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| Title: | Uncontrolled Flight Into Terrain , Abx Air (Airborne Express), Douglas DC-8-63, N827AX, Narrows, Virginia, December 22, 1996 |
| Micro summary: | This Douglas DC-8 crashed following an attempted stall recovery on an engineering test flight. |
| Event Time: | 1996-12-22 at 1810 EST |
| File Name: | 1996-12-22-3-US.pdf |
| Publishing Agency: | National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) |
| Publishing Country: | USA |
| Report number: | NTSB/AAR-97/05 |
| Pages: | 115 |
| Site of event: | Narrows, Virginia |
| Latitude/Longitude: | N37°19.30' W80°53.06 |
| Departure: | Piedmont Triad International Airport, Greensboro, North Carolina (GSO) |
| Destination: | Piedmont Triad International Airport, Greensboro, North Carolina, USA |
| Airplane Type(s): | Douglas DC-8-63 |
| Flight Phase: | Cruise |
| Registration(s): | N827AX |
| Operator(s): | Airborne Express |
| Type of flight: | Engineering Test Flight |
| Occupants: | 6 |
| Fatalities: | 6 |
| Serious Injuries: | 0 |
| Minor/Non-Injured: | 0 |
| Other Injuries: | 0 |
| Executive Summary: | EXECUTIVE SUMMARY On December 22, 1996, at 1810 eastern standard time, a Douglas DC-8-63, N827AX, operated by ABX Air Inc. (Airborne Express) impacted mountainous terrain in the vicinity of Narrows, Virginia, while on a post-modification functional evaluation flight. The three flightcrew members and three maintenance/avionics technicians on board were fatally injured. The airplane was destroyed by the impact and a postcrash fire. The functional evaluation flight, which originated from Piedmont Triad International Airport, Greensboro, North Carolina, was conducted on an instrument flight rules flight plan and operated under Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91. The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable causes of this accident were the inappropriate control inputs applied by the flying pilot during a stall recovery attempt, the failure of the nonflying pilot-in-command to recognize, address, and correct these inappropriate control inputs, and the failure of ABX to establish a formal functional evaluation flight program that included adequate program guidelines, requirements and pilot training for performance of these flights. Contributing to the causes of the accident were the inoperative stick shaker stall warning system and the ABX DC-8 flight training simulator’s inadequate fidelity in reproducing the airplane’s stall characteristics. Safety issues discussed in this report include airplane stall recovery procedures for functional evaluation flights, stall warning systems, fidelity of the ABX DC-8 flight training simulator, guidelines and limitations for conducting functional evaluation flights, and Federal Aviation Administration surveillance of air carrier functional evaluation flight programs. Recommendations concerning these issues were made to the Federal Aviation Administration. |
| Learning Keywords: | Operations - Training Flight |
| Operations - Uncontrolled Flight into Terrain | |
| Consequence - Hull Loss |
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