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  • 6/19/2025

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00:00A business jet shuttling passengers to Akron, Ohio...
00:04No, no, no, no, no, no!
00:07...slams into a residential neighbourhood less than two miles from the runway.
00:11We have a plane into a house. Heavy fire.
00:16There are no survivors.
00:20Investigators search the wreckage, but find few clues.
00:24The aircraft was burned down to almost nothing on the hill.
00:30But a close examination of radar data provides a lead.
00:36They're cleared to descend, and then they wait a full two minutes.
00:41Why?
00:43We really wondered, what is the situation in the cockpit at that time?
00:46Hey, you guys know where you're going? There's going to be some weather, so...
00:49I'd love to have you appear for the flight.
00:51Well, did you hear that?
01:00You're going to be able to do it.
01:03Go, go!
01:04bull?
01:05Stay near us, press, press...
01:06ت sphere off, we don't need to be able to attack any further part...
01:10Execu flight 1526 is climbing towards cruising altitude over the US Midwest.
01:26west let's keep climbing with 1500 feet per minute on board are seven executives from a
01:43florida-based property management company sorry they've charted the luxury jet from
01:51executive light a private carrier based in fort lauderdale donnie shackleford is a former captain
01:59who flew with executive light executive light caters to the people of south florida for business
02:06purposes also to entrepreneurs athletes and even entertainers 17 000 feet roger 17 000 feet leveling
02:20off executive light 1526 is flying a short 35 minute flight northeast from dayton to akron ohio
02:36first officer renato marchese is the pilot flying the twin engine hawker 700
02:42he's logged more than 4 000 hours flying various private jets
02:45captain oscar chavez is originally from colombia and has logged over 6 000
02:54hours flying private jets and cargo planes
02:58the captain had flown with me as a first officer
03:02he was a good pilot oscar and renato both seemed to enjoy flying a great deal it was a passion for both
03:09of them hey guys we've just reached our cruising altitude you know the drill we'll be landing in
03:17akron in half an hour anyone else want to drink
03:24the hawker 700 passenger experience was more than comfortable they had a good galley
03:30had plenty of headroom the interiors were updated it was a very nice airplane cheers
03:39it's about 1526 descend to 13 000. zipline is execu flight's call sign
03:52descending to 13 000 feet thank you zipline 1526
03:58i'm going to check the weather
03:59automated weather
04:01automated weather observation wind two niner zero at zero seven overcast 1800 temperature zero niner
04:12celsius all right we have overcast weather
04:18the crew prepares for possible bad weather in akron
04:21okay okay let's see akron right heading 249
04:34flight 1526 continues its descent
04:41akron airport is less than 20 minutes away
04:43i'm gonna go check to see where we're at
04:53hey you guys know where you're going
04:56you bet look it says right here on the chart
05:01i'd love to have you appeared all the time but there's going to be some weather so we can't be distracted
05:06it's not like the airlines where you have a closed door there's an open door i mean
05:13they can walk up to the cockpit and ask questions
05:21as flight 1526 descends to 9 000 feet
05:26akron visibility one and a half missed sky condition overcast 600 broken
05:33the crew learns the weather in akron is getting worse temperature one one celsius
05:43they need to know if it's still possible to land there one and a half mile visibility
05:50what visibility does this approach one one and a quarter miles all right so we have visibility
05:56six minutes from akron the crew has a new distraction a flight instructor is teaching
06:05a student pilot how to land in bad weather on the same runway assigned to flight 1526
06:16zipline 1526 we do have another aircraft that's inbound to the airport that is slower than you
06:22fly heading 360 reduce speed 170 descend and maintain 3000
06:31the crew is asked to alter their course delay their descent and maintain their altitude at 3000 feet
06:37speed speed is 170 and 360. zipline 1526
06:54zipline 1526 the piper is on the ground you are cleared for localizer 25 approach
06:59clear for localizer 25 thank you zipline 1526
07:07the piper radios flight 1526 with a weather update hey guys we just landed on the localizer
07:20and broke out right at minimums appreciated
07:27they said we broke out right at minimums which means you're at the minimum disability necessary for the
07:33approach flight 1526 is now four miles from the runway as it starts its final approach
07:44can you check if i've got everything ignition everything is all set stand by
07:50two and a half miles from the airport the pilots are still searching for the runway
08:08finally the plane breaks through the clouds ground
08:12keep going
08:22okay okay level out now
08:26i got it
08:29pull up
08:31pull up
08:33pull up
08:34pull up
08:44pull up
08:48no no no no no no no
09:02We have a plane into a house, heavy fire. We have a lot of wires down.
