when something goes wrong there doesnt seem to be any middle ground. you either land or you die...and before you die you have a 3 minute horror ride on the way down.
To the defenders of the pilot: How do you defend that strong right rudder at 2:25 being neutralized only at 2:27 - two seconds too late?
Then, wtf is all this talk about tail icing induced stall?! The stall was caused by getting below stall speed / exceeding critical alpha. Also it would be nice if people stick to the official report instead of making up stories, each to their own. The chances the investigators got it wrong and you got it right seem damn slim to me.
@georgetemos So that airspeed just as she set the flaps was OK was it? Give us a break. They freaked out because they didn't have their minds on the job. It can happen to anyone. Unfortunately it happened at a particularly bad moment for these pilots.
They didn't melt. They were detached. Anyway none of the other counterweights on either engine showed signs of being melted. Some of the thin aluminum parts melted, but that is all.
-Three of the six counterweights remained attached to their respective propeller blade outer sleeve, while the other three had become separated and were not recovered by the Powerplant Group.
The counterweights were fairly large and made of steel. They didn't melt away. They were thrown off before the crash. Because the engines were disintegrating. The crash was caused by mechanical failure, not pilot error.
He was coming out of a slight turn with gear coming down @ flap 5 and speed bleeding off. What does he do in those next few seconds? Nothing. You need power to compensate for the increased drag of the gear and watch the shit out of your speed. He simply does not add power until he red lines and stalls. If only he would have called for flaps 15 a little sooner and removed his head from his ass we wouldn't be talking about this horrific crash.
I am not a pilot but know enough about flight simulation. Why did the pilot kick back thrust while asking for gear and then 15 flaps. I mean he was holding 178 knots and would lose 30-40 knots easy with gear and flaps, and thus thats whats happend. I mean the pull back and thrust where death nails, but what happened 15 seconds before with air speed losss was far more illuminating. Sad and preventable.
@civicnation4two I got news for you, that expensive equipment in canada is the same equipment most airlines in the states fly. In fact this particular plane was one of the youngest planes in the industry at the time and it was also canadian made, as is 75 percent of most of the regional equipment.
The transcripts of the cockpit recorder shows that they were chatting, some even say flirting (at least the pilot was) well below the 10K restriction. Pretty much right up until the nose lifts.
why the fuck were they pulling up when they were just about to stall and why weren't one of the pilots keeping an eye on the airspeed during the approach especially slowing down close to vref
@r1oot What I don't understand is why the Engineers allow the planes to stall, they should build in safety features that kick in just before a plane stalls such as forcing the joystick forward, and increasing power, etc.
@EasternMerchant You have that on Airbus FBW aircraft, and actually even on this aircraft you have that too; it's called the stick pusher, and pushes the stick forward in the event of a stall. Boeing 777's and 787's do this also. However, with ATR, Bombardier and Boeing FBW aircraft the pilots can override what the aircraft is trying to do; they can't do this on an Airbus but that causes problems too.
@r1oot yeah the pilots needed to watch the airspeed cause when the autopilot is on and you airspeed slows the nose pitches up because the autopilot wants to maintain that altitude if u dont have speed then u stall which is what happened here
@r1oot They were pulling up because that was what they had been trained to do in the event of icing. They hadn't received training in icing + stalls, and were left out in the cold when the accident struck.
@r1oot Correct But that's the way the pilots were trained. Yeah, they fucked up. You need a lower alpha in a stall; my point is it's understandable how it happened. When a sudden emergency presented itself, foremost in their minds were "ice" because they'd been on the lookout for it, so they fell immediately back to their icing training and unfortunately not their stall training. A knife is only as sharp as you sharpen it; a pilot is only as well trained as an airline trains him/her.
Is it so easy to know now what to do. Sitting in a cockpit and less then 3000ft behind you and the ground you don't have many options. One is to return to flight configuation and thrust but that don't work with ice on you wings. We can't blame the pilots (R.I.P) here. That flight was down before they start climbing. De-acing don't fix everything. Something was wrong with that plane long before. I just can't figure out what.
One simple thing could have fixed that. Pitch Forward! Im a 17 year old student pilot with only 21 hrs of flight time and the second i seen they went into stall, Pitch Forward.
@madzane94 actually they didn't pull plane up. the ice build up and weight did. an your analogy of simply giving it more throttle wouldn't have worked. because they were already to low. throttle doesn't give the plane lift. it is the airflow over the wings that does, and while your giving it thrust... it will still fall for some time until it regains lift.
