Ground the Q400

[JumpersAway]

I don't think the Q-400 has been around long enough nor have enough of them been built so that "millions" of successful flights have been made yet. Considering its short service life and the accidents it has had it is not proving to be a very safe airframe. Things can't be looking very good for Bombardier right now as most of the aviation accidents over the past 3-4 years have been in their airplanes.

Look at the proportion of flights flown by regionals that operate Bombardier products vs. their mainline counterparts. It's more of a numbers game than a manufacturers defect.

Besides, look at the safety record of the Dash 8. It's pretty impressive. I'm sure the canadians have a relatively thorough understanding of icing and bad winter weather.

 

[atrdriver]

DoinTime,

As of October 1st, 2008 Bombardier delivered 219 Q400 airframes. The first Q400 entered passenger service with SAS in early 2000, with, entry to service with Tyrolean Airways/Austrian Arrows shortly thereafter.

Even when using very conservative airframe time and segments of 3000 hours per annum per airframe and 2000 segments per annum per airframe, you would achieve a very low incident to either hours or segments.

With exception to the mentioned chronic landing gear issues in 2007, as far as I know, Colgan 3407 has been the only fatal accident of the model.

IDEtoNJA

Figuring that the average aircraft flies 10 hours a day, which is probably a little low, with 200 a/c in service, that is 730,000 hours flown a year. Figuring that they have been in service for over 10 years, they have flown several million hours. He obviously either didn't know what he was talking about or just wanted to badmouth the Q400.

 

[hawkerjet]

You know people.. this is an open forum. The amount of pressure that some of you keep trying to exert on shutting down the conversation is ridiculous.

I understand it's touchy. But for f*ck sake, no one is forcing you to read this.

Some of us would like to bounce ideas off each other, because there is a significant chance that the Q400 just fell out the sky because of moderate icing. And that fact scares the living piss out of me.

Didn't mean to rattle your cage and by no means do I mean to exert pressure to suppress your ideas.
A good discussion on this matter can be found on another link that I pasted below.
http://www.pprune.org/archive/index.php/t-153740.html

 

[Paladin]

The ATR was also kicked out of the North immediately after that. It was moved to just DFW, MIA and SJU.

Yeah, that was Eagle. COEX flew them out of EWR, DEN and CLE for years without any problems. LOF was flying them out of STL...lots of snow and ice there.
EGF TEMPORARILY moved a/c while things were being straightened out. The ATR was back at ORD as soon as they were allowed back into IMC. NO ATR was permitted to fly in icing conditions during this time. I remember being rerouted on a GSO-GSP flight back in DEC of '95 because it was cold, rainy and the flight was an ATR-42 (COEX). The flight was canceled.
Get your facts straight.

 

[cheerios2]

The length of this airplane combined with incredibly inadequate horizontal stab has been a ticking timebomb- that cost people their lives today.

Must have missed that class in prdu....

Longer plane is better in ice. Tail has a longer arm making the moment force greater. Plus the tail is father away from the wings downwash..

 

[turbodriver]

Glad I left QX......

 

[30West]

If what people are saying is true, then this airplane is unsafe and needs to be grounded immediately.

Hey look eveyone, Mary Schiavo's a member of FI! uke:

 

[lionflyer]

The NTSB has come out already and given preliminary information regarding the details on the FDR and CVR. It's ok, Voltron, be able to make some reasonable assumptions about what has happened. If you knew anything, you'd realize this sounds like a textbook tail stall... and it points directly to how Bombardier has gotten overzealous with stretching their airplanes.

It makes you wonder how close these aircraft are close to tail stalling clean.

6 months from now (or whenever) if this is the concluded case by the NTSB, then I will agree with you. It's only been a little over 24hrs with a "preliminary report" and you're crying wolf. "GROUND THE 400's! GROUND THE 400's!"

 

[BoilerUP]

Fellow boilermaker,

Hows about we let the NTSB do their job before we start proclaiming for an entire airframe to be scrapped, eh?

But since you're talking about grounding airplanes, Let's ground the CRJ while we're at it. It has a long history of flap problems, one of which nearly killed a whole bunch of Jazz passengers a couple years ago. Well...that and the whole "engines core-locking" thing.

And 737s...their rudders have this nasty habit of "hardover" in flight causing loss of control; its killed a whole bunch of people too.

And Airbusses...their composite tails snap off in light wake turbulence.

And Beechjets...they turn into gliders with large power reductions from high altitude, resulting in at least one deadstick landing.

Yes, tail stalls are scary...they are insidious in their occurance, and even when demonstrated in the simulator are terrifying. But let's not throw the perverboal baby out with the bathwater before we know more about this...after all, Horizon and Lynx have been flying megawhackers for a long time and haven't had any crash yet.

Let the experts do their job.

 

[acaTerry]

You know people.. this is an open forum. The amount of pressure that some of you keep trying to exert on shutting down the conversation is ridiculous.

