Jet Crashed Approaching 'Dangerous' Airport

A S P E N, Colo., March 31 -- A private jet was headed toward "a dangerous mountain airport" during bad weather when it crashed Thursday, killing 18 people, according to a federal report.

Surrounded by peaks of the Rocky Mountains towering as much as 3,500 feet above its a runway, the airport warns approaching pilots that "high rates of descent may be required due to terrain." The airport, about 230 miles west of Denver, has an elevation of 7,815 feet.

The report was released in 1993 report labeled Sardy airport in Aspen as "dangerous." Before Thursday's crash, 23 people were killed in aviation accidents at the airport since 1983. Pilots are warned when flying in that they may have to make high-angle descents.

Visibility at the airport is especially difficult during bad weather, according to officials. The Federal Aviation Administration had issued a notice on March 19 saying that planes are not allowed to make an instrumentlanding at the airport at night, said Carol Carmody, the NationalTransportation Safety Board's acting chairwoman.

The notice was then updated March 27.

But this is the exact type of landing the Gulfstream III made on Thursday night when it crashed near the runway on Sardy Field in Aspen.

Carmody said the pilots had been given that notice but for somereason the tower at the Aspen airport didn't have it and was nottelling pilots to follow that notice.

"I am troubled and surpised by the fact that the tower did not have the [orders}," Carmody said.

Carmody said pilots leaving other airports for Aspen hadreceived the notice, but controllers at the Aspen airport had not,and were not warning incoming pilots.

Several planes the night of the crash had to divert to other airports or circle in the air because of weather — primarily fog and snow — closing in.

Marc Foulkrod, the president of the plane operator, Avjet, said the pilot and crew had flown into the Aspen/Pitkin County Airport "numerous times," including "multiple trips" between March 7 and March 11. He said the pilot would have been familiar with the airport, which he described as "very difficult."