What Happened
On November 10, 2015, at approximately 1453 eastern standard time, Execuflight flight 1526, a British Aerospace HS 125-700A (Hawker 700A) registered N237WR, departed controlled flight while flying a nonprecision localizer approach to runway 25 at Akron Fulton International Airport in Akron, Ohio. The airplane struck a four-unit apartment building. All nine people aboard died: the captain, the first officer, and seven passengers. No one on the ground was injured. The airplane was destroyed by impact forces and postcrash fire.
The flight had originated at Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport (MGY) in Dayton, Ohio, at approximately 1413 and was making the roughly 40-minute hop to Akron under an IFR flight plan. Instrument meteorological conditions prevailed along the route and at the destination. Akron Fulton International was reporting a ceiling around 800 feet overcast with visibility near one mile in mist when the crew commenced the approach. The LOC runway 25 approach at Akron Fulton has a minimum descent altitude of 1,560 feet MSL, which puts the MDA at approximately 760 feet above the airport elevation. That number would matter enormously in the next few minutes.
The crew flew the approach without establishing a stabilized profile. Speed control was a problem from early in the descent. The Hawker 700A has a maximum flap-extended speed and approach speed discipline that is well-defined in the aircraft’s operating handbook and in any competent 135 operator’s standard operating procedures. But the crew allowed the airspeed to fluctuate significantly during the approach, and the aircraft’s configuration at various points was inconsistent with what a stabilized approach demands. The crew also descended below the MDA before acquiring the required visual references: the runway environment, the approach lights, or the threshold. On a nonprecision approach in IMC, that is the boundary. You do not cross it without the picture.
Below the MDA, still in IMC, with the approach already unstabilized, the airplane entered an aerodynamic stall. At the altitudes involved, there was no room to recover. The Hawker impacted the apartment building at a steep nose-low attitude. The postcrash fire consumed much of what the impact forces did not destroy. Nine people who had boarded a charter flight in Dayton did not survive the afternoon.
Investigation Findings
The NTSB investigation, which produced Aircraft Accident Report NTSB/AAR-16/03, reached well beyond the immediate sequence of the approach. What investigators found was that the accident was not simply the product of two pilots having a bad day. The systemic picture was considerably worse than that. Execuflight, the Part 135 on-demand charter operator, had a pattern of practices that the NTSB characterized as a casual attitude toward compliance with standards. That phrase is bureaucratically mild for what the investigation actually uncovered.
The hiring and training records for the flight crew raised serious questions. Both the captain and first officer had backgrounds that included previous incidents, checkride failures, and performance concerns that a rigorous hiring and vetting process should have surfaced. Execuflight’s training program had not adequately prepared the crew for the demands of the operation, and the company’s oversight of day-to-day flight operations was insufficient to catch or correct the kind of airmanship problems that lead to unstabilized approaches in IMC. The company also lacked a formal safety management system. There was no structured mechanism for identifying hazards, tracking deviations, or feeding lessons from close calls back into training and procedures. The safety culture, in other words, was not functional.
The FAA’s role also came under scrutiny. Investigators found that the FAA had provided insufficient oversight of Execuflight’s training program and flight operations. The agency had the tools and the regulatory authority to identify the deficiencies at Execuflight before November 10, 2015. The oversight that would have been required to catch them was not happening at the level it needed to be. The NTSB’s findings on this point were direct: the FAA’s oversight gaps were a contributing factor to the accident. The crew flew the approach that day inside a structure, from the operator to the regulator, that had multiple opportunities to prevent what happened and did not.
NTSB Probable Cause
The flight crew’s mismanagement of the approach and multiple deviations from company standard operating procedures, which placed the airplane in an unsafe situation and led to an unstabilized approach, a descent below minimum descent altitude without visual contact with the runway environment, and an aerodynamic stall. Contributing to the accident were Execuflight’s casual attitude toward compliance with standards; its inadequate hiring, training, and operational oversight of the flight crew; the company’s lack of a formal safety program; and the Federal Aviation Administration’s insufficient oversight of the company’s training program and flight operations.
Safety Lessons
Nine people died on an approach that covered roughly 40 miles and about 40 minutes of flight time. The sequence of events that ended in that Akron apartment building was not sudden. It built through a chain of decisions, organizational failures, and regulatory gaps. Three things stand out for any pilot who flies instrument approaches, particularly into non-towered fields in IMC.
