Corporate Airlines Flight 5966

Photograph of main wreckage area
Accident
Date	October 19, 2004 (2004-10-19)
Summary	Controlled flight into terrain due topilot error[1]
Site	Adair County, nearKirksville Regional Airport,Kirksville, Missouri, United States 40°03′53″N92°32′35″W / 40.064618°N 92.543186°W /40.064618; -92.543186
Aircraft
A Jetstream 32EP similar to the accident aircraft
Aircraft type	British AerospaceJetstream 32
Operator	Corporate Airlines d/b/aAmericanConnection
ICAO flight No.	CEA5966
Call sign	CORP-X 5966
Registration	N875JX[2]
Flight origin	St. Louis Lambert International Airport,Berkeley, Missouri, United States
Destination	Kirksville Regional Airport,Adair County, Missouri, United States
Occupants	15
Passengers	13
Crew	2
Fatalities	13
Injuries	2 (serious)
Survivors	2

Corporate Airlines Flight 5966 was a scheduled passenger flight fromSt. Louis,Missouri toKirksville, Missouri. On October 19, 2004, theJetstream 32 aircraft operating the flight crashed on approach toKirksville Regional Airport as a result of pilot error, killing 13 of the 15 people aboard.

Flight 5966 was a flight route fromSt. Louis Lambert International Airport inSt. Louis,Missouri, United States toKirksville Regional Airport in unincorporatedAdair County, Missouri, near the city ofKirksville. Corporate Airlines (laterRegionsAir, now defunct) flew the route as part of theAmericanConnection network, an affiliate ofAmerican Airlines.^[3]

The captain was 48-year-old Kim William Sasse, a former flight instructor who had been with Corporate Airlines since 2001. He had logged 4,234 flight hours, including 2,510 hours on the Jetstream 32.^{[1]: 8–10 [4]} The first officer was 29-year-old Jonathan Palmer, also a former flight instructor. Palmer had been hired by Corporate Airlines only three months before the accident and had 2,856 flight hours, only 107 of which were on the Jetstream 32.^{[1]: 10–12 [5]}

On October 19, 2004, theJetstream 32 twin-engine turboprop flying the route crashed on the approach to Kirksville Airport. The crash killed both pilots and 11 of the 13 passengers aboard. The two surviving passengers were seriously injured.^{[1]: 5, 15 [6]}

Some of the 13 passengers were doctors from other states who had been due to attend a seminar at theA. T. Still University. These included Steven Z. Miller, who was killed in the crash. Dr. Miller was director of pediatric emergency medicine atNew York-Presbyterian Hospital, a prominent figure in the "humanism in medicine" movement.^[7][8] The two passengers who survived were John Krogh (68) and his assistant Wendy Bonham (44).

TheNational Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the probable cause of the accident was:

[T]he pilots' failure to follow established procedures and properly conduct a non-precision instrument approach at night in instrument meteorological conditions, including their descent below the minimum descent altitude before required visual cues were available (which continued un-moderated until the airplane struck the trees) and their failure to adhere to the established division of duties between the flying and non-flying (monitoring) pilot.

The NTSB analysis of thecockpit voice recorder suggested that both pilots were looking outside the cockpit for visual cues to the location of the airport and failed to realize how low they had descended below the minimum descent altitude. The report further states:

Contributing to the accident were the pilots' failure to make standard callouts and the currentFederal Aviation Regulations that allow pilots to descend below the minimum descent altitude into a region in which safe obstacle clearance is not assured based upon seeing only the airport approach lights. The pilots' failure to establish and maintain a professional demeanor during the flight and theirfatigue likely contributed to their degraded performance.^[1]

The television seriesAircrash Confidential featured the incident in the third episode of Season 2, titledPilot Fatigue.^[9]

The crash was also featured in Season 23, Episode 1 of the Canadian documentary seriesMayday, titled "Deadly Exchange".^[10]

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 This article incorporatespublic domain material from websites or documents of theNational Transportation Safety Board.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toCorporate Airlines Flight 5966.

• NTSB Preliminary Report fromNTSB Aviation Accident Database
• NTSB Final Report
• NTSB investigation docket
• Archived American Airlines page about Corporate 5966
• Link to archived press statements by Corporate Airlines

• Airliner accidents and incidents involving controlled flight into terrain
• Airliner accidents and incidents in Missouri
• Adair County, Missouri
• Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 2004
• Accidents and incidents involving the British Aerospace Jetstream
• 2004 in Missouri
• October 2004 in the United States
• Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error

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