On January 27, 2001, about 1737 mountain standard time, a Raytheon (Beechcraft) Super King Air 200, N81PF, owned by North Bay Charter, LLC, and operated by Jet Express Services, crashed into rolling terrain near Strasburg, Colorado. The flight was operating on an instrument flight rules flight plan under 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91.
The flight departed about 1718 from Jefferson County Airport, Broomfield, Colorado, with two pilots and eight passengers aboard. N81PF was one of three airplanes transporting members of the Oklahoma State University basketball team and associated team personnel to Stillwater Regional Airport, Stillwater, Oklahoma, after a game at the University of Colorado at Boulder that afternoon. All 10 occupants aboard N81PF were killed, and the airplane was destroyed by impact forces and a postcrash fire. Instrument meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident.
The safety issue studied is the lack of oversight for athletic team and other college- and university-sponsored travel.
We determined that the probable cause of this accident was the pilot’s spatial disorientation resulting from his failure to maintain positive manual control of the airplane with the available flight instrumentation. Contributing to the cause of the accident was the loss of a.c. electrical power during instrument meteorological conditions.
A safety recommendation was addressed to:
- the National Collegiate Athletic Association,
- the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, and
- the American Council on Education.
