Continental (Colgan)-3407 -8 Crash in Buffalo

[styx_phoenix]

Ice. The Dash 8 is bad in Ice.

Correction: Any aircraft is bad in ice if anti-icing procedures aren't followed to the "T". The Dash-8 is actually one of the better aircraft in icing conditions, as someone else noted in this forum.

The only known "problem" with the Dash 8 400 was the landing gear problem of 2007. That was addressed and wouldn't have been a problem in this crash anyway.

[Hollis]

AOL news this morning mentioned liveATC.net in their article:

"Prior to the crash, the voice of a female pilot on Continental Flight 3407 could be heard communicating with air traffic controllers, according to a recording of the Buffalo air traffic control's radio messages shortly before the crash captured by the Web site LiveATC.net. Neither the controller nor the pilot showed any concerns that anything was out of the ordinary as the airplane was asked to fly at 2,300 feet."

[bluebeamer]

To me it sounds like she repeated back the turn to 310 as 210.

[kea001]

Crash site - 6050 Long St., Clarence Center, New York

CORRECTION: Address of impact is 6038 Long St., Clarence Center, New York



as reported by Buffalo News:
http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/577959.html

More info at Aviation Herald:
http://avherald.com/h?article=414f3dbd&opt=1

Local live coverage can be found at WGRZ-Buffalo
http://www.wgrz.com/

[carl hackert]

Thanks for this website. The ATC recording has an exchanges between other flight crews and a controller looking for the wreckage and that they were detected a 1 degree variation in the localizer. Its hard to see how that sort of heading deviation (no altitude information as in a glideslope) could have caused this crash since the area is flat, no obstacles other than terra firma. There were reports of icing, winds had been extreme earlier in the evening but appeared to be letting up and the precip was not great. Witnesses said that they heard sputtering prior to impact but those reports are usually unreliable. No professional flight crew would abandon ILS and transition to visual clues 5 miles out. So, that leaves a sudden equipment failure, dropping below the needed airspeed under unexpected flight conditions such as icing and shear, or as gear or flap position were being configured.

[Airamflyr]

Without pre-judgement, a Delta flight on approach reported 1/4 to 1/2 inch Rhime Ice starting to disipate at just around 2300 feet.      Cogan 1507 possibly experienced this at 5 miles out over the marker.   She did not report ice or other problems on final communication. 

[alexander888]

Hey all this is a horrible crash. Pretty clear with my experience with the Canadian Crash Investigation team what a probable cause for this one is. I think we all have a sneaking suspicion that icing on the wings was the problem. Temps at BNIA were falling last night after a day of rain. We up here in Canada are all to familiar with the Dash 8 ( Q400 ) and have had problems with them in the past what with our terrible winters up here in certain regions

ttp://www.tc.gc.ca/civilaviation/commerce/circulars/AC0147.htm

http://www.aviation.ca/content/view/3231/118/

With my knowledge of the Dash 8s if your not trained properly in their internal deicing functions it can drop out of the sky under the right conditions. Unfortunately I don't have access the NTSB site this is just my guess from what I've gathered so far. These pilots may not have been trained properly. (* see above links )

[mk]

about 9 mins into the original unedited clip, they never readback the descent BUF issues.  That was 6 mins from lost contact.  Probably something distracting attention at that point.

[bn2av8r]

16:03 he hands 3407 off
And by experience the only thing mentioned here that rings a bell is the wind shear and direction changes present at the time. When the aircraft is in flaps transition, power settings require change, if the wind shear shifts during this phase it can cause the aircraft to fall or become unstable on the longitudinal axis. the dash has exceptional roll stability, but less than desired pitch stability.
This should have been a go around.

The nearest I can see by looking at historical data shows the wind direction did not change at the surface until 2 hours after the accident, and then only by 80 degrees or so.  No mention on any of the METARs show a varying wind speed within the approach segment.  Usually you will see a note of WS020/32030 or something like that to indicate potential shear on or near the airport.  And most likely you would have had a PIREP if a preceeding a/c had encountered such conditions.

I know nothing about the Q400 but if it were unstable about the longitudinal axis, it would mean that it laterally unstable and affects the rolling properties of the a/c.  Now if it had poor longitudinal stability, that would be around the lateral axis and affect pitch.
 
And as for icing as a cause, I'm not going to speculate.  When the NTSB publishes their findings we will know what happened with a certainty and hopefully learn some lessons.

"This should have been a go around" --------Were you there?  Were you experiencing anything they were dealing with?  Should DAL and AWE gone around too?  Are you implying they shouldn't have landed under those circumstances?  Everyday, we as pilots are thrown challenging circumstances such as ice, shear, TS, etc.  Yet with the professionalism of these guys and gals, we make the best decision based on sound experience and quality training.  DO NOT drag their name through the mud with your "speculation" and monday morning quarterbacking!

[styx_phoenix]

I listened to the full ATC communications and I too, did not detect anything out of the ordinary. However, "claver" mentioned earlier a concern about the runway in use at the time and questioned that aspect of the facts. I tend to have similar concerns after listening to the ATC calls from the various a/c in the air at the time and the conditions they were all dealing with.

(I know there are also eyewitness reports that indicate the plane was traveling in the "wrong direction" for a landing at the airport. There is no way for us to verify that fact so for now ... we'll ignore that.)

