Accident Canadair CL-600-2B16 Challenger 601-3A N601VH,

ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 319439

Date:	Sunday 5 May 2019
Time:	18:37
Type:	Canadair CL-600-2B16 Challenger 601-3A
Owner/operator:	Compañia de Aviación y Logística Empresarial
Registration:	N601VH
MSN:	5043
Year of manufacture:	1989
Total airframe hrs:	7637 hours
Cycles:	4122 flights
Engine model:	General Electric CF34-3A
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 13 / Occupants: 13
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed, written off
Category:	Accident
Location:	257 km NW of Monclova - Mexico
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Passenger - Non-Scheduled/charter/Air Taxi
Departure airport:	Las Vegas-McCarran International Airport, NV (LAS/KLAS)
Destination airport:	Monterrey-General Mariano Escobedo International Airport (MTY/MMMY)
Investigating agency:	CIDAIA Mexico
Confidence Rating:	Accident investigation report completed and information captured

Narrative:
A Canadair Challenger 601-3A corporate jet crashed in desert terrain during a flight from Las Vegas, Nevada, USA to Monterrey, Mexico. The aircraft was chartered to fly passengers from Monterrey to Las Vegas to visit a boxing match. At 14:52 hours local time (21:52 UTC) the aircraft took off from Las Vegas on the return leg to Monterrey. The planned flight time was two hours and thirty minutes.
At 23:24 UTC, the flight contacted Monterrey ACC, requesting permission to climb to FL390. This was approved. Nine minutes later the aircraft entered the green zone of the weather system that was ahead. This caused an increase in turbulence with vertical acceleration values of between 1.40 and 0.68 g. The crew then requested to climb to FL410, which was the maximum certified operating altitude for the aircraft. This request was also approved by Monterrey ACC.
At 23:37:00 UTC, the aircraft entered the core of the most intense part of the weather system. The turbulence began to become more severe. The aircraft became almost weightless, registering 0.04g followed immediately by a positive load of 1.52 g. The roll attitude oscillated from left to right with magnitudes up to 18 degrees. These conditions continued for the next sixteen seconds, during which time, the aircraft continued to climb on the same heading. At 23:37:18 UTC, the aircraft encountered a massive disturbance in the air mass that produced a negative vertical acceleration of -1.98 g, followed by +2.40g. This encounter lasted almost three seconds. The aircraft then encountered another massive disturbance, causing loads of -1.88g, followed by a sustained load in excess of 2.74 g. Four seconds after this encounter, the aircraft reached a right roll of 90 degrees and the altitude rapidly climbed to FL425. At this point the aircraft was out of control. At 23:37:27 UTC, the aircraft's altitude excursion peaked at FL448. At this point, the aircraft was inverted and banked sixty degrees, nose down. It began a rapid descent, while rolling wings level. At 23:37:31 UTC, the aircraft rolled inverted once again with a high rate of roll and continued to descend rapidly through FL404 in a flat spin.
It then impacted terrain at an elevation of 1088 m.

Probable Cause: "Impact with terrain with wings level, after a loss of control due to rapid climb and inversion of the aircraft caused by entry into severe atmospheric instability, inducing both engines to shut down".

Contributing Factors:
- Inadvertent entry into severe atmospheric instability zone.
- Not having the necessary information from the aircraft's weather radar system for undetermined reasons.

Accident investigation:


Investigating agency:	CIDAIA Mexico
Report number:	ACCDTAFA019/2019MMMV
Status:	Investigation completed
Duration:	2 years and 7 months
Download report:	Final report