Air Wisconsin Flight 965

Air Wisconsin Flight 965
	A Swearingen SA-226TC Metro II, similar to the accident aircraft
Accident
Date	June 12, 1980
Summary	Loss of control after double engine flame-out
Site	Douglas County, 5 km (3.1 mi; 2.7 nmi) North of Valley, Nebraska, United States ; 41°22′55″N 96°20′42″W / 41.38194°N 96.34500°W
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Swearingen SA226-TC Metro II
Operator	Air Wisconsin
Call sign	WISCONSIN 965
Registration	N650S
Flight origin	Outagamie County Regional Airport (ATW/KATW) near Greenville, Wisconsin
Stopover	Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP/KMSP)
Destination	Lincoln Municipal Airport (LNK/KLNK)
Occupants	15
Passengers	13
Crew	2
Fatalities	13
Injuries	2
Survivors	2

Air Wisconsin Flight 965 (registration N650S) was a flight operated by Air Wisconsin that crashed near Valley, Nebraska, on June 12, 1980. The crash was caused by poor weather conditions making the engines fail and failure to recontrol the aircraft.^[1]

Accident

The aircraft operating Flight 965, a Swearingen SA226-TC Metro II, left Outagamie County Regional Airport on a one-stop flight to Lincoln Municipal Airport at 12:45 on June 12, 1980. The flight stopped at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and then continued on to Lincoln Municipal Airport.^[1]

While en route but nearing its destination the aircraft experienced severe turbulence and was cleared to successively lower altitudes in an attempt to avoid the turbulence. During the descent the aircraft entered a region of severe precipitation, which caused both engines to flame-out due to very high levels of water ingestion. The crew managed to re-light both engines but lost control and impacted the ground. The aircraft struck the ground in a slightly nose down and right wing low attitude, bounced and then struck the ground a second time, sliding along the ground coming to a rest inverted. Both crew and eleven of the thirteen passengers were killed in the accident. ^[1] One of the thirteen passengers killed was Walter Rumsey, a smokejumper that survived the 1949 Mann Gulch fire in Montana that killed thirteen smokejumpers.^[1]

Aircraft and crew

The accident aircraft, SA-226TC Metro II c/n TC-228, had flown a total of 8055 hours and had first flown in 1976. There were no failures of the aircraft or its systems reported before the crash, or discovered by the investigation team.^[1]

The captain was 37-year-old Peter A. Grab, who had been with Air Wisconsin since 1972. He had 8,391 flight hours, including 6,000 hours on the SA-226TC Metro. The first officer was 28-year-old Nicholas Gallmeister, who had joined the airline three months before the accident and had logged 4,063 flight hours, but only 143 of them were on the SA-226TC Metro.^[2]^: 56

Investigation

The investigation focused on why the aircraft was flown deliberately into a region of very extreme weather, without air traffic control informing the crew of the weather or the on-board weather detection system indicating the extreme weather.^[1]

NTSB photo of Air Wisconsin flight 965 wreckage

Causes

The direct cause of the crash was determined as flight into extreme weather causing the engines to flame-out and failure to maintain control during the recovery. Contributory causes were the failure of air traffic services to warn of the extreme weather and the inability of the aircraft's weather radar to penetrate even moderate precipitation, leaving the crew unaware of the extreme precipitation in the weather ahead.^[2]

Notes

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Ranter, Harro. "Accident description". Aviation Safety Network. Flight Safety Foundation. Retrieved November 7, 2014.
^ ^a ^b "Air Wisconsin Inc., Swearing SA-226 Metro, N650S, Valley, Nebraska, June 12, 1980" (PDF). National Transportation Safety Board. December 9, 1980. Retrieved July 8, 2020. - Copy at Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University.

[asn-1] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Ranter, Harro. "Accident description". Aviation Safety Network. Flight Safety Foundation. Retrieved November 7, 2014.

[AAR-80-15_Final_Report-2] "Air Wisconsin Inc., Swearing SA-226 Metro, N650S, Valley, Nebraska, June 12, 1980" (PDF). National Transportation Safety Board. December 9, 1980. Retrieved July 8, 2020. - Copy at Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University.

[1]

[2]

v t e Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States and U.S. territories in the 1980s
1980	Air Wisconsin Flight 965 (June 1980)
1981	Eastern Air Lines Flight 935 (September 1981)
1982	Air Florida Flight 90 (January 13 1982) Thunderbirds Indian Springs Diamond Crash (January 18 1982) World Airways Flight 30 (January 23 1982) Pilgrim Airlines Flight 458 (February 1982) Pan Am Flight 759 (July 9 1982) Twilight Zone accident (July 23 1982) Pan Am Flight 830 (August 1982)
1983	United Airlines Flight 2885 (January 1983) Eastern Air Lines Flight 855 (May 1983) Air Canada Flight 797 (June 2 1983) Reeve Aleutian Airways Flight 8 (June 8 1983) Air Illinois Flight 710 (October 1983) Ozark Air Lines Flight 650 (December 20 1983) Anchorage runway collision (December 23 1983)
1984	Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 901 (February 1984) Vieques Air Link Flight 901A (August 2 1984)* San Luis Obispo mid-air collision (August 24 1984) Provincetown-Boston Airlines Flight 1039 (December 1984)
1985	Galaxy Airlines Flight 203 (January 1985) China Airlines Flight 006 (February 1985) Delta Air Lines Flight 191 (August 2 1985) Bar Harbor Airlines Flight 1808 (August 25 1985) Midwest Express Airlines Flight 105 (September 6 1985) Henson Airlines Flight 1517 (September 23 1985) Teterboro mid-air collision (November 1985) Death of Ricky Nelson (December 1985)
1986	Grand Canyon mid-air collision (June 1986) Aeroméxico Flight 498 (August 1986) Japan Air Lines Cargo Flight 1628 incident (November 1986)
1987	SkyWest Airlines Flight 1834 (January 1987) Northwest Airlink Flight 2268 (March 1987) American Eagle Flight 5452 (May 1987)* Northwest Airlines Flight 255 (August 1987) Indianapolis Ramada Inn A-7D Corsair II crash (October 1987) Continental Airlines Flight 1713 (November 1987) Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 (December 1987)
1988	Trans-Colorado Airlines Flight 2286 (January 1988) American Airlines Flight 132 (February 3 1988) AVAir Flight 3378 (February 19 1988) Aloha Airlines Flight 243 (April 1988) TACA Flight 110 (May 1988) Delta Air Lines Flight 1141 (August 1988)
1989	United Airlines Flight 811 (February 1989) Evergreen International Airlines Flight 17 (March 1989) United Airlines Flight 232 (July 1989) USAir Flight 5050 (September 1989) KLM Flight 867 (December 15 1989) United Express Flight 2415 (December 26 1989)
This list is incomplete. An asterisk (*) denotes an incident that took place in a U.S. territory.

Accident

Aircraft and crew

Investigation

Causes

See also

Notes