@governmentcheese411 Incorrect the NTSB found the ice buildup could have been overcome easily same as Air Florida 90. He made another mistake by not hand flying the aircraft in icing condtions and was taken by total surprise by the stick shaker. Poor Management at colgan, the incompetent FAA and a poor pilot who had slight fatigue caused this crash. Sorry to say.
@NIKV69 nothing you just said rebutted me at all. re-read my comment pls. what he could have or should have done is besides the point. due to an ice build up on the wings... the plane pitched into a stall, period. of course there were things they could have been done. there are always things that could have been done. that wasn't the point. he said they could have easily throttled the plane out of it and i pointed out why they couldn't have, period.
@governmentcheese411 Actually, madzane94 did *not* say "throttled the plane out of it." He said "pitch down" and "nose forward" - to lower the nose by moving the control yoke forward, instead of back, where it was apparently being held/pulled. Pitch control (with the yoke/elevator) and throttle control (engine power) are two different things.
Kinda distressing to watch those control inputs as the speed bleeds off and the acft starts wallowing around...
@governmentcheese411 Bull the speed became a factor because he was flying on AP in icing conditions when he sould have been hand flying where he would have felt what the plane was doing. Also because he and the FO let their non flight discussion dominate and didn't monitor the situation or instruments properly.
@civicnation4two Regional Airline pilots make CRAP anywhere in the world. Regional airline co-pilot in the US around $17,000 /year. Regional captain $60,000-80,000. Major airline co-pilot 65,000-120,000 and Major Airline Captain 120,000-250,000 /year. Do you know how much doctors make the first year? Usually ZERO. But they're still doctors. That's the way shit goes all over the world.
the autopilot is trying to maintain 2300ft, when you set 5 deg flap and increase the condition levers the plane slows, the only way the a/c can maintain a set altitude is to pitch up and create more lift, they needed to add power.
Its very easy for us to analyze this from our armchairs, but i know what it is like to fly an instrument approach in IMC, it is much busier than you may think.
@Dekka774623 Dude, as soon the shaker works the A/P disengages, the capt. I dunno WTF is trying to do by pulling the controls.Trying to keep nose up?, that's worse, he didn't even take a look of the airspeed. every single aircraft in the world doesn't stall right away when the stall alarm sounds, it gives you 5 to 10 kts of margin. Stall alarm? set power and get nose abit down to gain airspeed. that's the most basic maneuver for a pilot and the woman sets flaps up, like adding gas to fire...
@AF401 Again, the pilots were not trained correctly. They were trained to raise the nose in icing conditions, but were never trained in icing + stall scenarios. Yes, they fucked up, but it's understandable.
@ditty999able No, he was flying in known icing conditions. What happened was the Captain and First Officer didnt realize they had tailplane icing. The correct action to take would have been to immediatley pull back on the yoke, reduce flaps, and reduce power (may be aircraft specific). What the crew did was the exact opposite. They thought they had a wing stall so they pushed the nose down and increased power. That irritated the t-plane icing and caused them to crash.
He pulled back plenty on the yoke. The elevator worked very well, elevating the nose to 30 degees. The tail plane was not at all stalled; if it had been it wouldn't have raised the nose so effectively.
Pushing the nose down was what was never done. --It would have saved them until the secondary stall. Then it was too late.
the process towards stall happened in a briefly period of time, so short that pilots haven't managed to call ATC for declaring emergency. Actually it lasted few seconds! I can imagine that that aircraft has got high load-to-power ratio,so quick accelerations are virtually unachievable if there is no dive, but given the relative proximity of terrain, a dive would have seemed extremely dangerous to the pilots. In my view it was the Gear downed that caused the high drag
Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect. Case in point.
I agree - situational awareness seemed severely lacking, but there's one HUGE part that sticks out to me...
The copilot retracted the flaps after stall began?!? I'm pretty sure that's a big Flight 101 no-no, something you learn in your first 5-10 hours of your first training flights.
@Kismetjim During a stall you put full power nose down and when you regain efficient airspeed you retract your flaps slowly and gear and climb back to a safe altitude
@ThePiper235 In training aircraft you retract the first notch of flaps immedietly as at that point ( Typically 30 degrees flaps) they are creating much more drag than lift. The remaining flaps are retracted after a climb is re-established. The FO was a CFI on primairy aircraft for years before being hired at Colgan. Her initial reaction of retracting the flaps after the stall broke was probably an instant reatcion from her flight instructor days. Doesn't work like that on larger aircraft.
