A problem with the altimeter may have begun the sequence of events that led to the fatal crash of a Citation 550 at Statesville Airport in North Carolina earlier this month. Former NASCAR driver Greg Biffle and his family were among seven killed in the crash, which occurred while the aircraft was attempting to return to Statesville after taking off for Sarasota, Florida. The aircraft came down 1,800 feet short of the runway after hitting approach lights and slid trailing fire to the infield. Podcaster Max Trescott said he noticed an anomaly in the ADS-B data that points to a problem with the altimeter before the aircraft turned back.
“I discovered that it was more than a jump in altitude. It was a spike in the data. The ADS-B data shows that in 1.64 seconds, the aircraft climbed 1,374 feet,” he said on the podcast. He also noted that the altitude didn’t change during the previous 34 seconds, leading to the conclusion that something was wrong with the altimeter. Trescott said the altimeter issue likely wasn’t a direct contributing factor in the crash, but its role in possibly precipitating the events that followed hasn’t been publicly discussed. The NTSB and FAA are investigating.
Not sure I would take much credence in what a podcaster posts based on ADS-b data near the ground.
Did you do any research on Mr. Trescott prior to posting your comment? He is rather an accomplished aviator/author/CFI.
Max Trescott is also a trained accident investigator in addition to being a National CFI of the Year (2008?). He isn’t your average aviation podcaster, but a valuable source of aviation safety and information. Max stated that the glitch in altitude reporting may have led the pilots to decide that a return to the field was warranted (as Russ stated below). I’m assuming the pilots had filed and it would not be wise to embark in low visibility with questionable instrumentation. If memory serves, Max hypothesized that the low altitude pattern was an attempt to stay out of the clouds; a reasonable assumption if your instruments appear to be misbehaving. I wouldn’t use the word ‘panic’ because the flight data seems to indicate they pilots flew a decent pattern (albeit a bit low), but something went horribly wrong on final. My condolences to the families involved.
Given many anomalies I have seen in ADSB data from other crash analyses, I would not put much confidence in ADSB data as an indicator of a potential crash cause. 99% that this crash was caused by something other than altimeter error.
Publicly available ADS-B data is notoriously inaccurate and known to contain gross errors, especially when picked apart closely. It’s possible but unlikely.
The pressure altitude did not actually spike, it went invalid. What happened was the pressure altitude went invalid and the ADS-B system started reporting gps altitude instead. The “spike” is just an anomaly from the ADS-B tracking web sites.
So the pressure altitude source went dead which also means the primary altitmeter likely was off line. Same conclusion, something was happening with the altimeter.
You don’t do a panic scud running return to an airport because one of your altimeters is off. He either had or thought he had a major problem that necessitated an immediate return.
Agreed, but losing altimeter data is likely just part of the issues.
So, it’s loaded up and heavy, 7 passengers, and dogs, and luggage. How much fuel is unknown, but they do have their own fuel farm there (cheaper fuel). They take off VFR (maybe rushing some to get off before the weather worsens) without filing an IFR flight plan, into deteriorating VFR – perhaps planning on filing once en route – but into what was quickly becoming IFR, and maybe there was an altimeter issue . . . and they likely lost the starboard engine . . . and they are in the thickening “soup”. First action engine out even with a suspect altimeter would be to level the wings, climb and gain altitude relying on other instruments (airspeed and attitude indicator/HSI, etc.) AND then squawk 7700, declare an emergency, and probably get vectored by ATC to Charlotte 37 miles away to an ILS runway. Unless . . . you don’t have a waiver for single pilot operation and your son sitting right seat isn’t qualified as second in command and you don’t want FAA spanking both of you hard once they investigate the circumstances around the emergency declaration. Speculative? Yes. But no more so than speculating the altimeter is a primary cause of the pilot’s response to the situation.