Cockpit Voice Recorder Database. Thanks for sharing. But there the relevant heights were calibrated and shown on the Cat 2 or Cat 3 approach plates. [3] The team was returning home after a 1714 loss to the East Carolina Pirates at Ficklen Stadium in Greenville, North Carolina. Use of this setting was mandatory in accordance with the companies procedures It was the second college football team plane crash in a little over a month, after the October 2 crash that killed 31 (head coach, 14 Wichita State players, and 16 others). Southern Airways 242 Recommendation #1 starts to point at this, then veers off into planned electronic aids that would do nothing if the crew didnt pay attention to them; in particular, its not clear that a heads-up display would have helped in those conditions. There were few lights along the approach path excepting those of the refinery which were to the right of the inbound track. At 7:36pm, Southern Airway Flight 932, a chartered DC-9 carrying the Marshall University Football Team, crashed on approach to Huntington Tri-State Airport killing all 75 people on board. Comparer Vitry-sur-Seine une autre ville. The aircraft began its normal descent after passing the outer marker, but did not arrest its descent and hold altitude at 1,240ft (380m), as required by the assigned instrument approach procedure. All this is not really relevant to the Southern Airways 932 crash. . After the crash, Red Dawson helped bring together a group of players who were on the junior varsity football team during the 1970 season, as well as students and athletes from other sports, to form a 1971 football team. [12] Lengyel led the Thundering Herd to a 933 record during his tenure, which ended after the 1974 season. It is not too farfetched to say that aviation will never be the same again. The weather was awful, we only saw the runway at the last moment, just when we had initiated the missed approach. We went into the holding and the captain gave me a thorough briefing. Ultimately the result, the outcome may be the same. The aircraft had been chartered as Southern Airways flight 932 to carry the Marshall University Football team, along with their coaches and fans (known as boosters) back home to Huntington after a football game in Greenville, North Carolina, which they lost. Theres also the point that neither the crew nor the charter coordinator thought it was a big deal that the approach plate was out of date. And if there were a defect in the static system, this would also have given them inaccurate airspeed indications, which there was no reference to, unless there were an error in the pitot system which offset the error in the static system. We know that these guys are quite loose in the cockpit, taking shortcuts. The captain responded to ask, Is that the approach? The minimum descent altitude of 1,240 feet would be 400 feet above the runway (what Rudy and I would call the MDH). You can easily fit that on a USB stick nowadays. In that post, I stepped through the sequence of events which led to the crash of the charter flight to Huntington Tri-State airport in a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 which killed all 75 on board. The point I am trying to make is: If a crew wants to do something that is legal, but not conform to normal standard practise, at least they should have discussed it before initiating the approach. The . They would have been using an altimeter setting that they were not really used to. Why does he call out the height above ground at all? Then there was the annual checklist. Does that make sense to you? Southern Airways (IATA: SO, ICAO: SOU, Call sign: Southern) was a regional airline operating in the United States from its founding by Frank Hulse in 1949 until 1979 when it merged with North Central Airlines to become Republic Airlines, which on October 1, 1986, became part of Northwest Airlines, which in 2008 became a part of Delta Air Lines. Il velivolo coinvolto era un Boeing 737-222, marche N9031U, numero di linea 19069, numero di serie 75.Vol per la prima volta il 24 settembre 1968 e venne consegnato a United Airlines il 30 settembre. According to the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), at 1555:58 the captain remarked, "Well the radar is full of it, take your pick." At 1556:00, the controller told Flight 242 that his radarscope was showing heavy precipitation and that the echos were about 5 nmi ahead of the flight. If the airport is important enough, there will have been more information on area charts than just one or two pages. All aircraft bite fools. This meant that at the critical decision altitude his eyes had already made the transition. In 27 seconds of chaos, the plane lost 4,400ft in altitude, throwing passengers and crew without seatbelts towards the ceiling, injuring 33 of those on . They were not, the captain had a lot of experience dating back to post-war pioneering days. A radio altimeter works essentially the same way as. The pilot had his barometric altimeter, vertical speed indicator, airspeed indicator, and radio altimeter to aid him in establishing the desired descent profile. It is based upon ideas by John and Ann Krieger of Huntington. All were qualified for the flight. (#3 might have been intended to saunter vaguely in that direction; possibly the writer was also steering clear of anything suggesting that the airline was at fault.). This years service will be at 2:00pm. Although the captain referred to issues at the performance of the autopilot, the descent was stable throughout and there was nothing to imply of a loss of control or a serious autopilot malfunction during the approach. Welcome to the Southern Flight 932 Memorial Website! Seluruh penerbangan dari Fort Chipewyan ke Comox. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, I never found out), I did a drop for a para club. This flight was the only flight that year for the Marshall University football team. But if the crew had prepared for this approach, concentrated and followed it, with proper adherence to the step altitude minima as clearly prescribed and shown in the approach plates, the accident would not have happened. The first officer was clearly rounding so he may have called out shortly before or shortly after he believed that they had achieved those heights, adding another unknown factor. It is certainly possible that all of the calls after the first one were made using the radio altimeter. At 7:36 pm on November 14, 1970, the aircraft crashed into a hill just short of the Tri-State Airport, killing all 75 people on . The population density of Vitry-sur-Seine is 7 167.95 inhabitants per km. Meanwhile, the investigators were not able to find any physical evidence of an issue with the static system or ports. was well above the airport altitude. Mumemorial enscription.jpg 800 600; 130 KB. The disadvantage was that it required an approach controller talking constantly to only one aircraft at the time. If he was reporting the height above the ground, then theres two ways that the first officer could have been making them: 1) He subtracted the airfield elevation (828 feet) from the altitude given on the barometric altimeter and called out the result, which would give them the correct height (over the runway, not over the terrain) to remain 400 feet above until they had the runway in sight. All 75 on board were killed. Marshall University. The aircraft was a chartered twin-engined Southern Airways DC-9 capable of seating 95, though it was not full. The report describes the conditions that night when the DC-9 was on approach as follows: The terrain under the approach path was irregular with numerous hills of varying heights. 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