Yes, you are right. One thing to note is that, it is all fine and dandy to talk about this while we are sitting comfortably in front of our computers, but on an IFR approach in icing conditions, there is no way of telling how one would react to an emergency that close to the ground. There is one thing civilian pilots are not trained in, that is how to manage panic in a situation where there is no time to panic. You could have all of the training in the world but a panicked pilot is a dead one.
@Kismetjim On smaller training aircraft it is correct to retract the first degree of flaps immedietly after the stall happens. In larger aircraft such as this Q-400 it is the wrong move. However, at the moment the FO retracted the flaps everything that had led to the crash had already happened and the flap retraction was a moot point. It certainly did not contribute to the crash in any way.
God 2:22 - crash LOOK at how fast that thing dropped.. I'm curious: do any pilots (obviousy there are tons commenting here) think that an "approaching STALL" wailer might have helped if such a thing could be realistically made. It looks like they were obviously on auto-pilot until the damn plane could no longer make itself airworthy and subsequently handed the pilots a lost cause. I do know it looks like they weren't paying attn. but it is always easy to say in hindsight :-( rip all who died.
I guess..I didn't really understand this for sure based on the animation. It looks like it went from approaching to actual stall really fast. Frontline on PBS last night looked at this and was pretty interesting. Went a little easy on what ValueJet got away with before 592. There were a half-dozen MAJOR incidents/accidents prior to 592 hitting the Everglades..although yes..I understand it was SabreTech that torched the plane with their "oxy containers - empty." Thanks to ageismachina and willdfw
Forget Vapp, torque and stick shakers. This is a classic case of poor stick and rudder skills. Their situational awareness -- especially airspeed -- was nonexistent. Once the fit hit the shan they had one option: push the nose down. They did the opposite. And 48 other people suffered for their poor skills.
You cannot troll along at flight idle fully configured in level flight. Once they had slowed to Vapp(less than 10 seconds after CL max) there was no application of power and you need 17-20% torque to hold Vapp. There absolutely needed to be an increase in torque to maintain a safe airspeed and there was not.
"When the condition levers were advanced there was no application of power because they were trying to slow down and extend the flaps further before reaching the [GS]."
Incorrect.
The CVR shows the final increment of flaps 15 had been called for at 22:16:23 at 135kt. They were at Vapp & didn't need to slow more.
The NTSB reports Vref as 118. So with ice factor Vapp should be about +15 or 133kt. Power should've been applied IN ADVANCE to stop the A/S decay of 2kt/sec to maintain that speed.
When the condition levers were advanced there was no application of power because they were [at 169 KIAS and flaps 5º] trying to slow down and extend the flaps further before reaching the glideslope.
Colgan was intercepting the approach at 2300 ft mean sea level/MSL. The airport elevation is charted at 728ft MSL so they were about 1, 572 above ground level/AGL.
The condition levers control the blade angle of the props. During landing, they are advanced to a 'fine' pitch, taking smaller bites out of the air at a higher rpm. The finer the pitch, the higher the drag.
Why didn't Renslow push the nose down! It makes me sick to watch this and see what seems so obvious. Push the nose down, let the stick pusher do it's job and 50 people will live.
Renslow requested "flaps 15" and Shaw took it to 10 then the shaker came on as they go below stall speed. At that point they are climbing from 2300 to 2500. They MUST have known what to do. It sure seems like they could have just pushed the nose down at 2500, raised the flaps to 15 and start flying again.
But they don't do it. In fact, Shaw puts the flaps back down. Maybe she thought raising the flaps caused them to stall. And it seems like Renslow keeps pulling back on the yoke.
@broadpath unfortunately the communications with ATC and increased fall of airspeed happened at the same time, so the flying pilot hasn't managed to keep attention on both. Probably both of pilots ddn't notice the airspeed, and when shaker started to operate, they thought responsible were the flaps, instead of landing gear (interestingly, deceleration startes as soon after Gear is downed), so co pilot recalled Flaps
Forget pushing the nose down to save them. Once the stick pusher came on at 2300ft, it's prob too low for a stick pusher recovery anyway.
The question should be:
Why weren't the power levers advanced from flight idle LONG BEFORE the airspeed deteriorated to a stall condition?
Once the condition levers went to max, (creating more drag) there was NO application of power during level flight. Speed decay was 34kts over 15 seconds after the configuration change.
The stickpusher activated at 2350' MSL, well before the stall.
They weren't too low or too slow to recover before stalling.
