Lessons from the Truckee NTSB Case Study

The only good thing to come out of aviation accidents, be they large or small, is that we can often learn from the mistakes of others.

Meg Godlewski

Thursday, November 30, 2023 at 02:53 PM ET

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The airplane’s downwind leg and allowed circling radius. [Courtesy: NTSB]

Key Takeaways:

The 2021 Challenger 605 crash at Truckee-Tahoe, which killed all 10 occupants, was attributed to an unstabilized circle-to-land approach, poor crew resource management (CRM), and flawed decision-making by an unfamiliar flight crew who failed to brief the complex approach.
Key lessons from the accident highlight the critical importance of rigorous CRM training, including effective communication and the empowerment of pilots to assert control or challenge unsafe actions when necessary, even if it creates conflict.
The incident underscores the need for consistent adherence to pre-flight and pre-approach checklists, thorough approach briefings to ensure shared understanding, and the reinforcement of minimum performance standards from early flight training.

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The only good thing to come out of aviation accidents, be they large or small, is that we can often learn from the mistakes of others. I adopted this mindset years ago when I was tasked with writing up accident reports from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). In hindsight, the mistakes can be glaring, leaping off the page. How to mitigate the risks and the failures that led to the event takes a little more thought.

The NTSB recently released a video of a panel discussion about the 2021 accident involving a Challenger 605 attempting a circle to land approach at Truckee-Tahoe Airport (KTRK), in Truckee, California, that resulted in the deaths of the flight crew, six passengers, and two dogs. The probable cause of the accident was released in August of this year and listed as a combination of an unstabilized approach and the flight crew’s poor crew resource management and decision making. The panel discussion took the event apart step by step to identify the issues and suggest ways to mitigate these risks.