During the January 23 public meeting on the icing-related crash of a Cessna Citation 560 near Pueblo, Colo., NTSB members criticized the FAA and Cessna for not updating critical icing information used by pilots and certification engineers. The Cessna information to which the NTSB referred is instructions in the aircraft flight manual (AFM) that tell pilots in most circumstances to wait for ice to build to a depth of between one-quarter and half an inch before inflating deice boots. The FAA information is the FAR Part 25 Appendix C icing envelope, which has yet to recognize supercooled large droplet icing. Both subjects are longtime targets of NTSB recommendations.
Two Cessna Citation 560s owned by Circuit City Stores and operated by charter/management firm Martinair were flying to Pueblo, Colo., to refuel during a trip to the West Coast on Feb. 16, 2005. The first to attempt the approach crashed four miles east of Pueblo Memorial Airport after picking up ice. The pilots did not inflate the deice boots during the approach, according to the NTSB. They also failed to increase speed above Vref as specified in the AFM and the Citation, still on autopilot, got too slow and stalled, killing the six passengers and both pilots.
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