The wings were still flying well enough to climb to 2500'.
Without much help from the pilots the plane's fall was almost arrested at 1930, then it stalled again.
When the condition levers were advanced there was no application of power because they were trying to slow down and extend the flaps further before reaching the glideslope.
I believe the ground level is approximately 700 feet where 3407 went down. I'm not a pilot so can you tell me the elevation of the plane above the actual ground when the altimeter reads 2500? Did they actually have 1800 feet to work with?
@bethpage89 No, he was flying in known icing conditions. What happened was the Captain and First Officer didnt realize they had tailplane icing. The correct action to take would have been to immediatley pull back on the yoke, reduce flaps, and reduce power (may be aircraft specific). What the crew did was the exact opposite. They thought they had a wing stall so they pushed the nose down and increased power. That irritated the t-plane icing and caused them to crash.
transcribe audio...
chasedrgc1223 2 weeks ago
i know this sounds fucked up but i kinda want to here that scream.
masterman3178 1 month ago
@masterman3178 NTSB does not release that - only transcripts
Shoreisfine 3 weeks ago
when something goes wrong there doesnt seem to be any middle ground. you either land or you die...and before you die you have a 3 minute horror ride on the way down.
glennjridge 1 month ago
This isn't even funny. Who puts the flaps up in a stall? And I did not see the yoke get pushed forward once. What a waste of lives.
shaunsprogress 2 months ago
To the defenders of the pilot: How do you defend that strong right rudder at 2:25 being neutralized only at 2:27 - two seconds too late?
Then, wtf is all this talk about tail icing induced stall?! The stall was caused by getting below stall speed / exceeding critical alpha. Also it would be nice if people stick to the official report instead of making up stories, each to their own. The chances the investigators got it wrong and you got it right seem damn slim to me.
Tome4kkkk 2 months ago
Ok folks, I'm done with people blaming the pilots on this one.
Excessive icing on the horizontal stabilizer. And it's a "t-tail". A stall is handled exactly opposite to "regular" aircraft.
Watch this and learn/understand "Tailplane stall": (search for "NASA Tailplane Icing Video".
Hard to see the tail and detect ice in any commercial aircraft, eh??
georgetemos 2 months ago
@georgetemos
So, the NTSB is wrong?
electrohermit 2 months ago
@georgetemos So that airspeed just as she set the flaps was OK was it? Give us a break. They freaked out because they didn't have their minds on the job. It can happen to anyone. Unfortunately it happened at a particularly bad moment for these pilots.
icemachine79 1 month ago
Terrible..
happyjongseok 3 months ago
"the other three had become separated"
They didn't melt. They were detached. Anyway none of the other counterweights on either engine showed signs of being melted. Some of the thin aluminum parts melted, but that is all.
starviego 4 months ago
NTSB doc 417219
No 1 engine-
Powerplant Group field notes, pg2of23
-Three of the six counterweights remained attached to their respective propeller blade outer sleeve, while the other three had become separated and were not recovered by the Powerplant Group.
The counterweights were fairly large and made of steel. They didn't melt away. They were thrown off before the crash. Because the engines were disintegrating. The crash was caused by mechanical failure, not pilot error.
starviego 4 months ago
@starviego BS...Steel melts. How do you think steel is made?
MrBwisnewski 4 months ago
why was the left throttle lever more foward then the Right no wonder they went in to a spin thats my opinion,
MsFlyboy100 4 months ago
Comment removed
Pvjinflight 4 months ago
He was coming out of a slight turn with gear coming down @ flap 5 and speed bleeding off. What does he do in those next few seconds? Nothing. You need power to compensate for the increased drag of the gear and watch the shit out of your speed. He simply does not add power until he red lines and stalls. If only he would have called for flaps 15 a little sooner and removed his head from his ass we wouldn't be talking about this horrific crash.
Deuterstomia 4 months ago
I am not a pilot but know enough about flight simulation. Why did the pilot kick back thrust while asking for gear and then 15 flaps. I mean he was holding 178 knots and would lose 30-40 knots easy with gear and flaps, and thus thats whats happend. I mean the pull back and thrust where death nails, but what happened 15 seconds before with air speed losss was far more illuminating. Sad and preventable.
whazzupwithgolf 4 months ago
@whazzupwithgolf I believe that he was trained on a different plane.
Hope2009pc 4 months ago
@civicnation4two I got news for you, that expensive equipment in canada is the same equipment most airlines in the states fly. In fact this particular plane was one of the youngest planes in the industry at the time and it was also canadian made, as is 75 percent of most of the regional equipment.
apodino 4 months ago
its dificult to understand!!R.I.P.!
