Roanoke-Blacksburg Airport
- A regional plane overshot the runway at Roanoke Airport despite abort landing calls.A captain failing to follow go-around calls is abnormal, a pilot and a safety analyst told BI.An end-of-runway safety feature helped the plane stop.
The captain of a regional plane continued a landing despite two go-around calls from their first officer in an approach that overshot the runway at Roanoke Airport in Virginia on September 24, according to a new report from the National Transportation Safety Board.
The first officer of CommuteAir Flight 4339, operating on behalf of United Airlines as United Express, told the NTSB that the Embraer E145 plane was too high and that the rain was intensifying during the final approach.
They called for a go-around once the plane crossed the runway markings, and again about halfway down the runway, when it had still not touched down.
A go-around occurs when a pilot decides not to land — instead, the aircraft climbs away from the runway to circle back and attempt another approach.
"It suddenly went down at a very hard and very late landing," Steve Harrison, a passenger on the flight, told local Roanoke CBS affiliate station WDBJ7 in September.
The NSTB said the captain continued despite both calls — likely a departure from flight protocols — and the plane stopped in the airport's Engineered Materials Arresting Systems (EMAS), which is a crushable table at the end of the runway that aircraft wheels sink into.
None of the 53 passengers and crew were injured, and there was no damage to the airplane. The NTSB is not responsible for assigning blame; its primary role is to determine the root cause of incidents and accidents.
It's abnormal to continue after a go-around call
The first officer typically has fewer flight hours than the captain, but they are still fully qualified to fly the plane and are empowered to speak up when something doesn't look right.
Silver Air Jets CEO and Gulfstream G550 captain Jason Middleton told Business Insider that both pilots are expected to respond to the other's request for a go-around, "no questions asked."
Roanoke-Blacksburg Airport
It's unclear what CommuteAir's flight operations manual says about go-arounds, but Middleton said this is "standard aviation protocol across the board."
United referred BI to CommuteAir. The regional airline told Business Insider it had nothing to add after the NTSB report's release.
Aviation safety consultant Anthony Brickhouse told Business Insider that a culture of communication, teamwork, and collaborative decision-making in the cockpit has been developed and refined since the 1980s.
"The captain is in charge, but the first officer has input as to what needs to happen," he said. "If the first officer called for a go-around, then ideally, a go-around would happen."
He added that the investigation is ongoing, and it is unknown whether the captain continued because they were ignoring the first officer or if there was another reason for the inaction, such as a communications equipment fault. Pilots speak to each other in the cockpit through an intercom system using their headsets.
Air accidents like this have happened before.
In 2011, Canadian airline First Air crashed after the first officer called for a go-around, but the captain continued the approach, according to the Transportation Safety Board of Canada. Twelve of the 15 occupants died.
A special runway system helped stop the plane
The NTSB said the pilots used full brakes and thrust reversers before the plane stopped in the EMAS. CommuteAir passenger Debra Tatar told WDBJ7 they'd "never felt plane brakes go on so strongly before."
The FAA said EMAS can stop most aircraft that overrun the runway at speeds of 80 miles per hour or less.
FAA
EMAS is among the numerous safety upgrades that US regulators have developed over the years — and it has been crucial in several runway incidents.
Two private planes ran off runways in early September, but both were stopped by EMAS, per the FAA.
In 2016, EMAS stopped the then-vice presidential candidate Mike Pence's campaign plane from running off the runway at New York's LaGuardia Airport.
"The EMAS system has saved a lot of lives," Middleton said. "What a great safety win that that [CommuteAir] airplane stopped on the EMAS and everyone walked off safely."
