Air Midwest Flight 5481

Air Midwest Flight 5481 (operating as US Airways Express Flight 5481) was a Beechcraft 1900D on a regularly scheduled passenger flight from Charlotte Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, North Carolina, to Greenville–Spartanburg International Airport in Greer, South Carolina. On the morning of January 8, 2003, the Beechcraft stalled while departing Charlotte Douglas International Airport and crashed into an aircraft hangar, killing all 21 passengers and crew aboard and injuring one person on the ground.[2]

Air Midwest Flight 5481
An Air Midwest Beechcraft 1900D operating for USAir Express, similar to the aircraft involved in the accident.
Accident
DateJanuary 8, 2003 (2003-01-08)
SummaryStall due to maintenance error, overloading[1]
SiteCharlotte Douglas International Airport, Charlotte, North Carolina, United States
35°12′25″N 80°56′46.85″W
Aircraft
Aircraft typeBeechcraft 1900D
OperatorAir Midwest d/b/a US Airways Express
RegistrationN233YV
Flight originCharlotte Douglas International Airport
DestinationGreenville–Spartanburg International Airport
Occupants21
Passengers19
Crew2
Fatalities21
Survivors0
Ground casualties
Ground injuries1

Accident

Flight information

Air Midwest Flight 5481 (operating as US Airways Express Flight 5481 under a franchise agreement with US Airways) was a regularly scheduled passenger flight from Charlotte Douglas International Airport near Charlotte, North Carolina to Greenville–Spartanburg International Airport in Greer, South Carolina. On January 8, 2003, Flight 5481 was operated by a Beechcraft 1900D (registration number N233YV[3]).[1]:1 The aircraft was originally delivered new to Air Midwest in 1996, and had accumulated 15,003 flight hours at the time of the crash.[1]:14

Final tally of passenger nationalities
NationalityPassengersCrewTotal
Bahamas303
India202
Canada101
Portugal101
United States12214
Total19221

There were two crew members and 19 passengers aboard the Beechcraft. The two crew members and 12 passengers were American; the rest were from different nationalities.[4] The crew consisted of captain Catherine (Katie) Leslie (age 25) and first officer Jonathan Gibbs (age 27). Leslie was the youngest captain flying for the airline at that time, and had accrued 1,865 hours total company flying time, including 1,100 hours as the pilot-in-command of a Beechcraft 1900D. Gibbs had 706 hours of flying time in Beechcraft 1900D aircraft. Both pilots were based in Charlotte.[1]:9–10[4][5][6]

Departure and crash

On the morning of January 8, 2003, ramp agents loaded 23 checked bags onto Flight 5481, including two unusually heavy bags.[1]:1 The flight crew completed their pre-flight checklists, including weight and balance checks.[1]:2

Flight 5481 left the gate at about 08:30 Eastern Standard Time.[lower-alpha 1] At 08:37, ground controllers cleared Flight 5481 to taxi to runway 18R for departure. At 08:46, the tower controller cleared Flight 5481 for takeoff, and the pilots applied takeoff power and began their takeoff roll.[1]:2

Immediately after becoming airborne, Flight 5481's nose began to rapidly pitch up. By the time it reached an altitude of 90 feet above ground level (AGL), the plane's nose had pitched up 20 degrees. Despite both pilots trying forcefully to push the nose down, the plane continued to pitch nose-up, reaching a maximum of 54 degrees of pitch. The aircraft's stall warning horn sounded, and the pilots declared an emergency to air traffic controllers. After climbing to an altitude of 1,150 feet AGL, the plane stalled, abruptly pitching down into an uncontrollable descent.[1]:3 Approximately 35 seconds after taking off, Flight 5481 crashed into an aircraft maintenance hangar and burst into flames.[1]:4,8

The nineteen passengers and both pilots were killed. A US Airways mechanic on the ground was treated for smoke inhalation. No one else on the ground was hurt.[1]:8

Cause of the crash

The investigators determined the crash to have been the result of the combination of two separate issues. After take-off, the plane climbed steeply as a result of higher than calculated weight on the aircraft. Even though both pilots pushed forward on the control column, the plane did not respond to their input, and this led to the stalling of the aircraft.

