The South Carolina plane crash that killed four people and seriously injured Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker and DJ Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein was found to be caused by under-inflated tires by a federal investigation last week.
The Learjet crash that happened nearly 18 months ago has been the subject of several class action lawsuits, including one settled for $20 million by the Estate of Adam Goldstein in January. The jet’s pilot and copilot as well as Barker’s bodyguard, Charles Still, and assistant, Chris Baker, were all killed in the crash that occurred in September 2008 in Columbia, South Carolina.
According to the National Travel and Safety Board, the combination of poorly inflated tires, an overlooked design flaw in the Learjet 60, as well as the pilot’s decision to cancel takeoff after it was too late proved to be the cause of the plane crash. All four tires on the plane, the report found, exploded almost simultaneously causing bits of shredded tire to fly up into the hydraulic system and cause the brakes to fail. The tires in question were said to have been checked by the charter company three weeks prior to the accident even though investigators maintain that the improperly cared for tires should have been replaced after eight days.
NTSB investigators noted that operators of small charter flights are often unaware of how rapidly tires on small planes deflate and that the inflation levels are not checked regularly. Learjet and the Federal Flight Administration were also both blamed by the NTSB for not taking aggressive action to repair a design flaw in the rear thrust reversers on the model of the jet involved in the crash. The same Learjet flaws were also cited in a 2001 plane crash in Alabama.
Tire inflation issues have become a growing concern for the NTSB. Last week, the organization addressed a September 2009 Learjet accident that was caused largely in part by unchecked tire pressure.