09:15ExecuFlight 1526 has crashed into a two-story residential building.
09:26Everyone on board is dead.
09:30The NTSB must now determine what caused this fatal accident.
09:40ExecuFlight 1526 plunged into a residential neighborhood in Akron, Ohio.
09:48Incredibly, none of the residents were home during the crash.
09:53But the neighborhood is on edge.
09:55You just don't think a plane would drop in a residential area like this. This is crazy.
10:06Yeah, looks like the left wing hit first.
10:09When NTSB investigators arrive on scene, they notice a large gouge leading to the crash site.
10:18One of the first things I noticed as I was walking up was a large gouge in the front yard in front of one of the townhomes.
10:33It obviously told me that there was a control problem with this airplane on the approach.
10:48Flaps at 45.
10:52Investigators closely examined the wreckage to determine how the plane was configured.
10:56One of the things that we did learn very early on was that flaps were at a 45 degree or full configuration for this landing.
11:06We knew they were trying to land.
11:10So, they're configured to land and then they crashed less than two miles from the runway.
11:21Why?
11:24Let's take a look at the engines.
11:25Did the engines fail as the plane approached the airport?
11:39It's in pretty bad shape.
11:42One of the things that we were looking for with the engines at the accident site was if they were operating.
11:49We really wanted to see if there was dirt, concrete bits, that type of thing inside the engine.
11:55It's like a building insulation.
11:58Soil.
12:02Those gave us indications that at impact these things were producing power.
12:08The NTSB is no further ahead in solving the mystery of flight 1526.
12:17A team is dispatched to air traffic control, hoping the controller can provide some insight.
12:26No mayday call.
12:30Nothing unusual.
12:32Oh, well, they were delayed by a piper that was ahead of them.
12:37I instructed them to change heading, reduce speed, and maintain 3,000 until cleared, which I did at 1449.22 when they were five miles out.
12:48Zip line 1526, the piper is on the ground. You are cleared for localizer 2-5 approach.
12:56The piper didn't affect the landing.
13:00The piper was on the ground when the business jet was still about five miles from the airport.
13:05Ample distance for a safe landing.
13:17At the crash site, investigators comb through the wreckage for more clues.
13:21What I needed to know was, was there anything in the accident wreckage that was recoverable from an operational standpoint?
13:33The material that the pilots use, the cockpit, things that could be documented, that's what I wanted to see.
13:40Hey, check this out.
13:48We found manuals that the pilots were required to have on board.
13:53This is something.
13:55Grab an evidence bag.
13:58It was damaged and it was burnt, but we were able to examine it.
14:10Investigators then make their most significant discovery so far.
14:18We found the angle of attack indicator in the cockpit wreckage.
14:22That's important because at a certain angle of attack, the wing will stall.
14:25What angle were you at?
14:30It was damaged extensively, but they could see that the needle was in the red band.
14:43And the angle of attack indicates it's in the red.
14:46You're stalled.
14:48In other words, this wing was no longer flying.
14:51It's as simple as that.
14:53Investigators determined that the plane stalled as it approached the airport.
15:00Now they must understand why.
15:03Pull up. Pull up.
15:09It's great.
15:11Get that to Washington.
15:12The cockpit voice recorder from ExecuFlight 1526 is recovered and sent to NTSB headquarters for analysis.
15:22When we found out the aircraft did have a cockpit voice recorder, the first thing we were very interested in doing is making sure it got back to our labs.
15:30I didn't know if we had good information.
15:35The CVR is doubly important in this case, since the Hawker 700 wasn't equipped with a flight data recorder.
15:42Flight data recorders are incredibly important because they give us a no question look at precisely what the flight dynamics were all the way to impact.
15:51These investigations are like a jigsaw puzzle, and with a flight data recorder, the pieces of the puzzle are much bigger and easier to put together.
16:01By not having a flight data recorder, it didn't give us a whole lot of information early on in the investigation.
