Colgan Flight 3407 NTSB Animation of Buffalo Accident Q400

Courtesy: National Transportation Safety Board
This three-dimensional (3-D) animated reconstruction shows the last 2 minutes of the February 12, 2009, accident involving a Bombardier DHC-8-400, N200WQ, operated by of Colgan Air, Inc., which crashed about 5 nautical miles northeast of Buffalo-Niagara International Airport, Buffalo, New York, while on an instrument landing system approach to runway 23. During the approach, a pitchup motion occurred, followed by a left roll and then a right roll. During these maneuvers, both the stick shaker and stick pusher were activated, and the speed decreased. After further pitch and roll excursions, the airplane entered a steep descent from which it did not recover.
The animation shows excerpts from the flight data recorder (FDR), the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) transcript, recorded radar data, and aircraft performance data. It does not depict the weather or visibility conditions at the time of the accident. The animation does not include audio.
The upper portion of the animation shows a 3-D model of the airplane and the airplanes motions during the accident sequence. In this area, selected content from the CVR transcript or other annotations are superimposed as text at the time that the event occurred. All times (in eastern standard time) are shown on the right side of the screen.
The lower portion of the animation depicts instruments and indicators, which display selected FDR or calculated parameters. The instruments and indications are shown in three sections, which are (from left to right):
•Airspeed, airspeed tape, low speed cue, attitude indicator showing pitch and roll attitude, altitude, altitude tape, rate of climb, and heading;
•Stick shaker and stick pusher indicated as text, control wheel/column icon depicting the control wheel (rotating right or left) and control column (moving up or down) inputs, and an indicator showing rudder pedal inputs; and
•The power lever and condition lever as indicators, the flap handle selection as an indicator, and auto pilot status and gearhandle position indicated as text.
Excerpts from CVR transcript:
22:15:06.3 HOT-1    flaps five.
22:15:08.1 HOT-2    what?
22:15:08.8 HOT-1    flaps five please.
22:15:13.5 APP Colgan thirty four zero seven three miles from KLUMP turn left heading two six zero maintain two thousand three hundred until established localizer. cleared ILS approach runway two three.
22:15:22.2 RDO-2   left two sixty two thousand three hundred til established and cleared ILS two three approach Colgan thirty four zero seven.
22:15:31.7 HOT-1    alright approach is armed.
22:15:32.8 HOT-2    roger.
22:16:04.1 HOT-1    gear downlocs alive.
22:16:06.4 APP Colgan thirty four zero seven contact tower one two zero point five. have a good night.
22:16:11.5 RDO-2   over to tower you do the same thirty four zero seven.
22:16:21.2 HOT-2    gears down.
22:16:23.5 HOT-1    flaps fifteen before landing checklist.
22:16:26.6 HOT-2    uhhh.
22:16:37.1 HOT-2    I put the flaps up.
22:16:42.2 HOT-1    [grunt]
22:16:45.8 HOT-2    should the gear up?
22:16:46.8 HOT-1    gear up.
22:16:50.1 CAM [increase in ambient noise]
22:16:51.9 CAM [thump]

• Category

  Science & Technology

[PilotWithAGun]

Wrong, a glider (without power) can come out of stall.... just lower the nose. Power has nothing to do with stalls. Angle of attack does.

[nmgscp]

It's difficult at 2300 feet

[Aertraveller]

Well I think both pilots weren't exactly in the best shape, regional airlines in the US are notorious for often making their pilots fly with too small amount of sleep, increasing risk for errors and increasing reaction times.

[PIlotrcm]

Typically most airliners turboprops and jets have suffient power to "power out" of a stall condition so most airlines recovery procedures are a max thrust with no configuration changes until out of the stall. They both screwed up why Rebecca retracted the flaps? I'm sure int the sim she did fine

[PIlotrcm]

Makes me wonder I they thought it was a tail stall. T-tail designs are susceptible to that in particular. Pitching up and returning to the original configuration would be normal in that case. The FO called mentioned gear down as the airplane slowed as a reminder to go to flaps 15 as that usually changes the shaker limit. Looks like he waited too long and incorrectly recovered from a standard stall and retracting the flaps only "deepened" the stall

[ubcs109]

Do a YouTube search of "Bergainair 301" and watch the video called "Mixed Signals". It should be the first video that pops up. It's a prime example of what you're talking about. Basically what happens is the planes pitot tubes become clogged and is giving false airspeed to the captain. He decides to throttle back and the plane stalls and crashed to earth. It shows how some pilots can become extremely nervous when the stick shaker is activated. It's pretty good; very interesting. Bout 50 mins.

[indianapatsfan]

Thanks for the reply. Instead of the driving example, perhaps a better example would be that of a bank teller or an armored car driver. I'm sure they're trained on what to do in the event of a robbery, but, how they might react when suddenly put in a life or death situation may be entirely different.

[ltacktl505]

Your comment is correct. In 40 years of flying I've encountered my share of unexpected in-flight situations that required rapid actions to avert disaster. Fortunately things turned out well, however, I know from first hand experience the dramatic psychological effects this produces on the pilot. Judgment can be clouded and as your mind races to discern the situation things can happen in very slow motion ( swimming in glue ) and this is called "Being human". We're all subjected to this.

[indianapatsfan]

I'm just curious how often the stick shaker goes off. Rarely or never? Daily? I honestly don't know.