Dana Hyde, 55, was flying home from a trip visiting schools with her husband and son. They were flying on a Bombardier BD-100-1A10 (Challenger 300) airplane when she was killed in an incident originally blamed on turbulence. A preliminary report from the NTSB, however, ruled out that possibility. The report said that the force that killed her was several times the force of gravity. Instead, the incident is being blamed on a series of blatant pilot errors and technical difficulties. The airplane was not damaged, and the four others on the plane were unharmed.
The flight started with an aborted takeoff, and when the plane finally did get into the air, the pilots were bombarded with alerts. Going down a checklist, the pilots switched off a mechanism used to stabilize the plane. That turned the autopilot off when no one had their hands on the controls.
"As soon as the switch position was moved, the airplane abruptly pitched up," the report read. "The [pilot-in-command] reported that his left hand was on the flight controls and his right hand was guarding the right side of the flight controls. He immediately with both hands regained control of the airplane in what he estimated to be a few seconds after the airplane’s pitch oscillated up and down. During the oscillations, the PIC instructed the (second-in-command) to move the stabilizer trim switch back to the primary position, which the SIC accomplished."
In the few seconds that the pilots lost control of the plane, the plane shook up and down violently.
"As soon as the switch position was moved, the airplane abruptly pitched up,.." So the crew didn't verify the pitch trim indicator position before flipping the switch? Hmmm...