At the NTSB’s media briefing yesterday for the Phenom 100 crash at Montgomery County Airpark (GAI) in Maryland on Monday morning, December 8, NTSB member Robert Sumwalt said the aircraft’s flight data recorder produced good quality data. Initial findings show that with both the landing gear and flaps down, “automated stall warnings began about 20 seconds before the end of the flight” and continued to the end of the recording at impact.
The recorder also tracked large changes in pitch and roll beginning about the time the aircraft reached its lowest airspeed, approximately 88 knots. Sumwalt said, “Two seconds after the aircraft reached its lowest speed, the throttles increased power and the engines responded.”
Initial investigation of the wreckage does not indicate a pre-impact engine fire or failure, Sumwalt said. Early reports of local bird activity were explained as birds seen on the airport and not, as was first thought, along the Runway 14 final approach course. The Board also said that weather does not appear to have been a factor.
The Phenom 100, N100EQ, was manufactured in 2009. It was certified for and being operated with a single pilot and a passenger in the right seat, according to the NTSB. The pilot held an ATP and a type rating in the aircraft as well as a CFI certificate and had logged 4,500 flying hours before the accident.
Sumwalt confirmed that the same pilot was involved in a 2010 aircraft accident but offered no specifics. The December 8 accident claimed the lives of all three people on board the Phenom and three more in the house the aircraft struck.