Convair Div. of Gen. Dynamics CV-340 (580)AIR TAHOMA INC
Florence, KY, USA · 2004-08-13·N586P
What happened
NTSB summary, verbatimThe Board's full report is available at http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/publictn.htm, AAR-06/03, PB2006-910403. On August 13, 2004, about 0049 eastern daylight time, Air Tahoma, Inc., flight 185, a Convair 580, N586P, crashed about 1 mile south of Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG), Covington, Kentucky, while on approach to runway 36R. The first officer was killed, and the captain received minor injuries. The airplane was destroyed by impact forces. The flight was operating under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 as a cargo flight for DHL Express from Memphis International Airport, Memphis, Tennessee, to CVG. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the flight, which operated on an instrument flight rules flight plan.
Photographs
1the aircraft, and what the investigators foundPhotographs are NTSB docket attachments — works of the US government, in the public domain. Captions are the Board’s own.
Probable cause
the Board's determinationfuel starvation resulting from the captain's decision not to follow approved fuel crossfeed procedures. Contributing to the accident were the captain's inadequate preflight planning, his subsequent distraction during the flight, and his lateinitiation of the in-range checklist. Further contributing to the accident was the flight crew's failure to monitor the fuel gauges and to recognize that the airplane's changing handling characteristics were caused by a fuel imbalance.
Safety recommendations
3 issuedwhat changed because of this accidentTO THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION: Issue a flight standards illformation bulletin to all principal operations inspectors of Convair 580 operators that familiarizes operators with the circumstances of the Air Tahoma flight 185 accident, including the iinportancc of closing the fuel tank shutoff valve for the tank not being used during fuel crossfeed operations.
TO THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION: Require Convair 580 operators to set the left and right fuel boost pump output pressure settings on their airplanes to the same setting.
TO TRANSPORT CANADA: Require Convair 580 operators to set the left and right fuel boost pump output pressure settings on their airplanes to the same setting.
Sequence of events
2 timed eventsfrom the FDR factual report · claude-fable-5-1 (in-session)- entire flight (plot 1), last 15 minutes (plot 2), last 3 minutes (plot 3)approachp.3Approach and accident plotted at three time scales with the complete set of required parameters; no narrative values in the report text
- about 2 minutes before end of recordingapproachp.3Power interruption caused a momentary FDR data dropout (fuel starvation/engine power loss sequence); pad data inserted and marked invalid
NTSB analysis
from the final reportThe Board's full report is available at http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/publictn.htm, AAR-06/03, PB2006-910403. On August 13, 2004, about 0049 eastern daylight time, Air Tahoma, Inc., flight 185, a Convair 580, N586P, crashed about 1 mile south of Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG), Covington, Kentucky, while on approach to runway 36R. The first officer was killed, and the captain received minor injuries. The airplane was destroyed by impact forces. The flight was operating under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 as a cargo flight for DHL Express from Memphis International Airport, Memphis, Tennessee, to CVG. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the flight, which operated on an instrument flight rules flight plan.