The aircraft's most recent service involved adjusting the elevator control cable, and was performed two nights before the crash at a repair facility located at Tri-State Airport in Huntington, West Virginia. During the investigation, it emerged that the mechanic who worked on the elevator cables had never worked on this type of aircraft. Investigation revealed that turnbuckles controlling tension on the cables to the elevators had been set incorrectly, resulting in insufficient elevator travel, leading to the pilots not having sufficient pitch control. Although normally a post-adjustment control test would be conducted to ensure that the maintenance had been carried out correctly, and that the surface was operating properly, the maintenance supervisor who was instructing the mechanic decided to skip this step. The NTSB noted that the FAA was aware of "serious deficiencies" in the training procedures at the facility, but had done nothing to correct them.[7]

Although the pilots had totaled up the take-off weight of the aircraft before the flight and determined it to be within limits, the plane was actually overloaded and out of balance due to the use of incorrect Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)-approved passenger weight estimates. When checked, the National Transportation Safety Board found that the actual weight of an average passenger was more than 20 pounds (9 kg) greater than estimated. After checking the actual weight of baggage retrieved from the crash site and passengers (based on information from next-of-kin and the medical examiner), it was found that the aircraft was actually 580 pounds (264 kg) above its maximum allowable take-off weight with its center of gravity 5% to the rear of the allowable limit.

It was determined that neither problem alone would have caused the loss of control, which explains why it had previously been flown without incident and had safely departed Huntington, West Virginia.

Aftermath

The NTSB report included 21 safety recommendations.

As a result of the weight issues discovered, the FAA planned to investigate and potentially revise estimated weight values, something that had not been done since 1936. Air Midwest used an average weight of 200 pounds (90.7 kg) per passenger after the accident, but the NTSB suggests that airlines use actual weights instead of average. 70% of small air carriers still use average.[8] Air Midwest publicly apologized for the incident after the family of crash victim Christiana Grace Shepherd pressured the airline to do so.[9][10] Air Midwest ceased operations in 2008.

There is a memorial outside of Charlotte, North Carolina.

See also
Flight 5481 Memorial in Matthews, North Carolina

Dramatization

The crash was featured in Season 5 of the Canadian made, internationally distributed documentary series Mayday, in an episode titled "Dead Weight".[8]

Images
  • US Airways hangar at Charlotte Douglas International Airport as viewed from Terminal in 2009.
  • US Airways hangar at Charlotte Douglas International Airport viewed from Runway 18R.
  • Detail view of crash location at northwest corner of US Airways hangar at Charlotte Douglas International Airport viewed from Runway 5.
  • Flight 5481 (in background), shortly after impact

Notes
  1. All times in the NTSB's final report are given in Eastern Standard Time (UTC−05:00).[1]:1

References

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Transportation Safety Board.

  1. Aircraft Accident Report: Loss of Pitch Control During Takeoff, Air Midwest Flight 5481, Raytheon (Beechcraft) 1900D, N233YV, Charlotte, North Carolina, January 8, 2003 (PDF). National Transportation Safety Board. February 26, 2004. NTSB/AAR-04/01. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 17, 2015.
  2. Ranter, Harro. "ASN Aircraft accident Beechcraft 1900D N233YV Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, NC (CLT)". aviation-safety.net. Retrieved January 6, 2020.
  3. "FAA Registry (N233YV)". Federal Aviation Administration.
  4. "AIR MIDWEST 5481 CREW AND PASSENGER NAME LIST AMPLIFICATION" (Archive) US Airways
  5. "AIR MIDWEST FLIGHT 5481 CREW AND PARTIAL PASSENGER NAME LIST NOTIFICATION #4", (Archive) US Airways
  6. "AIR MIDWEST FLIGHT 5481 CREW AND PASSENGER NAME LIST UPDATE NOTIFICATION #5", (Archive) US Airways
  7. "Loss of Pitch Control Caused Fatal Airliner Crash in Charlotte, North Carolina Last Year". National Transportation Safety Board. February 26, 2004. NTSB SB-04-03.
  8. "Dead Weight". Mayday. Season 5. 2008. Discovery Channel Canada / National Geographic Channel.
  9. Hedlund, Paul J. and Ronald L. M. Goldman. "Another Level of Justice: The Public Apology." Andrews Litigation Reporter (at Baum Hedlund Law). April 25, 2006. Volume 24, Issue 5.
  10. Hedlund, Baum (May 6, 2005). "Companies Accept Responsibility and Publicly Apologize to the Families of the January 8, 2003 Air Midwest Flight 5481 Crash in Charlotte, North Carolina". Baum Hedlund Law. Retrieved October 27, 2008.
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