Visit www.avweb.com and search “3407″ for more. The ntsb’s animation derived from information taken from the Colgan Air Flight 3407 cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder.
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Who hired the pilot?
CIW..I hope your not a pilot at Colgan if you think a stall is unrecoverable from 1500′ even with some ice. In fact this a/c climbs to 1750 AGL before the flaps are raised and the final element of the event happens. in fact they dont lose any altitude until after the flaps are raised. so while the shaker/pusher is operating they are managing to climb. I think that rules out ice being an issue and any thought that they couldn’t have recovered.
I have no disrespect for the pilots. I know most of the Colgan flight crews(not this particular team however), this was still pilot error. And I really don’t appreciate the dig on the Maintenance. Albany (where the Q’s are maintained as well as the Saabs) have a high standard. Don’t lump Colgan in with Mesa please. Nothing i have said is disrespectful to thoes who have died either.
Ok maybe it was the crew’s mistake, but don’t try to defend one of the companies who ruin the regional business in the US. Companies like Colgan, Mesa, GoJet etc are the real people who we need to blame for; they are making money out of the pilots (US$16 Hour), poor maintenance, really bad ground services.And don’t let me start with the majors…. so please do no disrespect the memory of all the people who died that day… and yes this includes the pilots!
Colgan Air is one of the fastest growing airlines out there and are ranked 8th in terms of on time flights even over major airlines. They are not cheep nor are they dangerous. This was the Pilots fault not the aircraft. Blameing an entire business for the mistake of an individual is unsupportable.
Close enough that it would have been questionable at best, it still may not have had enough altitud to recover. The pilot was to blame from the start and his over reaction simply put the final nail in the coffin.
Yes you are correct. Pulling up in a stall is bad especially if you don’t have airspeed to recover. The Aircraft’s Stick pusher detected the stall and automatically nosed the plane down. The problem was A: the altitude was too low and they had no airspeed. Could this have been avoided? yes, if they had not slowed as much as they had. The Pilot made it much worse when he over reacted and hauled back on the stick against the pusher. So yeah i suppose it could have recovered but it would have been.
I’m no pilot but I took 375GTB’s advice and watched “Flying Cheap” by PBS Frontline.
They had clips from the NTSB investigation hearing before congress. They asked a test pilot if in his professional opinion, if this was a recoverable stall. He said yes.
Even if the ice killed the wings’ lift, doesn’t pulling up in a stall complicate things? So it doesn’t matter that the pusher activated and they pulled up? I don’t get it.
Actually it really wasn’t by the time they got there. They had gear down and flaps down. they were at low airspeed and were at a low altitude. They couldn’t have recovered at that point. The ice Killed the wings lift. No airspeed no room to nose down and gain it back. The pilot did pull up on the sticks when it automatically nosed over to recover from the stall but it didn’t matter by then. ICE+LOW AIRSPEED+LOW ALTITUDE= NTSB investigation.
Even if ice was a factor, this was still a recoverable stall. They still pulled up on the yoke. The pusher turned on and they fought that. Even if you remove ice from the equation, they did a lot wrong.
ice big factor.
Ice no factor.
Ic no factor in this crash.
2-9-10 PBS: FRONT LINE “FLYING CHEAP” just dissected this whole sorry situation, with Colgan and all the “regional” contract airlines to the majors. The FAA’s being in bed with the airlines, contractors they are supposed to be regulating.
Fly a Regional…. drive a Prius… say your prayers.
Sorry i missed the space bar lol! I was trying to say De-ice.
hello sir, whatsDelce?
well the plane lost airspeed so it stalled, thats the reason of the crash i guess
If i recall correctly he had turned on his DeIce system right after departure from Newark. DeIce only works if you already have enough ice built up. Anti Ice is left on during flight, This is basic aviation education, i learned it in A&P school. NEVER thought i would see it actually happen to my own company. The PIC was to blame. Not the aircraft.
wow ! powerfull
Not many turbopropeller aircraft have autothrottles. The pilots control the power.
ah i see thank you for clearing that up
Becouse he belived he had a tail stall in that icing condition. whitch was wrong…. And from his school records, he was a bad pilot. He failed all the tests at least once from private to commercial. (Yes, my FAA flight instructor told me this)
That’s weird…If the AP was on I think that the Auto/thrust was also on…AP was armed in APR mode so it should also maintain speed, but I am not familiar with AP systems on this airplane…Pilots might have been desoriented when stalling in IMC conditions
seems to a simple stall to me
not blaming the crew:
pilots are not to increase aoa (pitching up) in an imminent stall situation
when in a stall they should follow known recovery techniques
r.i.p.
They were not at a low altitude when the stickshaker first activated,
when the stickpusher first activated,
or when they first stalled.
They stalled again at 1920′ MSL. They might well have recovered from that, too, if they had tried.
From the moment the stickshaker activated the pilot flying fixed too much attention and effort on bank angle, which didn’t matter, inadvertently nosing up, climbing 200 feet, stalling, and stalling again after losing about 600 feet.