ThePiratadosacores 5 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
26 seconds. That's all it took.
notanignoramus 6 months ago
The transcripts of the cockpit recorder shows that they were chatting, some even say flirting (at least the pilot was) well below the 10K restriction. Pretty much right up until the nose lifts.
broadpath 6 months ago
why the fuck were they pulling up when they were just about to stall and why weren't one of the pilots keeping an eye on the airspeed during the approach especially slowing down close to vref
r1oot 6 months ago 13
@r1oot What I don't understand is why the Engineers allow the planes to stall, they should build in safety features that kick in just before a plane stalls such as forcing the joystick forward, and increasing power, etc.
EasternMerchant 3 months ago
@EasternMerchant You have that on Airbus FBW aircraft, and actually even on this aircraft you have that too; it's called the stick pusher, and pushes the stick forward in the event of a stall. Boeing 777's and 787's do this also. However, with ATR, Bombardier and Boeing FBW aircraft the pilots can override what the aircraft is trying to do; they can't do this on an Airbus but that causes problems too.
blueb0g 2 months ago
by the way this looks like a pretty bad crash, did they survive?
EasternMerchant 3 months ago
@EasternMerchant No. Just google it, bro.
RockinToke 3 months ago
@r1oot yeah the pilots needed to watch the airspeed cause when the autopilot is on and you airspeed slows the nose pitches up because the autopilot wants to maintain that altitude if u dont have speed then u stall which is what happened here
kwilson4961 2 months ago
@r1oot They were pulling up because that was what they had been trained to do in the event of icing. They hadn't received training in icing + stalls, and were left out in the cold when the accident struck.
blueb0g 2 months ago
@blueb0g Pulling up; ice or no ice = No chance of recovery
r1oot 2 months ago
@r1oot Correct But that's the way the pilots were trained. Yeah, they fucked up. You need a lower alpha in a stall; my point is it's understandable how it happened. When a sudden emergency presented itself, foremost in their minds were "ice" because they'd been on the lookout for it, so they fell immediately back to their icing training and unfortunately not their stall training. A knife is only as sharp as you sharpen it; a pilot is only as well trained as an airline trains him/her.
blueb0g 2 months ago
Is it so easy to know now what to do. Sitting in a cockpit and less then 3000ft behind you and the ground you don't have many options. One is to return to flight configuation and thrust but that don't work with ice on you wings. We can't blame the pilots (R.I.P) here. That flight was down before they start climbing. De-acing don't fix everything. Something was wrong with that plane long before. I just can't figure out what.
Megabrt1 6 months ago
you get what you pay for......
beergut111 6 months ago
One simple thing could have fixed that. Pitch Forward! Im a 17 year old student pilot with only 21 hrs of flight time and the second i seen they went into stall, Pitch Forward.
ZLinerz 7 months ago
@ZLinerz wtf? its an obvious stall, speed is going low. you dont even have to be a pilot to understand that :S
sam9524 5 months ago
@sam9524 I know, but they didnt correct it correctly, so its just weird
ZLinerz 5 months ago
A truly sad situation for all. What a terrible loss.
hotelgulf 8 months ago 2
1. Error, pitching up at 130knots.. a simple pitch down would have saved..
2. Also, bringing flaps all the way to 0 isn't such a good idea because flaps are there to create lift at low speeds.
Ah, This sucks..
All respect to the pilots however. R.I.P
madzane94 10 months ago
Pilot error.
How does one recieve a pilots license and can't recover from a real life stall.
Just a simple nose forward would have speed up the planmt from 130 to a flyable 140 - 150... instead they pulled up and airspeed fell too much.
madzane94 10 months ago
@madzane94 actually they didn't pull plane up. the ice build up and weight did. an your analogy of simply giving it more throttle wouldn't have worked. because they were already to low. throttle doesn't give the plane lift. it is the airflow over the wings that does, and while your giving it thrust... it will still fall for some time until it regains lift.
governmentcheese411 9 months ago
@governmentcheese411 Incorrect the NTSB found the ice buildup could have been overcome easily same as Air Florida 90. He made another mistake by not hand flying the aircraft in icing condtions and was taken by total surprise by the stick shaker. Poor Management at colgan, the incompetent FAA and a poor pilot who had slight fatigue caused this crash. Sorry to say.
