On October 14, 2004, about 10:15 p.m. central daylight time, Pinnacle Airlines, doing business as Northwest Airlink flight 3701, a Bombardier CL-600 2B19, crashed about 2.5 miles south of the Jefferson City Memorial Airport, in Jefferson City, Missouri, and into a residential area. The flight was a non-revenue repositioning flight from Little Rock National Airport, Little Rock, Arkansas, to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, Minneapolis, Minnesota. The captain and the first officer were killed, and the airplane was destroyed by impact forces and a postcrash fire. No one on the ground was injured.

On the day of the accident, another flight crew was scheduled to fly the accident airplane from Little Rock to Minneapolis, but the flight was canceled because of a problem with the right engine bleed air sensing loop. The loop was replaced by maintenance later that day and the airplane was then released for service and scheduled for repositioning to Minneapolis.

The accident airplane departed Little Rock about 9:21 p.m. The airplane was dispatched to an altitude of 33,000 feet. Shortly after takeoff, the flight crew did an abrupt pitch-up maneuver that resulted in a load of 1.8 Gs, and caused the airplane's stall protection system to activate. After the system activated, the flight crew reduced the airplane's pitch angle and continued to climb. At an altitude of about 14,000 feet the flight crew engaged the autopilot for about 80 seconds. Air to ground communication and the flight data recorder or the FDR indicated that, during this time period, the flight crewmembers changed seats. At an altitude of about 15,000 feet, the flight crew disengaged the airplane's autopilot and leveled off. The flight crew pulled back on the control column until the airplane pitched up to 17 degrees, resulting in a load of 2.3 Gs and then the flight crew pushed forward on the control column so that the loads dropped to 0.3 "G". Shortly thereafter, the flight crew pulled back on the control column again, resulting in a similar pitch and G load. The flight crew then made large rudder inputs both to the left and to the right. After these inputs, the autopilot was engaged and airplane's climb resumed. At an altitude of 25,000 feet, the flight crew once again disengaged the autopilot, then pulled back and released the control column a few times over a span of 30 seconds, and then re-engaged the autopilot. The flight crew increased the airplane's vertical speed from 600 feet per minute to about 5,000 feet per minute for several seconds. Afterward, the flight crew requested and received clearance to 41,000 feet and climbed to that altitude using the autopilot and maintaining a rate of climb of 500 feet per minute. During the climb, the airspeed decreased, and the angle of attack increased.(Slide 6 - FDR plot) The airplane was at an altitude of 41,000 feet for about 3 minutes when the right stick shaker activated, which disengaged the autopilot. This graph reflects 60 seconds of data plotted from selected FDR aircraft performance, control and status parameters.

The right stick shaker activation and autopilot disengagement is highlighted by the red circle near the bottom left corner of the slide. The green line is the right stick shaker parameter, which activated, as shown by the peak. The black line is the autopilot parameter, and it indicates that the autopilot disengaged when the right stick shaker activated and remained off for the rest of the flight.

After the autopilot disengaged, the control column moved forward to neutral for a few seconds. This action is highlighted by the red circle. The control column position is shown by the purple line for the captain's side and the brown line for the first officer's side. The flight crew then pulled back on the control column, increasing the angle of attack enough to activate both the stick shaker and the stick pusher. The activation of the stick pusher, shown by the blue and teal lines, applied an 80-pound force which moved the control column forward, reducing the angle of attack, shown by the pink line, and pointed out by the red arrow. The stick pusher released when the airplane reached an angle of attack of zero.

During the next 10 seconds, the flight crew pulled back on the control column far enough to activate the stick shaker and stick pusher three more times, and each time the stick pusher moved the control column forward in response. This event is highlighted by the red circle in the lower middle of the slide, with the orange and green lines showing the stick shaker, and the blue and teal lines showing the stick pusher. The peaks within the circle show when either the stick pusher or the stick shaker had activated.

After the stick pusher moved the control column forward for the third time, as shown in the red circle, the pitch angle of the airplane (red line), went from a nose up attitude of 7 degrees (as pointed to by the the red arrow) to a nose down attitude of 20 degrees (shown by the red arrow pointing down), back to a nose up attitude of 30 degrees (shown by the red arrow pointing up).

