The NTSB traced Execuflight's 2015 Akron crash to who it hired

A Part 135 charter carrying two pilots and seven passengers, executives of Pebb Enterprises, a Boca Raton commercial real estate firm, crashed into an Akron, Ohio apartment building on November 10, 2015, killing everyone aboard. The Hawker 700 (BAe-125-700A), registration N237WR, was flying Execuflight 1526 from Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport to what was then Akron Fulton International Airport when an unstabilized approach bled off airspeed, triggered a stall, and put the aircraft down two miles short of the runway. The NTSB's investigation traced the failure back further than the cockpit: to who Execuflight hired, and how little the company checked before it did.An unstabilized approach ended in a stall two miles from the runwayThe weather was worse than expected on the day. The first officer should have conducted an approach briefing but asked the captain to do so. On approach to runway 25, the aircraft was instructed to slow down as a Piper PA-28 was about to land on the runway. They were told to change course, slow down and remain at an altitude of 3,000 feet. The crew was told to then descend, but they did not.The first officer increased the descent rate to twice that of what was normal and slowed to 20 knots below the normal airspeed. The captain voiced his concerns but did not take any action. The aircraft entered a stall, banked left, and crashed into the building two miles from the runway threshold. It exploded on impact and destroyed the building. All onboard died, and there were no fatalities on the ground.Two pilots, three months on the job, three flights togetherThe Captain Oscar Chávez and First Officer Renato Marchese both joined Execuflight in 2015, the same year of the accident. The captain had 6,170 hours flying experience with 3,414 hours as pilot in command and 1,020 hours on the Hawker 700. The first officer had 4,382 hours flying experience of which 3,200 hours were as pilot in command and 482 were on type as first officer. Both pilots had flown together three times in the previous 90 days.Execuflight's hiring record went uncheckedThis accident, caused by pilot error, also highlighted hiring and training oversight and the organizational responsibility in small charter operations.The captain had been fired by his previous employer for missing scheduled recurrent training on the Hawker. Execuflight's president was told he had left voluntarily over an unrelated administrative matter. The first officer had also been fired, for unsatisfactory performance, after a check airman called his simulator work "ridiculously weak." Execuflight hired him anyway, on the recommendation of another pilot who had flown with him once.No background checks, no safety program, no oversightThere was also an informal practice of the captain acting as the pilot flying on flights carrying revenue passengers but on this day the first officer was the pilot flying. The captain did not try and take control of the aircraft at any time, when he should have initiated a missed approach. Execuflight had established SOPs, but the flight crew consistently failed to follow them.There were also issues with training. The NTSB found that there was a lack of a nonprecision approach procedure for Hawker 700- and 800-series airplanes that meets stabilized approach criteria and defines "landing assured." There was also a lack of a requirement for flight crew training on the continuous descent final approach technique.The NTSB also found inaccurate weight-and-balance data in the aircraft's flight-planning software. Execuflight had no flight data monitoring program and no safety management system, and the NTSB said the company had no means to monitor its own daily operations. The CVR also recorded at poor audio quality, a problem the NTSB traced to inadequate maintenance procedures: a functional check six months before the crash failed to catch it, and the FAA inspector assigned to Execuflight said he had no oversight responsibility for the recorder at all. Furthermore, the NTSB found evidence indicating that Execuflight management's disregard for the preflight planning requirements in its flight-locating procedures was not limited to the accident flight.The Pilot Records Improvement Act of 1996 allows for the investigation into a pilot's background before operating commercial flights, and it can check back five years. The president of Execuflight was responsible for the recruitment and termination of all staff and recruited the two pilots. The director of flight operations was responsible for checking the pilots' backgrounds but not recruiting the pilots.The report also said that there was inadequate FAA surveillance of 14 CFR Part 135 operators and that the FAA failed to provide adequate oversight into Execuflight's pilot training, maintenance, and operations.The NTSB's finding: pilot error, compounded by the companyThe NTSB determined that the probable cause of this accident was the flight crew's mismanagement of the approach and multiple deviations from company standard operating procedures, which placed the airplane in an unsafe situation and led to an unstabilized approach, a descent below minimum descent altitude without visual contact with the runway environment, and an aerodynamic stall.Contributing to the accident were Execuflight's casual attitude toward compliance with standards, inadequate hiring, training, and operational oversight of the flight crew, the company's lack of a formal safety program, and the FAA's insufficient oversight of a small Part 135 operator.The NTSB's recommendations, directed at the FAA, Textron Aviation, and Hawker 700- and 800-series training centers, target checklists and approach procedures. They don't touch the harder problem this accident exposes for operators: Execuflight hired two pilots other operators had already let go, and checked neither one's background before putting them in the cockpit together.