16:07While investigators wait for the voice recording, they work with what they have, the documents found in the cockpit wreckage.
16:19The weight and balance.
16:21Will you look at that?
16:24We found that the weight and balance didn't account for the auxiliary power unit.
16:30It's a little jet engine in the back that helps power the aircraft when it's on the ground.
16:35So, they had no APU.
16:41The team wonders how this compares to what they discovered at the crash site.
16:48Hello APU.
16:53We saw that the APU was on board because we found it in the wreckage.
16:58Looks like they were carrying more weight than they thought.
17:01Investigators believe they've found an error in the plane's documented weight and balance.
17:08Were they too heavy?
17:12I wonder how much this plane truly weighed.
17:15The pilots made their calculations without accounting for an APU.
17:20But there clearly was one on board.
17:26We certainly had a concern about whether or not the airplane was within its weight and balance.
17:31The NTSB calculates the actual weight of the plane during its final flight.
17:36The APU weighs 300 pounds.
17:41And according to the aircraft refueler, they were loaded with 8,160 pounds of fuel, but they only wrote down 7,700.
17:50So, how much in total were they over by?
17:57They were only 286 pounds overweight.
18:02The plane's actual weight was slightly more than what the pilots recorded.
18:08It wouldn't have really made a performance difference on the aircraft.
18:14The weight of the APU and the additional fuel was not enough to affect the balance of the airplane.
18:21But it did tell us that this crew and this company wasn't following their procedures appropriately.
18:27Somebody wasn't watching what they were supposed to be doing.
18:30Investigators need to look elsewhere to explain why Flight 1526 stalled.
18:38We knew that there was not a flight data recorder on this airplane.
18:42So that's frustrating because we don't have the precise details about the airspeed, the altitude and the attitude of the aircraft.
18:49To solve the case, the NTSB begins compiling what data they do have.
18:56The radar data from air traffic control.
18:58Show me what you got so far.
19:03A turning point in our investigation came when our engineer was able to recreate our aircraft performance from the radar data.
19:16OK.
19:18There are 150 knots four minutes before the crash.
19:23Keep going.
19:26Keep going.
19:29Our aircraft performance expert was able to estimate the airspeed of the airplane, the angle of attack, the attitude, the altitude and rate of descent.
19:37As the plane approached the airport, you expect the airspeed to decrease.
19:46It drops from 300 down to 150, everything normal.
19:50Investigators find nothing unusual about the flight until they focus on the last two minutes.
20:01Look here. The speed drops to 130 knots and then it keeps dropping to 98 knots.
20:06No wonder they stalled.
20:08The thing that really stood out was the excessive rate of descent at the very end was 98 knots, which was going to stall the airplane.
20:17Airspeed is life.
20:18This is one of the most important points in flying any airplane, but especially, especially a jet.
20:27Maybe they were trying to stay clear of the piper?
20:31I doubt it.
20:32The controller told them the runway was clear three minutes before it stalled.
20:37The airspeed data leaves investigators with more questions.
20:45Let's look at the altitude data.
20:47The team reviews the plane's descent profile for the period leading up to the crash.
20:57The early part of the descent looks pretty normal.
21:00They're doing a dive and drive approach.
21:03They level off at 9,000, 5,000, 4,000.
21:08Look at that.
21:09That's odd.
21:10Can you blow that up?
21:11They make an important discovery.
21:18Look, they hold at 3,000 feet for an entire two minutes.
21:23That's way too long.
21:25And then they plunge steeply.
21:30Bring up the final approach they were supposed to take.
21:33It's not even close.
21:44On normal approaches, the glide path allows the airplane to descend on a general three-degree path all the way down to the runway.
21:52It looks like they started their final approach too late.
21:56And then have to race to catch up.
21:59The data shows that after delaying their approach, the pilots descended very steeply and at twice the normal rate.
22:07Once they started diving the airplane down to 2,000 feet a minute to get to that lower altitude, that approach was unstable.
22:14And at that point in time, they should have executed a go-around.
22:18The controller told us they acknowledged his instruction to descend.
22:24Zipline 1526, the Piper is on the ground.
22:27You are cleared for localizer 2-5 approach.
22:30Cleared for localizer 2-5.
