A Bombardier Challenger 600 crashed on 28 November on take-off at Montrose, Colorado in weather conditions conducive to icing, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has confirmed. The NTSB says it has established no de-icing was carried out on the airframe, and reports that the accident killed three of the six people on board.
The accident occurred at when the chartered Global Aviation aircraft "attempted to take off" for its intended destination of South Bend, Indiana, the NTSB reports, explaining that the aircraft "impacted a fence and terrain off the departure end of runway 31 at approximately 09:55", and it broke up and caught fire. At the time of take-off the airport weather was reported as 2.3km (1.4 miles) visibility in light snow and mist, with the temperature -1¡C, with a few clouds at 500ft and overcast at 900ft.
Two months ago the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch final report on a January 2002 Challenger 604 fatal take-off crash at Birmingham found the primary cause to have been frost on the wings of the aircraft, which caused the left wing to stall at such a low angle of attack that the stall warning system did not trigger. No pre-flight de-icing had been carried out on the airframe.
On 21 November a Yunnan Airlines Bombardier CRJ200LR crashed in cold weather just after take-off from Baoutou airport, China, killing all on board (Flight International, 30 November-6 December).
Source: Flight International
