Buffalo Q400 crash

Peter Dohm wrote:

We really don't know whether they actually had tailplane ice at the time,
not whether they did not, and we never will know because that sort of
evidence would not reasonably survive a crash.

Knowledgeable people (as eg. NTSB's accident investigators) tend to read
a lot out of the FDR data. I'm pretty sure we *will* know when the final
accident report is released.

"Peter Dohm" wrote:

We really don't know whether they actually had tailplane ice at the
time, not whether they did not, and we never will know because that
sort of evidence would not reasonably survive a crash.

The manufacturer testified at the NTSB hearings that their certification
tests showed that the aircraft wasn't subject to tailplane stalls.

I'll wait for the NTSB results, but, if there's a silver lining to
this incident, it's that the major news networks must have been hit
with a few thousand e-mails pointing out pilot salary... In one
afternoon, CNN went from outrage over why such low-time pilots were
flying the airplanes to focusing on the fact that the pilots made less
than the average janitors. Somebody clued them in that you're not
going to get high-time superpilots flying your ass around if you
expect to pay them fast food drive-thru wages.

There's the bottom line that, fortunately, CNN tried to expose:
Americans are only going to get what they're willing to pay for and if
they want bargain-barrel rates they're going to have to expect bargain-
barrel service. Most people clearly still believe that air transport
pilots make doctor's wages. Maybe this will people up.



-c

On May 20, 2:00*pm, C Gattman wrote:
I'll wait for the NTSB results, but, if there's a silver lining to
this incident, it's that the major news networks must have been hit
with a few thousand e-mails pointing out pilot salary... *In one
afternoon, CNN went from outrage over why such low-time pilots were
flying the airplanes to focusing on the fact that the pilots made less
than the average janitors. * Somebody clued them in that you're not
going to get high-time superpilots flying your ass around if you
expect to pay them fast food drive-thru wages.

There's the bottom line that, fortunately, CNN tried to expose:
Americans are only going to get what they're willing to pay for and if
they want bargain-barrel rates they're going to have to expect bargain-
barrel service. *Most people clearly still believe that air transport
pilots make doctor's wages. *Maybe this will people up.

-c

Well, that may be true, but the vultures are already circling and the
manufacturer and airline are going to be sued...

http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?C...-1ae3e0730f27&

wrote:
Well, that may be true, but the vultures are already circling and the
manufacturer and airline are going to be sued...

http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?C...3-38cb-42a0-bd
c8-1ae3e0730f27&

There are some interesting claims I heard directly from the attorney for
the respondent in the following case which was brought against a different
Colgan pilot in 2008:

http://www.ntsb.gov/alj/alj/o_n_o/do...ation/5421.pdf

The above just contains the judicial decisions and reasoning - very little
of the testimony is mentioned - and doesn't cover the nature of the FAA
response.

In the above case, basically the first officer of a Colgan flight accused
the captain of creating a false load manifest and thereby flying
recklessly. The captain and FO had personal animosities and the FO was
allegedly on his way to losing his job when the FO reported the incident.
According to the judge, the "resolution of this case rested on a
credibility determination." He found against the captain.

As I understand it, a list of unprofessional actions and flight activities
were brought to the attention of the FAA during this case, so the FAA
established a task force for the case. The attorney said he was expecting
the FAA task force to take action against Colgan back then - but nothing
happened. It would appear the FAA may have had ample warning of problems
with Colgan operations and just cause to order correction of deficiences,
but did nothing.

It would appear that in this case the FAA allowed its promotion of air
commerce to take precedence over its promotion of air safety, and a
specific and linear causal result was this crash.

On May 21, 5:37*pm, wrote:
the vultures are already circling and the
manufacturer and airline are going to be sued...

SOP is to sue everybody within a 150 mile radius.

An unnamed defendant may ultimately be found liable, and the
plaintiffs may find themselves ultimately screwed.

But... there's probably a real lawyer in here somewhere who might
expound on that.
-----

- gpsman

On 16 May, 13:25, James Robinson wrote:
Jessica wrote:

James Robinson wrote:

wrote:

Standard practice is to wait until you have a positive rate of climb
before raising the flaps. *Raising the flaps if the airplane was on
the verge of a stall would be a big mistake. *Lowering the nose and
applying full power would be the best course of action, and once a
positive rate of climb could be achieved, then the flaps could be
raised.

There is some debate about that. *For a wing stall, you are correct,
however, some have pointed out that the PIC's experience was recently
on Saabs, which can see tail stalls in icing conditions - the Q400
isn't subject to tail stalls. *A tail stall is most often first seen
when the flaps are extended, and the effect is for the nose to drop.
The reaction to a tail stall is to retract the flaps, and pull the
nose up. *Was that what the captain was reacting to?

Perhaps, but even that doesn't make sense either. *The airplane stall
warning system/ stick shaker was activating. *This would only indicate
a stall condition is imminent for the wing. *The stall warning system
does not indicate anything about the tail, so the only corrective
measure to take for a stick shaker would be a conventional wing stall
recovery, such as full available power, prop forward, pitch down,
don't bring up the flaps until a positive rate of climb is achieved.

The question is what to do when everything happens at the same time? *
That is, after the flap setting is increased, the stick shaker stall
warning fires, and the nose pitches down. What would you do then? *The
stick shaker is only an indication of an impending stall, and there are
probably a few MPH margin left, but the increased flap setting might have
started a tailplane stall, on aircraft that have that tendency.

