Federal safety investigators have determined the probable cause of a biplane crash that killed two performers at the Dayton Air Show was “pilot controlled flight into terrain,” according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
The Boeing Stearman biplane crash killed wing walker Jane Wicker, 45, and pilot Charlie Schwenker,64, both Virginia-based airshow performers, in front of thousands of horrified spectators at the Vectren Dayton Air Show on June 22, 2013.
The two performers were near the center point of the air show as they prepared to perform a maneuver called “On Top of the World.” Wicker was sitting upright on the left wing of the nearly inverted biplane seconds before it crashed and burst into flames at Dayton International Airport.
Keith Holloway, an NTSB spokesman, said the board does not determine pilot error, but details the probable causes of a crash. The board concluded the pilot attempted to fly “a modified airshow maneuver, which placed the airplane at low altitude and airspeed and out of position within the performance area.”
The NTSB findings follow an initial Ohio State Highway Patrol investigation in July 2013 that attributed the cause of the crash to pilot error.
The crash was more than 500 feet away from spectators, according to the NTSB. Dayton Daily News photos of the crash site show the plane struck just inside an area marked off by orange construction barrels.
Sean D. Tucker, a veteran air show performer who witnessed the crash, said Monday he concurred with the NTSB’s findings.
“It’s clear that to me that it was pilot error,” he said. “There was nothing wrong with the airplane and it was a flawed maneuver. He executed it poorly.”
Tucker, who has more than 25,000 hours of flight time and flown in airshows since 1976, said the crash was a “wake-up call” for the industry, but it learned from the mistake and is better today.
“It was a tragedy and it was horrific for the audience to witness, horrific for the families involved, and the best thing we can do as an industry is learn from these mistakes and grow from that so we don’t repeat these mistakes,” he said.
No future changes
Air show and airport officials said Monday they do not expect any changes at future airshows because of the NTSB findings. The next airshow is June 20-21, 2015.
Dayton Air Show Executive Director Terry Grevious said the safety plan in case of a crash worked.
“It was sufficient for this incident and that’s been a well-established (safety) box for many, many years, I mean not just for Dayton, but all over the country,” he said. “It’s got a long history and it’s never had a spectator accident as a result of an (aviation) accident.
“The crowd was never in any danger in terms of where he hit and where the maneuver took place,” he said. “He was well away from the crowd.”
Airshow performers fly in an acrobatic box, or a safety zone, to avoid property damage or bystanders’ loss of life, said Terry Slaybaugh, city of Dayton aviation director.
“When we set up for an air show, we create an area that is basically free of spectators and anything else,” he said.
Grevious said the FAA certified Schwenker to perform acrobatic maneuvers. “He was a fully qualified pilot,” he said. “These things unfortunately happen sometimes, but he was experienced to do the maneuver.”
For this year’s airshow, organizers took extra safety precautions when a third fire truck was added to two smaller trucks because of concerns about the response time to a crash in April at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, Calif., that killed a stunt pilot.
At the Dayton Air Show, the plane did not have a so-called black box to record flight data, and NTSB investigators relied on five primary videos, among other factors, to help determine the causes of the crash.
NTSB investigators had said the two performers had not reported any mechanical problems with the World War II-era plane built in 1941 during a practice. The plane had an annual inspection in April 2013.
Jason Aguilera, an NTSB air safety investigator in Denver who examined the crash site, said Monday the agency continues to look at the possibility of recommending some planes carry black boxes.
NTSB findings
The probable cause report said the videos showed the airplane began a shallow climb to re-position for the maneuver. The 450-horsepower plane appeared to be flying slower than normal, investigators said. A left roll to turn the aircraft upside down, or inverted, was stopped before completed, the report said.
During the last seconds of the flight, the plane’s flight path shifted from east to east-northeast “which directed it outside the performance area and toward a Boeing 757 parked near aircraft hangars” about three-tenths of a mile and east-southeast of the crash site, NTSB said. The Boeing 757 was in a static display area, airshow officials said.
Just 1.3 seconds before the crash, the plane rolled right and “then abruptly pitched toward the ground before impact,” NTSB said.
In a factual narrative report released before the probable cause findings, NTSB investigators noted the speed of the nearly inverted plane dropped from 106 miles per hour to 82 mph just before the plane’s left wing struck the ground.
“Of note,” the report said, “the maneuver’s targeted airspeed is reported to be 110 mph.”
Before the performance, an airshow crew member said he heard Wicker tell Schwenker that he had flown too fast previously for her to position herself on the wing, the NTSB reported. Wicker was a six-year wing walking veteran who had performed the maneuver for three years.
The probable cause report, which also highlighted the plane’s drop in airspeed, said it wasn’t known if the two talked about it during the performance, but it was “likely that the pilot flew a more gradual maneuver to reduce the forces against the wing walker while she repositioned herself on the wing, which resulted in the entry into the maneuver not being set up as expected and created a tighter turn radius.”
The first fire truck arrived on the scene within a minute and five seconds and had the main fire extinguished in 20 seconds, NTSB said. A second fire truck was at the crash 90 seconds later, the board said.
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