Colorado Aviation Accidents & Incidents

HISTORY OF FLIGHT

On January 5, 2014, at 1222 mountain standard time (MST), a Bombardier (formerly Canadair) CL-600-2B16 Challenger, N115WF, impacted the runway during landing land on Runway 15 at Aspen-Pitkin County Airport/Sardy Field (ASE), Aspen, Colorado. The copilot was fatally injured; the captain and the passenger received serious injuries. The airplane was destroyed. The airplane was registered to the Bank of Utah Trustee and operated by Vineland Corporation Company, Panama, South America under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 91. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the flight, which operated on an instrument flight rules (IFR) flight plan. The flight originated from the Tucson International Airport (TUS), Tucson, Arizona, at 1004.

The departure and en route portions of the flight were uneventful. As the flight neared ASE, air traffic control (ATC) provided vectors to the localizer/distance measuring equipment (LOC/DME) approach to runway 15 at ASE. At 1210:04, the local controller at the ASE air traffic control tower (ATCT) informed the flight crew that the wind was from 290º at 19 knots (kts), with gusts to 25 kts. At 1211:18, the crew reported that they were executing a missed approach and then requested vectors for a second attempt. ATC vectored the airplane for a second LOC/DME-E approach. At 1220:35, the local controller informed the flight crew that the wind was from 330° at 16 kts and the 1-minute average wind was from 320° at 14 kts gusting to 25 knots. He then cleared the flight to land. For further information about the communications between ATC and the flight crew during the first approach and the accident approach, see the Communications section of this report.

Airport surveillance video of the runway showed the airplane landing at ASE. The following sequence of events was seen in the video: the airplane above the runway in a slightly nose-down attitude, a flash of light consistent with a runway strike, the airplane in the air above the runway in a nose-down attitude, and the airplane impacting the runway in a nose-down attitude and being engulfed in light. About 4 seconds elapsed between the runway strike and the final impact.

The airplane came to rest inverted on the west side of runway 15, halfway between taxiways A5 and A6. The ASE airport operations and aircraft rescue and firefighting (ARFF) station was located on the west side of runway 15, about 0.3 miles north of the accident site. ASE ARFF had witnessed the accident occurring and responded immediately, requesting clearance onto the runway about 50 seconds after the accident occurred.

PERSONNEL INFORMATION

The captain, age 52, was a citizen of Mexico. He held a Mexican air transport pilot certificate that included an Airbus-320 type rating and ratings for airplane multi-engine land and instrument airplane. The captain also held a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) temporary airman certificate issued on November