VARIOUS FACTORS LINKED TO BROWN AIRPLANE CRASH.Byline: The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times Questionable decisions by pilots, a possibly faulty radio beacon radio beacon: see radio range. and strong crosswinds were among the factors contributing to the April 3 crash of an Air Force jet that killed Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 34 others, Defense Secretary William Perry
Perry, speaking with reporters aboard his plane en route to Washington from Europe, said that an Air Force investigation of the crash focused in large part on the judgment of the pilots in trying to land at the airport in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in a storm, especially given the rudimentary navigational equipment aboard the military jet. ``The question to which we don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. the answer is, what assessment the pilots made,'' he said. ``Given the unsophisticated navigation, given the bad weather, why go in at all?'' The pilot and co-pilot of the T-43 passenger plane, the military version of a Boeing 737, veered off course on approach to Dubrovnik airport in a storm and slammed into a mountain peak, killing all aboard. The two aviators Well-known aviators People largely known for their contributions to the history of aviation While all of these people were pilots (and some still are), many are also noted for contributions in areas such as aircraft design and manufacturing, navigation or had never before landed at the Croatian resort city, where Brown had scheduled a stop as part of a tour intended to encourage investment in the war-shattered nations of the Balkans. ``There is no single thing you can point to and say, `Aha, that's what caused it,' '' Perry said. ``There are at least three or four issues which combined'' to cause the crash, he said. ``There were a string of events which led to the accident.'' The defense secretary was offering a preview of the detailed crash investigation report that the Air Force is scheduled to release today at the Pentagon. While the report will outline several possible factors in the crash, Pentagon officials acknowledged that because the military jet was not outfitted with a flight data recorder The flight data recorder (FDR) is a flight recorder used to record specific aircraft performance parameters. A separate device is the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), although some versions (including the original) combine both in one unit. or a cockpit voice recorder A Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) is a flight recorder used to record the audio environment in the flightdeck of an aircraft for the purpose of investigation of accidents and incidents. - equipment that is installed by law in U.S. commercial jets - the cause of the accident might never be known with certainty. Senior Air Force officials said Thursday that investigators concluded that there was no evidence to support allegations that Brown might have pressured the pilots to fly to Croatia in bad weather. |
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