Cirrus SR22T N17DT Stall Crash: Flaps Retracted on Low-Power Approach + GA News

From avweb.com, Greg Biffle crash followed instrument failure and cockpit confusion.

Greg Biffle's Cessna Citation five fifty encountered multiple instrument failures and communication issues before crashing near the runway at Statesville Regional Airport in North Carolina in December, according to the NTSB preliminary report.

Biffle's aircraft departed Statesville shortly after ten AM on a personal flight to Sarasota, Florida.

The pilot, a retired airline captain with multiple type ratings, took off VFR with the intention of activating an IFR clearance once airborne.

The AWOS reported calm winds with ten-mile visibility, thirty-nine hundred foot broken and forty-eight hundred foot overcast ceilings and a temperature of seven degrees C.

On board were seven people, including two additional people with pilot certificates, one of whom was seated in the right seat.

That person, an instrument-rated single-engine private pilot, was not qualified to serve as second-in-command.

Even so, the left-seat pilot controlled the fully fueled jet while the right-seat passenger handled radio calls and checklists.

Cockpit voice recordings, along with reports from nearby ground personnel, confirm that the left engine did not start up on the first attempt.

Both engines were nonetheless running before the aircraft began taxiing.

The pilot and passengers discussed a malfunctioning thrust reverser indicator, though the reversers themselves appeared functional.

After departing from runway one zero, the airplane climbed in a left turn.

At approximately twenty-two hundred feet, it began to descend.

The right seat passenger attempted to contact ATC to activate the flight's IFR clearance, but those transmissions were unanswered due to the controller's workload at the time.

Around the same time, one of the pilot passengers noted a difference between the left and right ITT temperature indications, although no further discussions regarding engine instruments came up for the remainder of the recording.

At forty-five hundred feet, the pilot reported an altitude indicator issue, something we talked about in a prior episode, along with the possibility of other left side instrument problems.

The aircraft's Garmin GTN 750 stopped recording airspeed at about that time, along with heading data about a minute later.

Autopilot also disengaged around the same time, though it is not clear whether this was intentional or not.

The right seat passenger, who did not verbally report instrumentation issues on the right side of the flight deck, took the controls for a moment.

The aircraft descended to about eighteen hundred feet by ten thirteen AM.

Audio recordings suggest the pilot took control of the aircraft back at about that time and turned right back toward the airport.

The pilot called out flap and gear extension, but the landing gear indicator lights were not illuminated.

A few moments later, the right seat passenger transmitted on the CTAF saying, "We're having some issues here." Although there is no alternator on the aircraft, one of the passengers asked the pilot about power to the alternator, and about four seconds afterward, audio recording quality improved, and the pilot responded that that was the problem.

He did not elaborate further on what was meant by that, though there were no further references to instrumentation troubles for the remainder of the flight.

Garmin GTN 750 airspeed data resumed seconds afterwards.