Pence's Pilots Landed Too Far Down LaGuardia Runway in Crash

(Bloomberg) -- Vice President Mike Pence's charter pilots flew thousands of feet too far down a New York airport runway last October before touching down and skidding into a bed designed to prevent aircraft from sliding onto an adjacent highway.

“Down, down, down, down,” the plane's captain implored the copilot, who was at the controls of the Boeing Co. 737-700 just a few feet over the LaGuardia Airport runway, according to a transcript of the voice recorder released on Thursday.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board released reports detailing the pilots' actions, the weather and the plane's performance. The accident investigation agency hasn't yet concluded the cause of the Oct. 27 incident. None of the nine crew members and 39 passengers, including Pence, were hurt.

The Eastern Air Lines Group Inc. pilots landed on a rainy night with a tail-wind, which can make it harder to slow down. After the aircraft came to a stop, both the pilots said they should have aborted the touchdown rather than attempting to land with such little stopping distance remaining, according to the cockpit transcript.

The plane's flight data showed it touched down 4,242 feet (1,293 meters) beyond the start of the runway, more than half way down the 7,001-foot landing strip's length, according to NTSB.

Touchdown Regrets

“My career just ended,” Captain Robert Galloway said seconds after the plane came to a stop.

“We should have went around,” copilot Diego Restrepo replied, referring to aborting the touchdown, a flight procedure known as a go-around. Galloway agreed.

While the multiple reports issued by NTSB didn't attempt to identify causes of the incident, performance of the flight crew will be a focus.

The plane leveled off as it neared the ground -- which Boeing's flight manual said should be avoided. It also was flying higher than the recommended path to the runway, according to NTSB. Pilots are generally supposed to break off a landing if that happens.

In addition, the captain took control of the plane after the touchdown, but didn't announce what he was doing, according to the records.

The touchdown was farther down the runway than the 3,000 feet NTSB had initially estimated in a preliminary report Nov. 22. Boeing recommends landing within 2,333 feet of the start of the LaGuardia runway, according to NTSB records.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alan Levin in Washington at alevin24@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net, Mark Drajem, Ros Krasny