- The MDA is a floor, not a suggestion. On a nonprecision approach, the minimum descent altitude is the lowest altitude you may descend to without the required visual references. If you reach the MDA and you cannot see the runway environment, the approach lights, or the threshold, the only legal and safe action is the missed approach. There is no margin below MDA to go looking for the runway in IMC. The crew of flight 1526 crossed that line and had nowhere left to go. Every instrument approach briefing should include an explicit go-around point: altitude, distance from threshold, and the specific visual references required. If those references are not acquired by that point, the go-around begins. Not after another 100 feet. Right then.
- A stabilized approach is binary. Either you are stabilized by the defined gate, typically 1,000 feet AGL in IMC or 500 feet AGL in VMC, or you execute the missed approach. The Hawker 700A had defined approach speeds and configuration requirements. The crew of flight 1526 was not meeting those standards during the descent. In a Part 135 environment with passengers aboard, in instrument conditions, at a field with a relatively low MDA, starting the final segment already out of parameters is exactly the scenario that stabilized approach criteria are designed to prevent. If the call is not made at the gate, the margin for error disappears quickly below it.
- Operator culture is a safety-critical system. The individual pilots in this accident flew within a company that did not hold itself or its crews to the standards that Part 135 requires. Inadequate hiring, inadequate training, no functioning safety program, and a regulatory oversight structure that had not caught any of it. If you fly for a charter operator, or hire one, or contract with one, the company’s safety culture is as important as the aircraft’s maintenance records. Ask about checkride pass rates, training programs, safety management systems, and how the company handles deviations and incidents. A company that answers those questions vaguely or dismissively is telling you something important.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is the minimum descent altitude on a nonprecision approach, and what happens if you go below it?
A: The MDA is the lowest altitude you are authorized to descend to on a nonprecision approach unless you have the required visual references: typically the runway environment, approach lights, or threshold. If you reach the MDA without those references, regulations require you to execute a missed approach immediately. Descending below the MDA in IMC without visual contact eliminates your obstacle clearance guarantees and, as in the Akron accident, can place the airplane in terrain or obstructions with insufficient altitude to recover.
Q: What defines a stabilized approach, and when should a go-around be initiated?
A: A stabilized approach means the aircraft is on the correct flight path, at the correct approach speed within defined tolerances, in the correct configuration, with a stable power setting, and descending at a normal rate by the defined stabilization gate. In IMC, most operators set that gate at 1,000 feet AGL. If any of those parameters are not met at the gate, the published guidance is to go around. Continuing an unstabilized approach into low-visibility conditions compounds risk with each additional foot of descent.
Q: What is a LOC-only approach, and how does it differ from an ILS?
A: A localizer-only approach uses the horizontal guidance component of the ILS system but does not include the glideslope. Without a glideslope, the approach is classified as nonprecision, meaning there is no electronic vertical path guidance. The crew must manage their own descent profile using step-down fixes and time or distance to reach the MDA, rather than following a continuous electronic glidepath. This makes speed control and descent rate discipline more demanding, and the MDAs on nonprecision approaches are typically higher than the decision altitudes on precision ILS approaches, leaving less room for error near the ground.
Q: What are Part 135 operators required to do regarding hiring and training?
A: Under 14 CFR Part 135, on-demand charter operators must verify pilot qualifications, maintain training records, conduct initial and recurrent training to approved training program standards, and demonstrate compliance through FAA oversight. The NTSB found that Execuflight’s hiring process did not adequately vet the crew’s backgrounds, including previous incidents and training failures, and that the company’s training program was insufficient. The FAA’s oversight of Execuflight also failed to identify and correct those deficiencies before the accident.
Q: What is a safety management system (SMS), and why did Execuflight’s lack of one matter?
A: A safety management system is a structured, organization-wide approach to managing safety risk. It includes hazard identification, risk assessment, safety assurance, and a safety promotion culture that encourages reporting and learning from deviations before they become accidents. Execuflight had no formal SMS. Without it, there was no systematic way to identify that the operation had training deficiencies, hiring problems, or procedural compliance issues, and no feedback loop to correct them. The NTSB identified the absence of an SMS as a contributing factor to the accident.
