Air Crash Investigation: OSU Basketball Team Tragedy | King Air 200 Crash

As a GA pilot and OSU grad, I remember this event well. It was a blow to the entire OSU community. The only addition I would have made to your video would be the mentioning, either by narration or by text, the names of all 10 men killed. It was a plane crash, but more importantly a human tragedy. OSU players: Nate Fleming and Daniel Lawson Student manager: Jared Weiberg Radio broadcaster: Bill Teegins Pilots: Denver Mills and Bjorn Fahlstrom Director of Basketball Operations: Pat Noyes Trainer: Brian Luinstra Media Relations Coordinator: Will Hancock Television/radio engineer: Kendall Durfey

I flew on that plane with most of the people on the plane that crashed. I knew the pilot and flew with him many times. Sometimes just me and him. I traded places with a person on that flight. Changes your world forever.

I had exactly this situation climbing out of Bucharest while positioning one of our KingAir B200s from Afghanistan back to the US, The aircraft had been virtually unused, parked up outside through two winters and summers at Kabul.. was known to be experiencing multiple electrical issues. The original ferrying crew, 2 pilots, had experienced flap control issues, diverted to Bucharest and ran out of time.. I was sent out alone to complete the ferry flight once the problem had been rectified. Departing, I was flying the SID which takes me over the Carpathian mountains when ATC asked me to recycle my transponder as it was no longer transmitting in Mode C.. While doing that, other instruments began failing, within a minute I'd lost all radios and Nav instruments while in IMC, ( clouds), over the mountains. With no HSI (Artificial Horizon), I was dependent on my secondary instruments to keep straight and level. Knowing that the high terrain was not too far beneath me and having no exact idea of my location, not wanting to go barreling into Bucharest, a busy international airport with no radio and no transponder, one in the log-book I was happily able to enter myself once back on the ground... One issue was, as I was to learn later, Romania at that time was not long freed from the old Soviet Union, civilian airports were virtually non-existent, only 27 airports in the entire country.. I found Ploiesti.. a very, very, short runway for a KingAir 200, a King air with no operable flaps.. used only for basic training utilising Cessna 172s.

Student pilot here. This kind of thing is why I always fly with a Sentry device and ForeFlight on my iPad or phone. I always have a backup AHARS system with me, completely independent and battery-powered. Not available in 2001 but something every pilot should have these days. I also have a handheld VHF radio as a radio backup and a flashlight. Always be prepared!

The visual comparison at the end was a great touch. Pilots really didn't stand much of a chance, sad all around.

Even though the pilot in the right seat wasn't certified on the King Air he must certainly have seen what was happening on his working instruments. And despite not being certificated he certainly could/should have notified the PIC of what he was seeing, and almost certainly should have been able to regain control of the aircraft, especially with the cooperation of the PIC. RIP, and well done, thanks again.

I can't imagine the fear this would bring. As a Canadian, I have driven in many blizzards, and there have been times where visibility was absolutely zero. The feeling of driving (let alone flying) into a blank abyss is scary. Luckily, with driving - don't panic. Take your foot off the gas, and don't brake hard (many reasons for this, one, could be slipery and second, someone behind you will NOT see you). Try your best to keep the wheel straigh, but, a slight edge toward the shoulder is okay, provided you don't do it at speed. Assuming you were sensible and weren't speeding to start with, in weather like that, you'll feel when you hit the shoulder. You shouldn't lose control. Slowly take your car down the shoulder to a side road. Get out of the way of everyone else. Then re-assess. Flying...there's no shoulder.

There's a small memorial where the crash occurred near Strasburg, CO. I would stop by each time I went out to visit my father. I did my primary flight training at the same Jefferson County Airport where this final flight originated. "Jeffco" as the airport was commonly called, has now been renamed; given a title that is utterly meaningless in Colorado - "Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Regional Airport." Excellent video.

I had a failed inverter in a C90A one night in IMC in SOCAL, scared me pretty good. Lots of flags, red X’s, and AP disconnect warning. I used the vacuum horizon on the RH side to keep the wings level and after maybe 10 seconds the inverter came back to life and the panel returned to normal except the gyros had to spool back up. WARNING was flashing but no INVERTER light after it came back on. SOCAL was calling because my heading and altitude were wandering around. Decided that it must be the inverter so I switched and told SOCAL what was going on, got a climb to VMC. Destination airport was VFR. Next time I’ll immediately switch inverters and declare an emergency.

The cause of the failure is believed to be the loss of both inverters. I went for KingAir type training in 2003 and they gave me that same scenario in the sim because many KingAir experts knew that this pilot probably did not do a full preflight check of each inverter-you only use one inverter on each flight but you choose which one after you start engines and then power up the rest of your electricals. If using the proper checklist and flows you are supposed to verify function of each inverter separately but you have to wait for the relay to move from one to the other after moving the switch-about two seconds-or you will miss that one inverter is bad. My CAE SimuFlite mentors are convinced he did not do that properly, took off with one inverter inoperative then the other failed in flight…then goodbye AC powered instruments and components…

Sad case, the King Air is a bulletproof plane. I would think AC failure would be a redundant system.

Thank you for another great video, tragic incident, but as always, you're very clear and concise...good qualities to have as a pilot 😜 Also, no need to apologize for the time lapse between videos, you always give us stellar content. 😊

That stock footage of the ‘pilots in a meeting’ is hilarious - I’ve worked for several charters and worked in aviation my whole life and never ever have I seen such a sight - I’d almost certainly fall over laughing if I did - good video though - RIP

The 2nd pilot, despite not being familiar with the King Air, should’ve clearly been able to see his working attitude indicator. The PIC should’ve used it also.

Hi, I love this channel and have been subbed for months. My suggestion is that you try to avoid the Mentour Pilot thing with using unnecessary stock footage. For example, the meeting stock footage around 1:10 and onward was very distracting. I don't need to see what the OSU Flight Department might have looked like while planning their flights. I would rather just see the plane and hear your voice, even if nothing is happening. Just my two cents, I appreciate you

This kind of failure is very delicate and is a reminder to keep in mind: no matter the failure, fly the plane first and foremost. Very sad.

Great explanations! Subbed.

Thank you for sharing

1:08 gotta give it up to the brave women in this scene for risking their lives to record it for our entertainment. I hope they made it out of that situation okay.

It's incomprehensible that a single-point failure could take out so many critical instruments. I hope this incident created a requirement that there be a backup power mode for these systems in modern aircraft.