Transcript shows airline pilots of plane that ran off runway were musing about sports cars

Transcript: Pilots were musing about sports cars

WASHINGTON — Two pilots were musing about their dream sports car moments before running off a West Virginia runway, according to a cockpit voice recorder transcript

The transcript released Thursday by the National Transportation Safety Board shows the pilots of US Airways Express Flight 2495 were talking about Corvette convertibles as they prepared for take off from Yeager Airport in Charleston on Jan. 19. Federal Aviation Administration rules prohibit any cockpit conversation during takeoffs and landings that’s not directly related to flying the aircraft.

About a minute and a half later, as the plane was speeding down the airport’s main runway, there is the sound of a flap handle being pulled followed by an audible warning alerting pilots to a problem with flaps of the Bombardier regional jet. If flaps are not properly positioned, a plane may not have enough lift for takeoff.

The captain immediately tried to abort the takeoff, the transcript shows. The plane the ran off the end of the mountaintop runway, halting only about 100 feet short of the edge of a steep hillside. None of the 30 passengers and three crew members aboard was injured.

The captain, Thomas Morrow, 38, later told investigators he realized the flaps were at the wrong setting and tried to adjust them in the midst of the takeoff.

The accident would probably not have occurred if the flaps had been set properly before takeoff, said Jack Casey, an aviation safety consultant and former airline pilot.

“This is another complacency case,” Casey said. “These are guys (pilots) who do this day in and day out. They are talking about sports cars instead of paying attention to what they are doing.”

The plane came to rest in an area of spongy, lightweight concrete material, a relatively new safety improvement installed to halt runaway planes.

FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt has credited the concrete material, known as an “engineered material arresting system,” with preventing a tragedy in Charleston.

The FAA has been working for more than a decade on installing the arresting systems at airports. The first system was installed at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York in 1996. Thirty U.S. airports now have the systems and four more are expected to finish installing systems this year, according to the FAA.

Flight 2495 was operated by regional air carrier PSA Airlines Inc. of Vandalia, Ohio, which is owned by US Airways.

The NTSB released only factual evidence gathered in its investigation of the runway overrun, drawing no conclusions. However, the board has questioned over the past year whether regional air carriers are held by FAA to the same level of safety as mainline carriers. The issue arose after an airline crash last year near Buffalo, N.Y., in which all 49 people aboard and a man on the ground were killed. The flight was operated by a regional airline for Continental Airlines.

The captain and first officer of that flight, who were preparing to land, violated FAA’s rule against extraneous conversation. The purpose of the rule is to prevent pilots from becoming distracted.

Babbitt has been campaigning since then to raise pilot awareness about the need to adhere to regulations, especially the rule on extraneous conversations.

The circumstances of the Charleston accident are likely to be raised at a three-day public hearing the safety board has scheduled for next month on pilot and air traffic controller professionalism.

On the Net:

NTSB www.ntsb.gov