| Abstract |
On October 11, 1983, Air Illinois Flight 710 was being operated as a regularly scheduled passenger flight between Capital Airport, Springfield, Illinois and Southern Illinois Airport, Carbondale, Illinois. About 2020 central daylight time, Flight 710 departed Springfield with seven passengers and three crewmembers on board. About 1.5 minutes later, Flight 710 called Springfield departure control and reported that it had experienced a slight electrical problem but that it was continuing to its destination about 40 minutes away. About 2053, while the airplane was descending from its instrument flight rules (IFR), battery power was depleted. Flight 710 continued to descend, turned about 180 deg, and crashed in a rural area near Pinckneyville, Illinois, about 22 nmi north northwest of the Southern Illinois Airport. The airplane was destroyed by impact forces, and all 10 persons on board the airplane were killed. There was no postcrash fire. The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the accident was the captain's decision to continue the flight toward the more distant destination airport after the loss of d.c. electrical power from both airplane generators instead of returning to the nearby departure airport. |
