Page 5 - Forum-2020-JulyToSeptember

lot, and five passengers were on board. ments before impact. The audio retrieved
During the final approach to Runway 07, from the Wi-Flight was complete and
when the aircraft was 1.4 nautical miles instrumental to the understanding of the
west southwest of the airport, it deviated events leading to the accident.
south of the approach path. At approx- Although not required by regulation,
imately 1230 Atlantic daylight time, the installation and use of a lightweight
aircraft control was lost, resulting in the flight recording system during the oc-
aircraft striking the ground in a near-level currence flight, as well as the successful
attitude. The aircraft was destroyed, and retrieval of its data during the investiga-
all occupants were fatally injured. There tion, permitted a greater understanding
was no postimpact fire. of this accident.
A lightweight flight recording system The final report found that the cause Beverley Harvey
was on board the occurrence aircraft, of the aircraft’s upset and subsequent
although it was not required by regula- impact was due to a loss of control that
tion. This device was a cell phone that occurred when the pilot rapidly added
had GPS, voice recording, and acceler- full power at a low airspeed while at a low
ometer capabilities; it was attached to altitude, causing a power-induced upset.
the aircraft’s radio. Although it was not This resulted in the aircraft rolling sharply
a crash-survivable recorder, TSB inves- to the right and descending rapidly. It
tigators recovered the recorder from the was the analysis of the recordings that
wreckage, and the TSB engineering lab- allowed the determination of the rapid
oratory was able to extract and analyze throttle advance by the pilot.
its data. The resulting information was The second accident that this paper
critical to understanding the sequence of will examine is from the TSB’s aviation Bruce Mullen
events that led to the aircraft’s departure investigation report A16P0186: Loss of
from controlled flight; without recorders, control and collision with terrain/Cessna
crucial information to understand these Citation 500, C-GTNG/Kelowna Airport,
events would not have been available. British Columbia, Canada, Oct. 13, 2016.

Data retrieval and analysis TSB report summary
The investigation successfully recovered On Oct. 13, 2016, a privately operated
data from the terrain awareness and Cessna Citation 500 (registration C-GT-
warning system and the Wi-Flight record- NG, serial number 500-0169) departed
ing device. These data were used to recon- Kelowna Airport (CYLW) in British
struct the flight profile during all stages of Columbia on an instrument flight rules
flight, enhancing the investigators’ ability night flight to Calgary/Springbank
to understand and analyze the final mo- Airport (CYBW), Alberta, Canada. The Christina M. Rudin-Brown
July-September 2020 ISASI Forum • 5