From experience, it’s not uncommon for Citation pilots to unplug the oxygen masks at the end of the flight, and plug them in again before departure. Apparently when they’re plugged in, they can be leaky. Not leaky enough to deplete an oxygen bottle over one flight, but when parked for days at a time it can become a problem.
I can well imagine that someone simply forgot to plug the oxygen masks back in before departure and obviously they were then inoperative when the pilot needed them.
It’s an example of the Swiss cheese model in action. Long time health issues, just back on medical, second flight, no second pilot, not turning back or leveling out, and probably problems with the emergency mask. Very sad.
On this type of aircraft checking the oxygen supply is a pre flight check, volume, pressure, etc especially pressure at the quick donning crew emergency masks.
There would have been CAS and Master Warning as the cabin went through 10,000 feet, so getting the quick donning mask on can take a few seconds. Absent explosive de compression there should have been reasonable time to get the masks on by the crew.
14 CFR § 121.333 requires oxygen mask to be worn if only one crew member at the flight deck above FL250, which by definition an SP operated Citation is? This applies to Part 121 multi crew, and has since been amended to FL410, so it is an airmanship consideration for Part 91.
Was there actually “no second pilot” with reports daughter and/or wife had a PPL?
A statement elsewhere from an ex-fighter pilot that someone without shoulder straps could slump into a position difficult to see.
The Germans have published their interim report.
While this is not the final report, it answers most questions which came up in this thread.
- The pilot in command reported a problem with pressurisation at FL360 and __Bold__requested a rapid descent.
- ATC did not get what he wanted.
- The pilot repeated his request, ATC again did not understand it. After the 2nd call, no answer came from the airplane.
- The French airforce dispatched fighters to intercept the airplane. One of them took a picture of the pilot in the cockpit, the oxygen mask was in it’s original position and unused.
The pilot in command hat about 1700 flight hours total, of which approximately 100 on the type and 68 on OE-FGR. He had gotten the rating Cessna 501/551SP in 2014. His other experience was on Lear Jets (530 hours), Piper Cheyenne (250 hours) and light airplanes under 2Tons (800 hours) approximately. His flight log was not recovered. In 2022 he had only flown 9 hours total prior to the accident flight, the last 90 days he had only flown the outbound flight from Cologne to Jerez.
- One of the passengers did at one time have a CPL and was qualified on (the owner’s companies?) Lear fleet, however his/her license lapsed 2011.
While this report is preliminary, it pretty much sums up the events which lead to the tragedy. Faced with a pressurisation problem, the PIC did not follow memory items (Oxygen on fist, everything else later) but tried to get a clearance from Spanish ATC instead of immediately going on Oxygen and starting an emergency descent. As a consequence, he lost consciousness.
The pilot also had very little currency on the airplane. He had recently regained his medical and must have passed an IFR check most likely, which probably accounts for the flight time prior to the trip to Jerez.
ATC did not get what he wanted
Seriously? I don’t think ATC can offer Oxygen? at FL360 and by the time pilot talks on radio they will lose all of it…
I wonder if auto-pilots in the high altitude jets have one single button that flies aircraft down to MSA of current leg in case of pilot blackout?
Even pressing auto-pilot buttons at FL220 without O2 is tough (while ago I tried while RHS kept his mask), at FL360 it’s game over !
Ibra wrote:
I wonder if auto-pilots in the high altitude jets have one single button that flies aircraft down to MSA
Surely not in an old citation.
That would be a complex system to implement. AFAIK the systems that do that go down to the “general MSA in most of the world” i.e. FL150 or some such. I vaguely recall reading about systems which do that. TBM9xx?
For sure he appears to have got the order wrong. O2 mask on first… Then descend with a ~FL150 floor on the autopilot. Then call ATC with a mayday.
Ibra wrote:
Seriously? I don’t think ATC can offer Oxygen?
ROFL, no, ATC did not understand his request, probably also because he used non standard phraseology. They did not hear him the 2nd time either and then did exactly nothing until he had to change the sector. Ok, it would not have changed much as obviously in a case of cabin pressure failure your focus must be to get on O2, start descent RIGHT NOW and then tell ATC once you are established in an emergency descent.
Cases like this are rare but stil, several on record. AeroMexico, Helios, Sunjet (Payne Stewart) and the TBM 900 all preceed this.
Peter wrote:
I vaguely recall reading about systems which do that. TBM9xx?
The TBM got a system like this after the crash of one of the first production airplanes lost after pressurisation failure in 2014.
