2008 Farnborough Cessna Citation crash

2008 Farnborough Cessna Citation crash

Accident summary
Date	30 March 2008 (2008-03-30)
Type	Pilot error
Site	Farnborough, Greater London, United Kingdom NGR TQ 438 649
Passengers	3
Crew	2
Injuries	2 (on the ground)
Fatalities	5
Survivors	0
Aircraft type	Cessna Citation 501
Operator	Ross Air
Tail number	VP-BGE
Flight origin	Biggin Hill, United Kingdom
Destination	Pau, France

At 14:38 on 30 March 2008, a Cessna Citation 501 with five people on board crashed into a house at Farnborough in the London Borough of Bromley, shortly after take off from Biggin Hill. There were no survivors among the five people on board. The racing drivers Richard Lloyd and David Leslie were killed in this accident.

Contents 1 Aircraft 2 Final flight 3 Casualties 4 Investigation 5 References 6 External links

Aircraft

The aircraft involved was a Bermudan-registered Cessna 501 Citation, registered VP-BGE, construction number 500-0287, built in 1975.^[1][2][3] At the time of the accident, the aircraft had completed 5,844 hours total time and 5,352 cycles.^[4]

Final flight

Shortly after take-off from runway 21^[5] at Biggin Hill airport, the pilot radioed an emergency call stating he had engine vibrations and requesting an immediate return to Biggin Hill. The aircraft was given permission to land on any runway, and the pilots indicated that they would return to runway 21, from which they had just taken off.^[6] Shortly after the radio call the aircraft rapidly lost altitude and crashed into a property in Romsey Close, Farnborough, while attempting to return to the airfield. There were no survivors from the aircraft, which was totally destroyed by fire, as was the house the aircraft crashed into. A neighbouring house was damaged by fire.^[7][8] The house was unoccupied at the time of the accident; the owners, who returned shortly after the accident, were treated for shock. Repairs to the house took two years to complete. Two Sea King HAR3/3A, intended for search and rescue were spotted circling the crash site not long after the accident.^[9]

The aircraft's intended destination was Pau Pyrénées Airport in Pau, France.

Casualties

All five occupants of the aircraft (two crew and three passengers) were fatalities.

There were no physical injuries among residents of the street into which the plane crashed, although two people were later treated for shock.^[10]

Crew

• Mike Roberts, 63,^[11]
• Michael Chapman, 57,^[12] Chief Flying Instructor and co-founder of the Real Flying Company, Shoreham, Sussex.

Passengers

• David Leslie, 54, former British Touring Car Championship driver and Eurosport commentator.^[13][14] Leslie left a wife and two sons.^[15]
• Richard Lloyd, 63, former British Touring Car Championship and World Sportscar Championship driver and team owner of Apex Motorsport.^[13][14] Lloyd left a wife and three daughters.^[16]
• Christopher Allarton, 25, data engineer for Apex Motorsport.^[12] Allarton had only been in his job for a week before he was killed.^[17]

A memorial service was held for the victims on 6 April 2008.^[12] An inquest into the death of the five victims opened on 31 May 2011 at Bromley, London.^[18] Then inquest concluded on 1 June with verdicts of accidental death being returned in all five cases.^[19]

Investigation

An Investigation was conducted by the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB). The National Transportation Safety Board, Federal Aviation Administration, Cessna^[1] and Pratt & Whitney Canada^[2] assisted the AAIB in the investigation.

The preliminary report from the AAIB revealed that there was no debris found on the runway at Biggin Hill, and no evidence of a bird strike or foreign object damage to either of the engines.^[6][20]

The AAIB published its formal report into the accident on 21 May 2010.^[4] It concluded that

• the "engine vibration" reported by the pilots most likely came, not from the engines themselves, but from the air cycle machine;
• a missing rivet head on the left fuel cut-off lever could have resulted in the pilots shutting down that engine inadvertently;
• both engines had shut down, or had been shut down, during the course of the short flight; The pilots had attempted to restart both engines before the crash, but had attempted to relight the second engine before the first engine had reached 20% N₂, causing the relight of both engines to fail.

References

External links

• Photo of the aircraft involved
• The Real Flying Company

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