NIKV69 9 months ago
@NIKV69 nothing you just said rebutted me at all. re-read my comment pls. what he could have or should have done is besides the point. due to an ice build up on the wings... the plane pitched into a stall, period. of course there were things they could have been done. there are always things that could have been done. that wasn't the point. he said they could have easily throttled the plane out of it and i pointed out why they couldn't have, period.
governmentcheese411 9 months ago
@governmentcheese411 Actually, madzane94 did *not* say "throttled the plane out of it." He said "pitch down" and "nose forward" - to lower the nose by moving the control yoke forward, instead of back, where it was apparently being held/pulled. Pitch control (with the yoke/elevator) and throttle control (engine power) are two different things.
Kinda distressing to watch those control inputs as the speed bleeds off and the acft starts wallowing around...
svyt 8 months ago
@governmentcheese411 Bull the speed became a factor because he was flying on AP in icing conditions when he sould have been hand flying where he would have felt what the plane was doing. Also because he and the FO let their non flight discussion dominate and didn't monitor the situation or instruments properly.
NIKV69 8 months ago
Sometimes autothrust saves...
zbucham69 1 year ago
@civicnation4two Regional Airline pilots make CRAP anywhere in the world. Regional airline co-pilot in the US around $17,000 /year. Regional captain $60,000-80,000. Major airline co-pilot 65,000-120,000 and Major Airline Captain 120,000-250,000 /year. Do you know how much doctors make the first year? Usually ZERO. But they're still doctors. That's the way shit goes all over the world.
plsniper 1 year ago
@civicnation4two This aircraft was less than a year old and Canadian-built.
CumminsISB24V 1 year ago
@CumminsISB24V wasn't the plane that caused the crash.
ToTaLgAmEr95 1 year ago
@ToTaLgAmEr95 Yes I know. I was replying to civicnation4two saying Canadian airlines fly more modern aircraft.
CumminsISB24V 1 year ago
Comment removed
CumminsISB24V 1 year ago
why the hell is the autopilot on during landing...its like using cruise control in your car in manhattan...wtf.
manuntd2009 1 year ago
@manuntd2009 land with AP, manual throttle-back on touch down
demonhorizon 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@manuntd2009 Obviously you're not a Pilot..
Slynsmiley 1 year ago
what does condition mean???
lennyboy1993 1 year ago
@lennyboy1993 Prop condition. Up or full forward = max RPM on the prop. The condition changes prop pitch in order to maintain a certain RPM.
rook0428 1 year ago
As tired as I ever been .
As disgusted with the company's bullshit .
As "fancy" as the electronics (autopilot).
I would ALWAYS Hand fly the approach from 30 or 40 out to touchdown.
It would at least keep me sharper for my next 6 mo.
pemgolf 1 year ago
watch the video again....
the autopilot is trying to maintain 2300ft, when you set 5 deg flap and increase the condition levers the plane slows, the only way the a/c can maintain a set altitude is to pitch up and create more lift, they needed to add power.
Its very easy for us to analyze this from our armchairs, but i know what it is like to fly an instrument approach in IMC, it is much busier than you may think.
Dekka774623 1 year ago 9
@Dekka774623 Dude, as soon the shaker works the A/P disengages, the capt. I dunno WTF is trying to do by pulling the controls.Trying to keep nose up?, that's worse, he didn't even take a look of the airspeed. every single aircraft in the world doesn't stall right away when the stall alarm sounds, it gives you 5 to 10 kts of margin. Stall alarm? set power and get nose abit down to gain airspeed. that's the most basic maneuver for a pilot and the woman sets flaps up, like adding gas to fire...
AF401 3 months ago 2
@AF401 Again, the pilots were not trained correctly. They were trained to raise the nose in icing conditions, but were never trained in icing + stall scenarios. Yes, they fucked up, but it's understandable.
blueb0g 2 months ago
"I put the flaps up.." GG noob
dominicwastaken 1 year ago
@ditty999able No, he was flying in known icing conditions. What happened was the Captain and First Officer didnt realize they had tailplane icing. The correct action to take would have been to immediatley pull back on the yoke, reduce flaps, and reduce power (may be aircraft specific). What the crew did was the exact opposite. They thought they had a wing stall so they pushed the nose down and increased power. That irritated the t-plane icing and caused them to crash.
AmericanGi370 1 year ago
@AmericanGi370:
He pulled back plenty on the yoke. The elevator responded very well--it was not at all stalled.
