The High Price of Denial

In April, 2003, a Beech B200 King Air on approach to Fitchburg, Massachusetts, crashed about a mile from the airport. It had made a normal approach before overflying the runway, making a couple of steep turns and then diving into a single-story industrial building, penetrating the wall just below the roof. Of the King Air's seven occupants, only one survived, with serious injuries; a person in the building was also hurt. The accident happened in midmorning. The local weather at the time was marginally VFR, with a broken ceiling at 1,100 feet and three miles visibility in mist. The King Air had left Hanscom Field, near Boston, earlier in the day, and had flown to La Guardia to emplane the passengers, two of whom were to be dropped at Fitchburg before the rest continued to Martha's Vineyard. The airplane was cleared for the GPS Runway 14 approach at Fitchburg at 9:21 a.m. The Boston TRACON controller asked, "You just gonna go to the VOR and turn inbound on the approach?" The VOR in question was presumably Gardner, located due west of the airport. The pilot concurred, but then added on second thought, "Actually, I suppose direct with that ATIS would be okay." Asked to repeat the transmission, the pilot said, according to the NTSB's transcription, "Direct adiss (sic) or whatever you call it would be fine too." Either the pilot misspoke or the transcriber blundered, because the word rendered as "adiss" was probably intended to be "kenat," the final approach fix. A few minutes later the pilot said that he was "on the way to whatever it's called," and, on being asked to repeat himself, he said, "Direct kenat." There was one more exchange regarding cancellation after landing, and then no further communication between TRACON and the aircraft. The pilot then called unicom to inquire about braking action, which was reported to be fair. The pilot (or possibly the pilot-rated passenger in the right front seat) then asked whether there were any aircraft in the pattern or vehicles on the runway. To the unicom talker's "Negative" the King Air replied, "Well, if there is anyone on the runway tell them to get off, because we're coming in!" Radar records showed the King Air descending on the approach course at a groundspeed of 120 knots-slightly more than 1.3 VS-and crossing the final approach fix, 6.5 miles from the runway, at the correct altitude, 2,800 feet. It descended on course, passing the missed approach point at 1,600 feet. At this point it was high; 1,660 feet-1,310 agl-is the crossing altitude for an intermediate fix located 3.2 miles before the MAP. Continuing to descend, the King Air crossed the runway threshold at the minimum descent altitude of 1,000 feet agl and flew on for 40 seconds, descending to 800 agl with little change of heading before dropping below radar a mile from the departure end of the runway. A witness on the ground, who had heard the approaching airplane's conversation with unicom and had gone outside to watch its arrival, described it "going in and out of low scattered clouds" as it flew directly over the runway. It then turned slightly to the right in order to transition to a left downwind for Runway 32. On downwind it was "in close, very slow and low." It made a steep base-to-final turn, "90 degrees wings up," and disappeared behind the treeline. Several other witnesses also observed the King Air's final moments. One, who characterized the weather as "extremely poor" with freezing rain and a low cloud deck, described the airplane flying "extremely slow … just above the tree line and just below the cloud deck." Another confirmed that the base-to-final turn was "so sharp that the wings were vertical," while a third estimated the big twin turboprop's height as 450 feet in the turn, with its nose "held level, until the airplane stalled and descended to the ground." A correspondent on an internet newsgroup reported, somewhat more plausibly, a 70-degree bank "in way too tight," followed by application of full power and an attempt to level off, after which the airplane "just sank sideways" into the building.