Aviation > Pilot/Controller Forum
Colgan Crash Experience
n204wt:
Here's what Fox news is saying: "Colgan Air First Officer Rebecca Shaw, who has been with the airline since January 16, 2008, and had flown 2,244 hours with Colgan."
For the sake of discussion, let's say 16-JAN-08 is 392 days ago (365 days in a year plus 27 more for the period 16-JAN-09 until today, 13-FEB-09).
When I divide 2244 hours by 392 days, I get 5.72 hours per day of flying. This seems an almost impossibly high number of hours.
Anyone know anything about duty assignments at Colgan?
wadegamm:
They (CNN) are known to cross their numbers. It may be her total time, or her years are wrong. As for the accident I responded this to an earlier blog:
It looks like everything happened right as they were coming up on the LOM (marker). She was cleared, established, coming over the LOM and had just been passed off to the tower by approach.
It looks like it is all ice related. That is the exact point where everything would have been deploying out and the power is being slightly reduced. The crash site is not even a half mile from the NDB-LOM ( KLUMP). It may be the result of a partial or un-equal deployment of any one of the flaps, slats, or gear… or just a total ice function effecting lift. The -8s only have leading edge boots and don’t have heated or bleeding wings. I know a little Cessna can gain several hundred pounds a minute in really bad freezing rain. As for the slight LOC (localizer) fluctuation that was reported, that is normal when another aircraft crosses the LOC runway and that is what had happened as the aircraft that made that particular report was inbound. No one was crossing the active when 3407 was on the approach.
I am trying to figure out which it is. Ice effecting mechanical systems or Ice effecting the wings and weight. There are supposed to be sensors that prevent differential deployment of flaps, slats, and speed brakes, but I don’t know the exact details of the -8 400s
joeyb747:
You are correct about the Dash 8 not using bleed air in the wing anti-ice system. The only part of the ant-ice system that uses bleed air is around the engine inlets. My speculation concurs with the ice therory. Its strange that it droped out of the sky that fast and there was no mayday from the crew. If you listen to the recording, the co-pilots voice sounds relaxed in the begining, then the last transmission when they are handed off to tower, her voice sounds "hurried", but not distressed. Very strange.
byoungblood:
My instructor and I had a chat about this on an instrument lesson today. Basically, if you're icing up, don't touch the flaps! Ice can cause such a drastic change to the wing profile that even when the flaps come down equally, it can upset the aerodynamic forces enough to upset the airplane in a hurry. In that case it is just better to carry the extra speed and land long than not at all. :(
When an aircraft is at or near the OM, they're only about 1600-1700 AGL. I'm not sure what approach speed they use, but as sudden as this situation developed, I doubt there was much time for recovery.
MathFox:
There was a recent Norwegian report about an incident where an ATR 42 suddenly lost 1500 ft due to icing. http://aviation-safety.net/go.php?http://www.aibn.no/items/3216/144/8519822396/LN-FAO%20Eng..pdf
Differences with Buffalo: the Norwegian pilots had no reason to extend the flaps and they were at higher altitude.
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