Pushing the nose down was what was never done. --It would have saved them until the secondary stall. Then it was too late.
bethpage89 1 year ago
@AmericanGi370:
He pulled back plenty on the yoke. The elevator worked very well, elevating the nose to 30 degees. The tail plane was not at all stalled; if it had been it wouldn't have raised the nose so effectively.
Pushing the nose down was what was never done. --It would have saved them until the secondary stall. Then it was too late.
bethpage89 1 year ago
wat a shame of a crash. so many things wrong here its disgusting
praetorian2150 1 year ago
the process towards stall happened in a briefly period of time, so short that pilots haven't managed to call ATC for declaring emergency. Actually it lasted few seconds! I can imagine that that aircraft has got high load-to-power ratio,so quick accelerations are virtually unachievable if there is no dive, but given the relative proximity of terrain, a dive would have seemed extremely dangerous to the pilots. In my view it was the Gear downed that caused the high drag
anisocoro 1 year ago
Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect. Case in point.
rdavid1065 1 year ago
Warnings go off before the stall at approching stall speed. Seems he went into an unrecoverable flat spin. unrecoverable because of the altitude.
p4ndiamond 2 years ago
I agree - situational awareness seemed severely lacking, but there's one HUGE part that sticks out to me...
The copilot retracted the flaps after stall began?!? I'm pretty sure that's a big Flight 101 no-no, something you learn in your first 5-10 hours of your first training flights.
Any pilots have thoughts on this?
Kismetjim 2 years ago
@Kismetjim During a stall you put full power nose down and when you regain efficient airspeed you retract your flaps slowly and gear and climb back to a safe altitude
ThePiper235 2 years ago
@ThePiper235 In training aircraft you retract the first notch of flaps immedietly as at that point ( Typically 30 degrees flaps) they are creating much more drag than lift. The remaining flaps are retracted after a climb is re-established. The FO was a CFI on primairy aircraft for years before being hired at Colgan. Her initial reaction of retracting the flaps after the stall broke was probably an instant reatcion from her flight instructor days. Doesn't work like that on larger aircraft.
CaptAviator 1 year ago
Yes, you are right. One thing to note is that, it is all fine and dandy to talk about this while we are sitting comfortably in front of our computers, but on an IFR approach in icing conditions, there is no way of telling how one would react to an emergency that close to the ground. There is one thing civilian pilots are not trained in, that is how to manage panic in a situation where there is no time to panic. You could have all of the training in the world but a panicked pilot is a dead one.
marick626 1 year ago
@Kismetjim On smaller training aircraft it is correct to retract the first degree of flaps immedietly after the stall happens. In larger aircraft such as this Q-400 it is the wrong move. However, at the moment the FO retracted the flaps everything that had led to the crash had already happened and the flap retraction was a moot point. It certainly did not contribute to the crash in any way.
CaptAviator 1 year ago
@Kismetjim Yep. That's probably the critical action..
Slynsmiley 1 year ago
God 2:22 - crash LOOK at how fast that thing dropped.. I'm curious: do any pilots (obviousy there are tons commenting here) think that an "approaching STALL" wailer might have helped if such a thing could be realistically made. It looks like they were obviously on auto-pilot until the damn plane could no longer make itself airworthy and subsequently handed the pilots a lost cause. I do know it looks like they weren't paying attn. but it is always easy to say in hindsight :-( rip all who died.
ChristopherSaindon 2 years ago
There was, thats what Shaker is on this animation. Once the stall warning went off, they lifted the nose and actually caused a stalled condition.
aegismachina 2 years ago
@ChristopherSaindon The shaker IS an "approaching stall" wailer. It warns the pilots of a stall.
willdfw 2 years ago
I guess..I didn't really understand this for sure based on the animation. It looks like it went from approaching to actual stall really fast. Frontline on PBS last night looked at this and was pretty interesting. Went a little easy on what ValueJet got away with before 592. There were a half-dozen MAJOR incidents/accidents prior to 592 hitting the Everglades..although yes..I understand it was SabreTech that torched the plane with their "oxy containers - empty." Thanks to ageismachina and willdfw
ChristopherSaindon 2 years ago
Forget Vapp, torque and stick shakers. This is a classic case of poor stick and rudder skills. Their situational awareness -- especially airspeed -- was nonexistent. Once the fit hit the shan they had one option: push the nose down. They did the opposite. And 48 other people suffered for their poor skills.
CCConservatory 2 years ago
Autopilot stayed on...Airspeed was ignored as they tried to put flaps and landing gear down.
