NTSB Animation Air Midwest Flight 5481 Beechcraft 1900 Accident Investigation Charlotte, NC

Video Courtesy: NTSB

The Safety Board's full report is available at http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/publictn.htm. The Aircraft Accident Report number is NTSB/AAR-04/01.

On January 8, 2003, about 0847:28 eastern standard time, Air Midwest (doing business as US Airways Express) flight 5481, a Raytheon (Beechcraft) 1900D, N233YV, crashed shortly after takeoff from runway 18R at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, Charlotte, North Carolina. The 2 flight crewmembers and 19 passengers aboard the airplane were killed, 1 person on the ground received minor injuries, and the airplane was destroyed by impact forces and a postcrash fire. Flight 5481 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight to Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport, Greer, South Carolina, and was operating under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 on an instrument flight rules flight plan. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident.



The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows:

the airplane's loss of pitch control during take-off. The loss of pitch control resulted from the incorrect rigging of the elevator system compounded by the airplane's aft center of gravity, which was substaintially aft of the certified aft limit.

Contributing to the cause of the accident were (1) Air Midwest's lack of oversight of the work being performed at the Huntington, West Virginia, maintenance station; (2) Air Midwest's maintenance procedures and documentation; (3) Air Midwest's weight and balance program at the time of the accident; (4) the Raytheon Aerospace quality assurance inspector's failure to detect the incorrect rigging of the elevator control system; (5) the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) average weight assumptions in its weight and balance program guidance at the time of the accident; and (6) the FAA's lack of oversight of Air Midwest's maintenance program and its weight and balance program.

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[sidewalkpaver97]

No, the elevator cables were misadjusted and the c/g was incorrect

[zachb7]

Weight was a factor in the accident but it was not an overweight pax. The a/c had recently undergone mx and the turnbuckles for the elevator control cables were set incorrectly.

The crew figured their weight and balance to be with limits, however, the pax weight estimates were outdated and incorrect, and the a/c was actually overloaded.

[MaroonCamaro]

Aft cg's will cause a tougher stall recovery and even a flat spin. Effective elevator pitch is needed to recover from aft cg's since the rear weight wants to keep the nose up. Without the normal elevator range from the improper maintenance done, the elevator became useless in this situation because of the low airspeed over the airfoil not allowing it to pitch the nose down. By this time the stall was imminent and at that low of altitude and breaking into a spin, there was no way of recovering.

[CFITOMAHAWK]

@MaroonCamaro

I have flown many airplanes with CG off back, you just have to push nose down and trim down and they fly well. Actually, they cruise faster that way. Cargo pilots do it a lot. If you don't, it will stall like in this video. They were screaming to push the nose down and neither did. Others had 9 take off and landings before (READ), and just did that. But this crew were just sitting there waiting for plane to do anything. I know CFI's that can't push nose down if low.

[MaroonCamaro]

@CFITOMAHAWK

Seriously. Apparently you have no idea what happened. Yes, the CG was overloaded and past the aft position. The plane did however respond normally until the gear was raised and shifted the weight even farther aft. This caused a severe pitch up of the nose of the plane. With the improper maintenance on the horizontal stabilizer, the crew couldn't get the nose down even if they pitched down, which they probably did seeing as the high nose pitch they were at. Oh, I'm a CFI also.

[MGR1900]

It's amazing how this company skimped on maintenance but they spared no expense hiring the best PR firm to sweep this accident under the radar. 

[CFITOMAHAWK]

@dustoff86 Not only I read the report and CVR/FDR but also I teach how to avoid that kind of stall for years. They just sat there winning that the nose had to be pushed down like a man should do but they were afraid of it and just waited for the stall while screaming like little girls do. Post a video you doing that.

I have one since 1995 cutting engine at 50 feet agl and landing straight ahead on runway and with a crosswind too. So you are the one is wrong. Read better. I will post

[dustoff86]

@CFITOMAHAWK

Wow you could not be more wrong on what happened... please read the report and educate yourself.

[CFITOMAHAWK]

1:26 co pilot tells captain to push nose down, she does not, he takes over and don't push nose down either, 1:31 she yells him push nose down, neither does, she yells loud instead. let plane stalls full power on. As simple as that. Neither could push nose down? Other crews did and didn't stall. This crew panicked and even pulled on wheel while stalling. Just like the Buffalo Dash-8 stall from 2,000 feet down to a house. Panic Pull Stall. One of hundreds each year in USA, most on smaller planes.

[CFITOMAHAWK]

Wow, we are a bit overloaded, wow, that will make me not release some back pressure and avoid the nose from yanking up, wow what do i do we are stalling. Some Pipipilots. They just let the nose jerk up and didn't push down to correct the pitch. Just sat there whinning like girls and let it stall. Nine other pilot landings and take offs were good, but this crew just panicked and even pulled wheel instead of pushing it. Some pilots. They panicked and stalled it on their own hangar, killing all.

[scarletsmith]

@avionicswirenut They did test the flight surfaces after it was fixed; in fact, it flew NINE times in this condition. However, the airplane WAS overloaded (if you haven't watched this on Air Crash Emergency, you need to see it to get the magnitude of what the NTSB found when they used actual passenger and baggage weights instead of a 70-year-old formula)--IIRC, they were 70 lbs. too heavy.

[keshav15157]

@theevilmeister im 13 years old