2000 Executive Airlines British Aerospace Jetstream crash
British Aerospace J-3101 · Fuel exhaustion
From Atlantic City International Airport (ACY) to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport (AVP)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA00MA052
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- Event fatalities
- 19 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 19
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
British Aerospace J-3101
- Aircraft type
- British Aerospace J-3101
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N16EJ
- Operator
- Executive Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Atlantic City International Airport (ACY), Atlantic City, NJTo Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport (AVP), Wilkes Barre, PA
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Approach
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel exhaustion; Fuel starvation
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Flightcrew › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- Fluid, fuel › Starvation
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
From the Wikipedia article
On May 21, 2000, a British Aerospace BAe-3101 Jetstream 3101 operated by East Coast Aviation Services (known operationally as Executive Airlines) crashed into mountainous terrain in Bear Creek Township, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The plane was carrying 17 professional gamblers returning home from Caesar's Palace Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, along with 2 crew members. It was chartered by Caesar's Palace (New Jersey). All 19 passengers and crew on board were killed on impact. This accident, alongside the accident of Aerocaribe Flight 7831 were the accidents with the most fatalities involving the Jetstream 3101 airliner.
An investigation was conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board. It found that while the aircraft was approaching Scranton International Airport, it ran out of fuel. The investigation found that the crews were supposed to refill the aircraft with a total of 180 gallons of fuel. Instead, they refilled with 90 gallons.
Although the final report concluded that fuel exhaustion was the cause of the crash, it was not received warmly by some relatives of the victims. Several of them filed lawsuits against Executive Airlines and British Aerospace. Executive Airlines chief executive Michael Peragine questioned the NTSB report, claiming that it dismissed several other factors that might have been beneficial to the investigation.
Flight
The crew initially was supposed to take a flight from Farmingdale, New York to Atlantic City, New Jersey at 09:00 local time. However, the crew later received a phone call from the Executive Airlines' owner and CEO detailing that they had been assigned another flight to Wilkes-Barre, with a return flight to Atlantic City later in the day. Ninety gallons of fuel was added to the aircraft, and it departed for Farmingdale at 09:21 local time with 12 passengers on board, under command of Captain Cam Basat. It arrived at Atlantic City International Airport at 09:49.
The second leg of the flight was from Atlantic City to Wilkes-Barre. This flight segment was flown by the same crew, with First Officer Gregory MacVicar as pilot flying. No fuel was added on this flight segment. The plane departed Atlantic City at 10:30 with 17 passengers on board. It was cleared to fly at 5,000' above mean sea level.
Crash
At 11:27, the crew reported that they had "gotten back the left engine now", and radar contact was re-established. However, a few seconds later the crew reported that they had lost both engines. The controller informed them that the Pennsylvania Turnpike was right below them, and requested they "let [ATC] know if you can get your engines back". There was no further radio contact.
Emergency crews were notified at 11:30, and began searching for the crash site. The wreckage was found at 12:45 p.m local time. There were no survivors. In response to the crash, the airport fire department was turned into a makeshift encampment for the relatives of the victims.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The ATC recording showed that, while the plane was approaching Scranton, the crew on board transmitted a message that an engine failure had occurred on board. The NTSB suspected that fuel exhaustion may have caused the failure. This was proved by their examination of the crash site. The NTSB stated that had the flight been filled with sufficient fuel, then the burnt area should have been wider than expected. In the case of this flight, the burnt area was concentrated into a small and compact area.
The cockpit voice recorder unfortunately could not be used for investigation due to improper power configuration. The aircraft was not equipped with flight data recorder as it was not required for such type of plane.
Analysis of the airplane log pages and flight crew records indicated that about 1,000 pounds of fuel were on board the airplane before the 600 pounds (90 gallons) were added on the day of the accident. The NTSB revealed that the crew had planned to add another 180 gallons of fuel. According to the NTSB, if the flight crew intended to load 180 gallons (about 1,200 pounds), it was common industry and company practice to ask for 90 gallons on each side (the left tank and right tank). However, due to a miscommunication, only 90 gallons (600 pounds) of fuel were added to the plane. The crew did order 90 gallons of fuel, but did not specify that it should be added to both tanks. Thus, only 90 gallons of fuel were added, a total confirmed by the fuel order receipt, which the crew most likely did not read.
Captain Basat and First Officer MacVicar then completed the load manifest. They stated that the plane was loaded with 2,400 pounds of fuel when it departed from Farmingdale. In reality, there were only 1,600 pounds of fuel on board, 800 pounds less than intended. Calculations by the NTSB revealed that if the plane were loaded with a total of 2,400 pounds of fuel, then the crew would not have had to refuel in Atlantic City.
Since the crew believed that there was enough fuel on board, they apparently ignored the low fuel quantity annunciator lights that should have warned them of their lack of fuel. However, the NTSB stated that these lights can be easily "overlooked".
As the plane ran out of fuel, the right engine stopped. This failure on the right engine caused the plane to deviate from its planned track. Although the pilots were able to restart the engine, it failed again seconds later, along with the left engine. Low airspeed then caused loss of control of the plane.
The final accident report was published on August 29, 2002, and concluded the cause of the crash was pilot error:
Text from the Wikipedia article “2000 Executive Airlines British Aerospace Jetstream crash” (revision 1355462301, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB narrative
The Board's full report is available at http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/publictn.htm.
On May 21, 2000, about 1128 eastern daylight time (EDT), a British Aerospace Jetstream 3101, N16EJ, operated by East Coast Aviation Services (doing business as Executive Airlines) crashed about 11 miles south of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport (AVP), Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The airplane was destroyed by impact and a postcrash fire, and 17 passengers and two flight crewmembers were killed. The flight was being conducted under 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 135 as an on-demand charter flight for Caesar’s Palace Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. An instrument flight rules (IFR) flight plan had been filed for the flight from Atlantic City International Airport (ACY) to AVP.
Probable cause
The flight crew’s failure to ensure an adequate fuel supply for the flight, which led to the stoppage of the right engine due to fuel exhaustion and the intermittent stoppage of the left engine due to fuel starvation. Contributing to the accident were the flight crew's failure to monitor the airplane’s fuel state and the flight crew's failure to maintain directional control after the initial engine stoppage.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: 2000 Executive Airlines British Aerospace Jetstream crash
- Revision
- 1355462301 · 2026-05-22 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q47472535
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA00MA052
- Event ID
- 20020830X01495
- Case number
- DCA00MA052
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "2000 Executive Airlines British Aerospace Jetstream crash" (page 56122727, revision 1355462301); merged with NTSB case DCA00MA052 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record DCA00MA052: NTSB narrative opening date, consistent with the API date and time (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record DCA00MA052
- Map position
- NTSB record DCA00MA052: NTSB API eventLatitude/eventLongitude
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record DCA00MA052: aircraft; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record DCA00MA052: operated under Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- Fatalities
- NTSB record DCA00MA052: NTSB API totalFatal
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record DCA00MA052: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "2000 Executive Airlines British Aerospace Jetstream crash" and NTSB case DCA00MA052, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N16EJ; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.