Its a shame...In my first flight lesson, I was taught to maintain airspeed and extend flaps as the criitcal things before landing.
dingoklectos 2 years ago
You cannot troll along at flight idle fully configured in level flight. Once they had slowed to Vapp(less than 10 seconds after CL max) there was no application of power and you need 17-20% torque to hold Vapp. There absolutely needed to be an increase in torque to maintain a safe airspeed and there was not.
Av8trxx 2 years ago
"When the condition levers were advanced there was no application of power because they were trying to slow down and extend the flaps further before reaching the [GS]."
Incorrect.
The CVR shows the final increment of flaps 15 had been called for at 22:16:23 at 135kt. They were at Vapp & didn't need to slow more.
The NTSB reports Vref as 118. So with ice factor Vapp should be about +15 or 133kt. Power should've been applied IN ADVANCE to stop the A/S decay of 2kt/sec to maintain that speed.
Av8trxx 2 years ago
When the condition levers were advanced there was no application of power because they were [at 169 KIAS and flaps 5º] trying to slow down and extend the flaps further before reaching the glideslope.
bethpage89 2 years ago
@Av8trxx:
When the condition levers were advanced the plane was doing 169 KIAS and needed to decelerate. It was not yet time to add power.
bethpage89 2 years ago
Colgan was intercepting the approach at 2300 ft mean sea level/MSL. The airport elevation is charted at 728ft MSL so they were about 1, 572 above ground level/AGL.
The condition levers control the blade angle of the props. During landing, they are advanced to a 'fine' pitch, taking smaller bites out of the air at a higher rpm. The finer the pitch, the higher the drag.
Av8trxx 2 years ago
Why didn't Renslow push the nose down! It makes me sick to watch this and see what seems so obvious. Push the nose down, let the stick pusher do it's job and 50 people will live.
So sad.
broadpath 2 years ago
Or Shaw--why didn't she push the nose down?
bethpage89 2 years ago
Renslow requested "flaps 15" and Shaw took it to 10 then the shaker came on as they go below stall speed. At that point they are climbing from 2300 to 2500. They MUST have known what to do. It sure seems like they could have just pushed the nose down at 2500, raised the flaps to 15 and start flying again.
But they don't do it. In fact, Shaw puts the flaps back down. Maybe she thought raising the flaps caused them to stall. And it seems like Renslow keeps pulling back on the yoke.
Why?
broadpath 2 years ago
@broadpath unfortunately the communications with ATC and increased fall of airspeed happened at the same time, so the flying pilot hasn't managed to keep attention on both. Probably both of pilots ddn't notice the airspeed, and when shaker started to operate, they thought responsible were the flaps, instead of landing gear (interestingly, deceleration startes as soon after Gear is downed), so co pilot recalled Flaps
anisocoro 1 year ago
Forget pushing the nose down to save them. Once the stick pusher came on at 2300ft, it's prob too low for a stick pusher recovery anyway.
The question should be:
Why weren't the power levers advanced from flight idle LONG BEFORE the airspeed deteriorated to a stall condition?
Once the condition levers went to max, (creating more drag) there was NO application of power during level flight. Speed decay was 34kts over 15 seconds after the configuration change.
Who was watching the airspeed?
Av8trxx 2 years ago
The stickpusher activated at 2350' MSL, well before the stall.
They weren't too low or too slow to recover before stalling.
The wings were still flying well enough to climb to 2500'.
Without much help from the pilots the plane's fall was almost arrested at 1930, then it stalled again.
When the condition levers were advanced there was no application of power because they were trying to slow down and extend the flaps further before reaching the glideslope.
bethpage89 2 years ago
I believe the ground level is approximately 700 feet where 3407 went down. I'm not a pilot so can you tell me the elevation of the plane above the actual ground when the altimeter reads 2500? Did they actually have 1800 feet to work with?
broadpath 2 years ago
@bethpage89 No, he was flying in known icing conditions. What happened was the Captain and First Officer didnt realize they had tailplane icing. The correct action to take would have been to immediatley pull back on the yoke, reduce flaps, and reduce power (may be aircraft specific). What the crew did was the exact opposite. They thought they had a wing stall so they pushed the nose down and increased power. That irritated the t-plane icing and caused them to crash.
AmericanGi370 1 year ago
What exactly are the condition levers? The other sliders are obvious - speed and flaps - but condition?
broadpath 2 years ago
if you push them you chance the angle of the props, creating more/less drag.
crazymonkeyVII 2 years ago
@broadpath Control the pitch of the prop blades
flyboy242 1 year ago