My concerns are with the relative wind direction and potential wind sheer conditions, combined with the IFR/icing conditions ... why send planes through those conditions into a left turn for rnwy 23 and not into the wind for a landing on rnwy 32? Additionally, I don't want to drag anyone's name in the mud here but the controller seemed to be quite distracted himself even before any indication of problems with Colgan 3407. He even took a good 2½ minutes to actually focus on the lack of radio chatter from 3407 and begin treating as an emergency.

[czi]

15:22 - Last contact with 3407

17:22 - Another plane is asked to keep an eye out for the plane.

20:30 - Fire/police notified.

21:50 - Emergency declared.

24:00 - Dash 8 didn't make the airport.

...And at 16:02 they were handed over to tower.

[vector4u]

Hope this works.  It is an overlay that should open in Google Earth.

[Acey]

CNN needs to give credit where it's due, to LiveATC.net. Their "transcript" is a joke; where every other word is "unintelligible" even though they are spoken clearly. 

[onetwenty]

thowing this out there, but the UPS heavy on approach while the tower was still in confusion has a windsheer alert audible in his missed approach comm. he also told tower about strong windsheer.
they're saying now it may have been rhyme(sp) ice, much like sandpaper can reduce lift by 20%.
i'll try to keep us all posted

just hear something else, autopilot.
the FAA made it madatory to disconnect the AP every 5 min in bad weather or under ice conditions, to see how the aircraft is handling.
there was an incident (insert year here) where the pilots had disconnected AP and the plane went into a side-roll and lost 20,000 ft of alt.
maybe in the normal disconnection of AP, the control of the aircraft was lost.
every pilot has a different time on apprach that they disc. AP.
im assuming the Q400 is a CAT II, not CAT III w/ autoland.

[djhunt]

... Additionally, I don't want to drag anyone's name in the mud here but the controller seemed to be quite distracted himself even before any indication of problems with Colgan 3407. He even took a good 2½ minutes to actually focus on the lack of radio chatter from 3407 and begin treating as an emergency.

We really need to stop spouting nonsense.  The audio you listened to was from the approach controller.  He'd handed over the plane to the control tower, and that handoff was acknowledged by the plane.  So, from the approach controller's perspective, he was done with the plane.  "Lack of radio chatter" would not be a concern.  He was more than likely notified by tower that the plane did not contact the tower, which is why the approach controller started asking on his frequency.

[onetwenty]

+1

[KSYR-pjr]

they're saying now it may have been rhyme(sp) ice, much like sandpaper can reduce lift by 20%.
i'll try to keep us all posted

Actually, you are confusing rime ice with frost on the wings.  When an aircraft sits on the airport tarmac and frost develops on the wings, it is like sandpaper and can reduce lift by a large percentage.

Rime ice, on the other hand, looks like this:



edit:  Of course rime ice also affects lift, but it additionally adds weight and drag, and much more so affects the airfoil than simple frost.

edit2:  There is also another type of airframe icing called clear ice, which tends to form from  large, super-cooled liquid droplets, like those found in freezing rain or near the tops of cumulus clouds.  This ice is even more insidious due to its ability to flow back away from the leading edges before completely freezing.

[onetwenty]

... which wasnt the ice i was talking about, considering the aircraft had been airborne for a good time.
Rime ice [thanks for the spelling] was the type of ice that had built on aircraft that were landing at kbuf at the same time frame.

edit- they mentioned clear ice as a possibility, but pilots flying at that time said it was no factor.

[lkmacdon]

Hey guys, check out WROC's coverage and post your comments on the live blog/  WROC is a station out of Rochester, NY.  http://rochesterhomepage.net

[kitsap2]

Everything is speculation at this point.  Icing is at the top of most everyone's "guess", including my own.  However, there could be, and I'm "guessing" here, even more twists and turns before the NTSB finally has the answers.

The recording is more disturbing for what is not heard, than what is heard.

Tom

[KSYR-pjr]

Hope this works.  It is an overlay that should open in Google Earth.

What was this supposed to be?  All I am seeing is a marker located over Binghamton, NY, some 100 miles southeast from the Buffalo area.

[onetwenty]

well they have the voice recorder now, so i'm assuming we'll hear the cause or positive speculation from the NTSB by sometime next week or so.

i heard a story of a woman who is always on the Newark-Buffalo flight at about that time every thursday, but there was a hold up with her luggage and she missed 3407.
bizarre how some minor events can turn to life-changing ones.

[dska22]

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-212790

Even I don't know if CNN should have posted this online.  A very raw, incredible video of the first few minutes after the crash.  Hearing the mother scream to solicit help for her daughter, then reply that her husband was in the house.  wow.  Very tragic.  As someone who lives a few minutes away, this hits home.

[KSYR-pjr]

i heard a story of a woman who is always on the Newark-Buffalo flight at about that time every thursday, but there was a hold up with her luggage and she missed 3407.
bizarre how some minor events can turn to life-changing ones.

There was another story of a woman who was held up leaving Newark for Buffalo earlier because the flight was canceled due to weather.  When she asked the gate agent to put her on standby of the the later flight that turned out to be the accident flight, the gate agent told her to make that request with the customer service desk.   The woman took a look at the long line nearby and said, "forget it, I am not standing in that line," so she was not placed on the flight.

[ChristopherT]

First of all, I'd like to offer my condolences to the passengers and crew of the flight as well as the first responders and others involved in the accident.  I've been to Clarence before and it's a great little town.  I've downloaded all the clips to go through and I have my initial guess as to the cause (Icing!) but now that the FAA
has the CVR and the FDR, I'm very curious as to what they find on the CVR.

 ChristopherT