Rick Hendrick Motorsports Inc. Crash of October 24, 2004
Rick Hendrick Motorsports Inc. Crash of October 24, 2004 The flight was a short flight took off from Concord, NC and it was heading to Martinsville, VA. After a missed approach to land at the Martinsville/Blue Ridge Airport the Beech King Air 200 crashed into the a mount in Stuart VA. There were multiple causes that lead to the crash. The main factor was human error. The flight crew made devastating mistakes that lead to the crash and the death of both the pilot, copilot, and the eight passengers. The two mistakes that the crew made were lack of communication and operating a vehicle while under the influence of narcotics. While at the time the crew probably did not think they were making a mistake their actions in the end resulted in the crash. During the preflight and the flight the crew demonstrated how the lack of communication of small details can be deadly. The flight crew should have discussed and medication they were taking during the preflight. Also the flight crew should have discussed the decent and the landing while performing the steps. While in a holding pattern at Martinsville/Blue Ridge Airport the flight crew was given a minimum decent altitude by the controller and during their decent they should have notice they were well above that altitude. Had the flight crew been discussing the instructions given by the air traffic controller and their actual landing path they could have noticed they were too high to land and avoided the accident. In turn is the flight crew had done the same with the instructions of the flight path that was given by the air traffic controller if the landing had been missed they could have notice they were off path. Since they did not communicate the flight plan they did not realize they were off course from the directions given by the air traffic controller. When you look at the flight path they should have fallowed if they missed the approach you see they would have clear to come around and make another