My home airport had a crash this morning

It seems that the gear was down.
A ground observer and the online flight recording link both seemed to indicate a very high approach speed.

Is it posssible that a frozen/ plugged or partially plugged pitot tube could have caused an excesive approach speed?

I've been flying for more than 25 years and the scariest event I ever had has a frozen static port in marginal weather.

GPS provides a ground speed that is a backup for the airspeed
indicator (accounting for winds)

You started the flight in the wee hours of the morning, you are tired, flying a routine
approach in reasonable weather are you doing all the proper cross checks?
It's clear that you should be, but it's also clear that something went very wrong with the end of this flight.
My guess is that it was a coupled approach and pilot just adjusted the throttles to maintain the indicated airspeed....

One other possiblity is that he landed long and was trying to go around and ran out of space.

Paul

On 25 Jan 2006 12:01:00 -0800, "karl gruber"
wrote:

You don't need thrust reversers to stop a Citation 560. BRAKES stop
jets. There are MANY Lear jets running around all the time without
reversers at all.

In the performance charts I've seen, stopping distance in predicated on
using no thrust reverse. It's nice to have and makes lots of cool noise
but generally unnecessary for corporate jets.

The Falcon 900 that landed on our 3800 foot runway sure used them.
They went on as soon as the nose wheel came down and with the
judicious use of brakes managed to get stopped by the end of the
runway. :-)) Without the reversers he'd have been over in the mall
parking lot... or maybe in the mall.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Karl

Well Roger,

I'm typed rated in the Falcon 50 and 900. First of all, they don't have
"them." There is only one reverser on a 900, on the center engine. NONE
of Dassaults landing performance charts are predicated on using
reversers--NONE. If they landed on your 3800 ft field you can be SURE
their computed landing distance data assured a safe landing without
reversers. BRAKES STOP JETS!!!! Further, the 50 and 900 series Falcons
are excellent short field jets because their wing design with leading
edge devices enable them to use short fields. Not their reverser!

Best,
Karl
ATP
BE30 CE500 LR-Jet DA-50, 900