The red line on this slide shows the overall flight track of the accident flight after the flight crew reached an altitude of 41,000 feet. The chart is oriented north-up, and the airplane's track starts at the bottom of the chart reflecting its northerly movement towards the accident location near the top of the chart. Pertinent air traffic control or ATC communications, altitude (in flight level) and time are shown in the white boxes.

The overall flight track shown on the previous slide is now shown in the box on the left side with yellow and red circles indicating events of interest along the flight track. The white boxes are now on the right side, along with an enlarged view of the point along the flight track marked by the yellow circles. The red circles are reference points.

Just before the series of stick shaker and stick pusher events, the flight crew requested a lower altitude from ATC. The engine core rotation speed or N2 indications on both engines began to decrease during the stick pusher and stick shaker events. Before the flight crew was cleared to operate at a lower altitude, the airplane entered an aerodynamic stall, the engines flamed out, and the flight crew declared an emergency. The flight crew recovered from the stall at an altitude of about 38,000 feet, but both engines were still inoperative.

As the airplane descended to an altitude of 30,000 feet, the indicated N2 was zero. Shortly thereafter, the flight crew requested and received a descent clearance from ATC to an altitude of 13,000 feet.

At an altitude of about 20,000 feet, the flight crew reported that an engine failure had occurred at 41,000 feet and that they were descending to restart the other engine. According to the cockpit voice recorder transcript, the flight crew used the dual engine failure checklist in their attempt to restart the engines. However, FDR data indicated that N2 was still zero on both engines.

The dual engine failure checklist stated that an indicated airspeed of 300 knots and an indicated N2 of 12 percent were needed to attempt a windmill restart (as highlighted in this slide in yellow). The flight crew discussed a windmill restart, but the airspeed never increased above 240 knots during this time frame and both engines' indicated N2 remained at zero.

The next option on the dual engine failure checklist was to attempt an auxiliary power unit or APU assisted start at an altitude of 13,000 feet.

For an APU assisted start, N2 must indicate at least 28 percent before fuel can be turned on to start the engine. The flight crew attempted four engine restarts during a 7-minute time frame, but the indicated N2 remained at zero throughout all four attempts and for the rest of the flight. At an altitude of about 10,000 feet and about 12 minutes after declaring an emergency, the flight crew changed back into their designated seats then informed ATC that they had a double engine failure and requested a direct route to any airport. ATC directed the flight to the Jefferson City airport. At an altitude of about 2,700 feet, the flight crew stated that the airport beacon was in sight. Radar contact with the flight was lost when the airplane was at an altitude of 900 feet.This slide shows the flight track of the accident flight in blue. As in the earlier slides, this chart is oriented north-up with the track ending at the accident location.Bold letters show the identifiers of the six airports in the area that could have accommodated the accident airplane's weight and runway limitations when the flight crew initially declared an emergency (as pointed out by the red arrow). Airplane performance data indicated that when the airplane was at an altitude of 30,000 feet (shown by the yellow arrow) that the maximum range at best glide speed still included all six airports. The yellow boxes are location points for altitude reference. The red circle indicates the perimeter of the airplane's best glide range for that altitude. Any deviations from the best glide airspeed of 170 knots or maneuvers, would restrict the allowable glide range shown on these charts.As the airplane descended to an altitude of 20,000 feet, five suitable airports were within the airplane's glide range.At an altitude of 10,000 feet, only the Lee C. Fine Memorial Airport in Kaisar Lake Ozark, Missouri, identified by the AIZ bold letters, was within the best glide range for the accident airplane. Jefferson City Memorial Airport was just outside the best glide range due to changes in the airspeed.

The NTSB was notified of the accident shortly after ATC lost contact with the airplane. A go-team was launched early the next morning, and was accompanied by former Board Member Carol Carmody. The following groups were formed: Powerplants, Operations & Human Performance, Aircraft Performance, Systems, Air Traffic Control, Structures, Weather, Cockpit Voice Recorder, Flight Data Recorder, and Maintenance Records.

The staff members who have assisted with the investigation are listed on the following slides.

Assisting the Safety Board with its investigation of this accident are the parties listed on this slide. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has provided an accredited representative for this investigation. He is being assisted by technical advisors from Transport Canada and Bombardier Aerospace.

In addition to the Safety Board staff who are part of the investigation team, I would like to acknowledge those staff members who helped prepare for this public hearing. Madam Chairman, this concludes my opening statement. Thank you.