22:33They're cleared to descend, and then they wait a full two minutes.
22:40Why?
22:44We really wondered, what is the situation in the cockpit at that time?
22:47NTSB investigators turned to the cockpit voice recorder from Flight 1526 to understand why the pilots delayed their final descent into Akron.
23:01Take it from the first instruction about that Piper.
23:09Zipline 1526, we do have an aircraft inbound at the airport that is slower than you.
23:14Fly heading 360, reduce speed 170, descend and maintain 3,000.
23:19Down to 3,000, 170 is the speed, and 360.
23:25Zipline 1526.
23:28Down to 3,000, he wants 170 knots.
23:31Okay.
23:33I'll have to drag everything.
23:34Somebody lowered the landing gear to start slowing the airplane up and creating drag to hopefully get a little bit more spacing between them and the other airplane.
23:47Did you hear what he said?
23:50There's another plane on the approach.
23:52He's slower than us.
23:53We don't know if he's on the ground yet.
23:54The captain was very concerned about the spacing between them and the training flight and was saying that to the co-pilot.
24:08Did you hear that?
24:10Investigators hear the sound of the engine thrust decreasing.
24:14Let's see the airspeed again.
24:16The airspeed drops from 170 down to 140.
24:26That is way slower than he needs to be going.
24:33Look, you're going 140.
24:35Zipline 1526, the Piper is on the ground. You are cleared for localizer 2-5 approach.
24:41Cleared for localizer 2-5.
24:44Flight 1526 is now at 3,000 feet and positioned to fly straight into Akron Airport.
24:53They should start their descent.
24:57Why did the pilots delay their descent for two minutes, forcing them to catch up?
25:05You're going 120. You can't keep decreasing your speed.
25:09Once the co-pilot received the warning from the captain that they were too slow,
25:13the co-pilot should have increased thrust significantly.
25:17But instead, the pilots get into a debate.
25:21Oh, 120. Where do you get 120?
25:23It's more like 125, which is the approach speed.
25:26But you've still got the flaps to go.
25:28When they go down.
25:29This is what I'm saying. If you continue decreasing your speed.
25:31But why?
25:33Because we're going to stall. I don't want to stall.
25:35How do we...
25:37Stop.
25:39They are so busy arguing about their speed that they forget to start their descent.
25:45There was about two minutes of conversation concerning the airplane's speed.
25:50The pilot and first officer were actually arguing that it was getting too slow.
25:56That delay of almost two minutes was critical.
26:00He's already too slow and he's overflown the altitude he should be at.
26:05And now they've got to chase the approach.
26:08Now he's got to get the airplane down fast.
26:10Okay.
26:12What investigators hear next is even more shocking.
26:15Hey guys, we just landed on the localizer and broke out right at minimums.
26:22They were notified that the small airplane had landed safely on the runway.
26:29Full flaps.
26:36Stop.
26:38Full flaps at that speed? What was he thinking?
26:41Bring up the altitude graph again.
26:45Okay, that's why the plane starts to drop like a rock.
26:54The team finally understands why Flight 1526 ended up in a 2,000 feet per minute descent.
27:02Twice the recommended rate.
27:06The first officer was racing to get the plane back on course.
27:10The airplane is too high, it's too slow and with full flaps rather than partial flaps.
27:15They really needed to get down in a hurry.
27:18And really that is their turning point when we said this airplane is not configured properly for the approach.
27:24And this puts the crew and passengers in really a lot of danger.
27:31He should have just called a missed approach. Try it again.
27:33Investigators now need to understand why the pilots continued their dangerous descent.
27:42When we look at the errors that the pilots made, we really had to wonder, what was their background?
27:49NTSB investigator Safiya Silva examines the pilots personnel records to see if they explained their behavior on the day of the accident.
28:03The first officer had more than 4,000 hours of flight time.
28:07He was the pilot in command for 3,200 hours.
28:10And he passed all his courses.
28:13Health?
28:15Yeah, just turned 50.
28:17No sign of drug or alcohol in the system.
28:19But take a look at this.
28:23Looks like he pulled all night or two nights before the accident.
28:27Could he have been fatigued?
28:29For the first officer, what we found was he did not have the rest several days earlier that the regulations required.
28:37Let's see what the airline has to say.
