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The wreckage of a Learjet that was carrying former Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker, Adam Goldstein, also known as DJ AM, and four others rests on an embankment along Highway 302, along the outskirts of the Columbia Metropolitan Airport, Saturday, Sept. 20, 2008, in Columbia, S.C. Barker and Goldstein were critically injured; two other passengers and two crew members were killed. (AP Photo/Brett Flashnick)
The main landing gear tires on the Learjet that crashed last month at Columbia Metropolitan Airport shredded as the plane sped down the runway on takeoff, federal investigators said Wednesday.
In an updated summary of the Sept. 19 crash that killed four and injured two, the National Transportation Safety Board said runway marks indicate the Learjet 60 was riding on its wheel rims more than 3,000 feet before the end of the 8,600-foot runway.
Federal investigators earlier would not say whether more than one tire had blown. The latest report indicated all four main landing gear tires were destroyed, noting the wheel sets were “found with very little rubber other than tire beads.”
An aviation attorney said Wednesday he believes the plane couldn’t stop because it likely encountered the same mechanical problem that occurred in another Learjet 60 crash in Alabama in 2001.
“It is amazing that this could happen twice,” said Dallas attorney and pilot Ladd Sanger, who represented the injured pilots in the 2001 crash. “The fact that Learjet hasn’t fixed this after the first Lear crash is unbelievable.”
Leo Knaapen, a spokesman for the plane’s manufacturer Bombardier Aerospace, said Wednesday he had not seen the latest federal report on the crash. He declined to comment on Sanger’s theory, saying only, “I’m not going to get into a public sparring with a lawyer.”
The report said the first piece of tire debris was found at about the 2,300-foot mark, and “numerous other pieces of tire debris were located along the runway.”
The report said a preliminary examination of one of the engines found the plane likely was operating at “high power” at the time of the crash. It also said the jet’s thrust reversers, which are used to slow an aircraft, were found on the crashed plane in the “stowed” position, suggesting they were never deployed.
Sanger said if the “squat switches” on the plane’s landing gears were damaged as the aircraft was heading down the runway, it could fool the jet’s computer system into believing the plane already was airborne. That, in turn, would prevent the thrust reversers from working properly, he said.
“The poor pilots were sitting with their feet on the brakes trying to do everything possible to stop the plane ... when, in fact, the plane was continuing to gain speed,” he said.
He said after the first landing gear tire blew, the braking pressure combined with the high forward speed of the plane could have resulted in blowouts of the other three tires located under the wings. The nose tire doesn’t have brakes, he added.
Aviation expert Jim Walters of Virginia said Wednesday under normal conditions the pilots should have been able to abort the flight, given the fact that first tire apparently blew relatively early in the takeoff approach.
Federal guidelines recommend that pilots take off with blown tires if their plane has reached takeoff speed. But Walters, a commercial airlines pilot and former chairman of the Air Line Pilots Association’s Accident Investigation Board, said he doubts the Learjet 60 could have reached takeoff speed if it was riding primarily on its wheel rims.
The crash killed pilot Sarah Lemmon, 31; co-pilot James Bland, 52; and passengers Chris Baker, 29, and Charles Still, 25. Baker and Still were assistants to rock drummer Travis Barker, 32, who survived along with fellow musician DJ AM, 35, whose real name is Adam Goldstein.
Reach Brundrett at (803) 771-8484.