Immediately retracting the flaps might be the best course, along with
either level flight with increased power or slightly pushing the nose
down to keep the speed up. Pulling on the control column likely wouldn't
be a good idea, unless the pitch down was extreme. I don't know.

I'm not familiar with the specific stall recovery for that type, but
you get the idea. *If the pilot pushed the stick over to recover from
a non-existent tail stall, that was a bad move. *I haven't seen
anything to suggest that happened however.

The FDR shows moderate backpressure (20 lb, 40 lbs total) momentarily
applied to the control columns on both sides in response to the stick
shaker.

If memory serves me correctly, from my reading of NTSB material
the two control column force
transducers are *not* representative of the forces on the
two pilots' control columns.

There are two force sensors but I interpreted the explanation
to mean that it cannot be determined how much force each pilot
was applying.

http://www.ntsb.gov/Dockets/Aviation...027/417236.pdf
3.5.4. Control Column Forces
"With the system operating normally (for example,
disconnect not pulled), there is no way to determine
if pilot, copilot or both are flying."

There is more in the original doc. Quite complex and hard to
follow.

bod43 wrote:

James Robinson wrote:

Jessica wrote:

James Robinson wrote:

wrote:

Standard practice is to wait until you have a positive rate of
climb before raising the flaps. *Raising the flaps if the
airplane was on the verge of a stall would be a big mistake.
*Lowering the nose and applying full power would be the best
course of action, and once a positive rate of climb could be
achieved, then the flaps could be raised.

There is some debate about that. *For a wing stall, you are
correct, however, some have pointed out that the PIC's experience
was recently on Saabs, which can see tail stalls in icing
conditions - the Q400 isn't subject to tail stalls. *A tail stall
is most often first seen when the flaps are extended, and the
effect is for the nose to drop. The reaction to a tail stall is to
retract the flaps, and pull the nose up. *Was that what the
captain was reacting to?

Perhaps, but even that doesn't make sense either. *The airplane
stall warning system/ stick shaker was activating. *This would only
indicate a stall condition is imminent for the wing. *The stall
warning system does not indicate anything about the tail, so the
only corrective measure to take for a stick shaker would be a
conventional wing stall recovery, such as full available power,
prop forward, pitch down, don't bring up the flaps until a positive
rate of climb is achieved.

The question is what to do when everything happens at the same time?
That is, after the flap setting is increased, the stick shaker
stall warning fires, and the nose pitches down. What would you do
then? *The stick shaker is only an indication of an impending stall,
and there are probably a few MPH margin left, but the increased flap
setting might have started a tailplane stall, on aircraft that have
that tendency.

Immediately retracting the flaps might be the best course, along with
either level flight with increased power or slightly pushing the nose
down to keep the speed up. Pulling on the control column likely
wouldn't be a good idea, unless the pitch down was extreme. I don't
know.

I'm not familiar with the specific stall recovery for that type,
but you get the idea. *If the pilot pushed the stick over to
recover from a non-existent tail stall, that was a bad move. *I
haven't seen anything to suggest that happened however.

The FDR shows moderate backpressure (20 lb, 40 lbs total) momentarily
applied to the control columns on both sides in response to the stick
shaker.

If memory serves me correctly, from my reading of NTSB material
the two control column force
transducers are *not* representative of the forces on the
two pilots' control columns.

There are two force sensors but I interpreted the explanation
to mean that it cannot be determined how much force each pilot
was applying.

http://www.ntsb.gov/Dockets/Aviation...027/417236.pdf
3.5.4. Control Column Forces
"With the system operating normally (for example,
disconnect not pulled), there is no way to determine
if pilot, copilot or both are flying."

There is more in the original doc. Quite complex and hard to
follow.

Thanks for pointing that out. I hadn't read it before, and it goes a
long way to explaining how the sensors work. It helps to read the
instructions.

You are correct that the system doesn't separate the forces on each
side, and the recorder only shows that somebody (or both) pulled back on
the control column(s) when the stick shaker intially fired. The pull
totaled about 40 lbs. A reasonable assumption is that the PF did the
deed alone.

The force applied by the PF relaxed as the aircraft pitched up, but when
the stick pusher activated, the backpressure on the column was reapplied,
even though the aircraft was pitched up by 30 degrees. The PF more or
less maintained the force against the stick pusher until impact.

Remember that while all of this is going on, the aircraft is wildly
rolling left and right.

On Sat, 16 May 2009 12:25:49 +0000 (UTC), James Robinson wrote:

Clearly, pulling on the control columns was the wrong thing to do, so why
did they both do it? Pushing should have been the instinctive reaction
to the stick shaker. I'm trying to figure out what else might have been
in their minds to generate the opposite reaction.

Sex?
--
Bear Bottoms
Private Attorney General

On May 21, 10:34*pm, gpsman wrote:
On May 21, 5:37*pm, wrote:

the vultures are already circling and the
manufacturer and airline are going to be sued...

SOP is to sue everybody within a 150 mile radius.

An unnamed defendant may ultimately be found liable, and the
plaintiffs may find themselves ultimately screwed.

But... there's probably a real lawyer in here somewhere who might
expound on that.
*-----

- gpsman

Only if you pay him for his/her services... ;-)

BTW, never go to lunch with an attorney. You will get stuck with the
bill, and they will bill you for their time. True story.