28:41So we wanted to take a look and see if a chronic fatigue problem may have manifested itself several days later to hopefully explain why this crew, and particularly the first officer, was making so many mistakes.
28:58Thanks for coming in.
29:00Happy to help out.
29:01Silver interviews ExecuFlight Captain Donny Shackleford, who had flown with First Officer Marchese leading up to the crash.
29:10Tell me about your last flight with the first officer.
29:15Two days before the accident, we flew into Fort Lauderdale.
29:19They wanted me to fly to Mexico overnight, like now.
29:33That would be fine to go, considering the duty time issue, as long as they remained overnight in Mexico.
29:43So, did he sleep overnight in Mexico?
29:46Nope.
29:48Came right back to Fort Lauderdale.
29:52I talked to him the night before the crash.
29:55He told me that he was worn out from the other trip.
29:58Even though he was legal, as far as the number of hours between, he was not rested.
30:04He should not have been on that flight.
30:06The fact that the first officer had to fly an overnight flight, and not sleep when his body wanted to sleep, resulted in circadian disruption.
30:18We know that human beings have limits.
30:21If you're not getting the appropriate sleep over time, your attitude can go to heck in a handbasket, and that can crash airplanes.
30:28Because the first officer did have the required amount of sleep the night before the crash, investigators can't definitively point to sleep deprivation as the cause of their poor decision making.
30:43There's something about the flight that still troubles Silver.
30:46How often would the first officer be the pilot flying?
30:52Only if there were no paying passengers.
30:55Why?
30:57Company policy.
30:59The company did have a procedure to enable first officers to get experience flying the aircraft, and those were in empty legs where passengers weren't on board.
31:09Renato should not have been flying.
31:12It should have been Oscar.
31:15Silver discovers that the captain violated standard operating procedures.
31:20What we don't know, and what is a little confusing, is why in this case, when you had passengers in the back, you had weather that was going to be a factor and an approach that was going to be relatively challenging.
31:33Why this captain decided to allow his first officer to fly.
31:44The NTSB wants to know why Captain Chavez broke company policy allowing his first officer to fly the plane with clients on board.
31:53Take a look at this.
31:56The captain didn't get much sleep either.
31:58He got a full night's sleep before the crash, but he didn't get a full eight hours for four nights before that.
32:07Maybe he was also fatigued.
32:10That's possible.
32:12As we looked further back into his records, it looks like the days prior, he actually only averaged about six hours of sleep.
32:21Investigators listen for any indication of fatigue on the cockpit voice recorder.
32:28Let's pick up where we left off, the start of the final descent.
32:33Descending from 3,000 feet, the crew begins their landing checklist.
32:39Can you check if I've got everything? Ignition? Everything is all set. Standby. Your damper. Autopilot. Main air valves.
32:51He just stops in the middle of his landing checklist.
32:58It's like he's distracted.
33:01There were checklists that were supposed to be done all the way through.
33:06We found on the cockpit voice recorder all the checklists that they should have complied with were never completed.
33:13Instead of finishing the checklist, the captain's focus turns to the plane's erratic descent.
33:20You're diving. Don't dive. 2,000 feet per minute. Buddy.
33:25Yeah.
33:272,000 feet per minute. Don't go 2,000 feet per minute. You with me there?
33:33The co-pilot was being coached so much by this captain that at this point, this is the very serious portion of the approach.
33:40We're going to go down into weather that's very low and very significant.
33:46The captain should have taken control.
33:51When it's time for the captain to say, I got the airplane because you're not performing well enough, there should be no question and no hesitation.
34:00Why wouldn't he take over?
34:04Investigators hear more than the effects of fatigue on the recording.
34:07By having the first officer fly, this captain then was dividing his time being a captain and also being an instructor.
34:18We found he wasn't appropriately managing the cockpit as a captain.
34:21Don't go 2,000 feet per minute when you're 500 feet above the ground.
34:32Bring up the altitude graph again.
34:33They're less than 500 feet off the ground. That's below their minimum descent altitude.
34:45It's critical that you do not descend below that altitude until you have a visual view of the airport or the runway.
34:54But they continue to descend.
34:57Ground.
35:01He can see the ground but not the runway.
35:04They're coming down from 3,000 feet and they've got to get to the minimum descent altitude, which is only 500 feet above the ground.
35:08There's not much room to work with here if you screw this up.
35:09Keep going.
35:11The CVR reveals that the captain violated a fundamental rule by continuing the descent without the runway in sight.
35:14If you don't see the field, then you do a go around.
35:15Because the pilots were still looking for the airport while descending below minimum altitude, neither of them noticed their decaying airspeed.
35:28OK, level up now.
35:32Get it?
35:46Pull up. Pull up.
35:49Pull up.
35:50They've been too slow for the last little while and they don't recognize, even with a stick shaker banging away, that they are in an aerodynamic stall.
36:00That doomed them.
36:04They weren't able to recover from the stall.
36:20This perfect storm of their own making.
36:32Investigators find enough evidence on the voice recording to conclude that fatigue was likely one component of the crew's poor decision-making.
36:41We found that the captain's behavior could have been attributed to fatigue.
36:46But fatigue alone doesn't explain the long list of botched procedures on Flight 1526.
36:55They broke so many rules, it makes you wonder who trained them.
37:00They weren't following their procedures.
37:02They missed checklists and call-outs.
37:06They got delayed on the approach.
37:08They were flying in the wrong configuration.
37:11We decided to go back and take a look at their training.
37:14What was it that led up to them making these mistakes?
37:23The NTSB borders up the employment and training records of the crew of Flight 1526 for the last five years.
37:33You're not going to believe this.
37:35They are shocked by what they find.
37:40The captain's termination notice says that he was fired from his last job.
37:47Investigators learned that the captain was dismissed because he failed to show up for training.
37:52Get this.
37:54The first officer was terminated because his performance was below standard.
37:58The first officer was let go because he struggled during flight training.
38:05Both these guys had training issues and were fired because of them.
38:10And Executive Flight knew about it.
38:11The captain's prior employment was suspect in terms of why was he dismissed.
38:20The first officer's hiring in this particular case smacks of just warm body hiring.
38:25Having somebody with a 98 degree temperature put in the right seat and say we've got a co-pilot because he's licensed.
38:31We start to wonder, did the company know about these deficiencies?
38:43If they did, did they address them?
38:47Okay, thanks again. Bye.
38:51I just got off the phone with the president.
38:54He said he knew about their history but hired them anyway.
38:57The president of Executive Flight stated that he had hired the captain because of his extensive experience in the Hawker aircraft
39:07as well as flights that he had personally taken with the captain prior to his employment.
39:14The first officer was hired based on a recommendation from another pilot
39:19as well as one flight that he had taken with him personally.
39:23He said they didn't contact their previous employers.
39:27It is very, very important in hiring a pilot to do what the law says, do what the regulations say,
39:34contact the previous employers, and have an opportunity to know if this individual has some bad habits
39:39that you certainly don't want in your operation.
39:42Executive Flight did give them CRM training.
39:45Basically, cockpit resource management training is teaching pilots to work as a team
39:52and using all their available tools together so they are operating as one.
39:59But when the investigators examined the airline's CRM training program, they are underwhelmed.
40:05The regulations required Executive Flight to have cockpit resource management training, and they did.
40:16What we found was their training was insufficient and their evaluation of the crew was not proper.
40:23This was an accident waiting to happen.
40:27The NTSB concludes that the probable cause of the crash,
40:53was the crew's mismanagement of their approach, deviation from operating procedures,
40:59and Executive Flight's lax hiring and training practices.
41:05We determined that Executive Flight did not enforce and did not make sure that the pilots were following standard operating procedures.
41:14In their report, the NTSB makes several recommendations for private operators like Executive Flight.
41:25They include better training for pilots on non-precision approaches like the one into Akron,
41:31and the installation of flight data recorders that could also be used to monitor the progress of their flights.
41:38The NTSB recommendations really comes down to what kind of scrutiny you have on your pilots.
41:44Do you know what's going on in your cockpit?
41:46Do you know what your pilots are doing?
41:49Standard operating procedures, these are incredibly important.
41:53It's like we say airspeed is life.
41:55Well, adherence to standard operating procedures is life.
41:58And if you begin to remove that structure, you go back in time and you lose the benefit of all the lessons
42:05that we have paid so dearly for in the past by crashes.