I understand it's touchy. But for f*ck sake, no one is forcing you to read this.

Some of us would like to bounce ideas off each other, because there is a significant chance that the Q400 just fell out the sky because of moderate icing. And that fact scares the living piss out of me.

So far the only "idea" you have bounced in here is the most idiotic one I have read. A plane crashed! Ground them all!
You'd be a good democrat congressman.

 

[N813CA]

I have flown the Dash 8 100-300. It was the best airplane I have flown in icing conditions. For what it is worth.

 

[Lynxman]

If lynx is flying them in Denver safely what does that say? Well I shouldn't just say Denver but all over that area. Mind you the northeast is a hell of a bad area in the winter time, but still things happen to the best of people it was just their time. Their forever flying in a way better place than we are in now. It's obvious they worked until the end if they were pulling the gear and flaps up. If I had to put money on it the minute it started to pitch and roll that gear and flaps were coming back up. Props to a good crew that probably didn't know exactly how much ice they had on them and followed sop with the gear and flaps coming down when appropriate and trying to correct the problem instantly. Unfortunatly it was too late. Don't deny they did their best.

 

[Captain Morgan]

Fellow boilermaker,

Hows about we let the NTSB do their job before we start proclaiming for an entire airframe to be scrapped, eh?

But since you're talking about grounding airplanes, Let's ground the CRJ while we're at it. It has a long history of flap problems, one of which nearly killed a whole bunch of Jazz passengers a couple years ago. Well...that and the whole "engines core-locking" thing.

And 737s...their rudders have this nasty habit of "hardover" in flight causing loss of control; its killed a whole bunch of people too.

And Airbusses...their composite tails snap off in light wake turbulence.

And Beechjets...they turn into gliders with large power reductions from high altitude, resulting in at least one deadstick landing.

Yes, tail stalls are scary...they are insidious in their occurance, and even when demonstrated in the simulator are terrifying. But let's not throw the perverboal baby out with the bathwater before we know more about this...after all, Horizon and Lynx have been flying megawhackers for a long time and haven't had any crash yet.

Let the experts do their job.

I agree. Isn't flying inherently dangerous anyways? There isn't any reason for purdue pilot guy to point fingers at gross negligence on the part of the manufacturer. Getting into bad ice happens, you just have to know when to get out. Sometimes you don't have a way out, and sometimes you do the best you can. If you want a 100% safe environment, stay on the ground and push some paper for a living.

 

[FO 4 Life]

Yeah, that was Eagle. COEX flew them out of EWR, DEN and CLE for years without any problems. LOF was flying them out of STL...lots of snow and ice there.
EGF TEMPORARILY moved a/c while things were being straightened out. The ATR was back at ORD as soon as they were allowed back into IMC. NO ATR was permitted to fly in icing conditions during this time. I remember being rerouted on a GSO-GSP flight back in DEC of '95 because it was cold, rainy and the flight was an ATR-42 (COEX). The flight was canceled.
Get your facts straight.

Just so I get my facts straight, I should've said ATR 72. What did COEX have, 3 of them?

How's this,
"In the years following this accident, AMR Corporation stopped using its American Eagle ATRs out of its northern hubs and moved them to their southern and Caribbean hubs in Dallas, Texas; Miami, Florida and San Juan, Puerto Rico to alleviate potential icing problems in the future. Other U.S. former ATR operators, particularly the SkyWest, Inc. subsidiary and Delta Connection operator Atlantic Southeast Airlines, operated ATR-72 aircraft in areas where icing conditions were not common."

or

"After a period of mandatory grounding, American Eagle and Delta Connection permanently stopped using the plane on temperate routes."

What else would you like Alice?

 

[LowlyPropCapt]

Just so I get my facts straight, I should've said ATR 72. What did COEX have, 3 of them?

How's this,
"In the years following this accident, AMR Corporation stopped using its American Eagle ATRs out of its northern hubs and moved them to their southern and Caribbean hubs in Dallas, Texas; Miami, Florida and San Juan, Puerto Rico to alleviate potential icing problems in the future. Other U.S. former ATR operators, particularly the SkyWest, Inc. subsidiary and Delta Connection operator Atlantic Southeast Airlines, operated ATR-72 aircraft in areas where icing conditions were not common."

or

"After a period of mandatory grounding, American Eagle and Delta Connection permanently stopped using the plane on temperate routes."

What else would you like Alice?

...And in 1999 and 2000 I was trucking around in both the ATR42 and ATR72 in the midwest and Great Lakes regions with Trans States. The amazing thing is, I am still alive to tell the tail. I saw alot of ice in those airplanes and I never had one misbehave.

Also recall that the NTSB determined that the ATR72 accident in Roselawn involved a crew that ignored guidence on the use of flaps in icing conditions while holding, as well as SLD that was far in excess of ANY certification requirement then or now. In short, that crew might well have been dead in any type of airplane.

Ya might want to get your facts straight, chief. The move of the ATRs to the warm south was a PR thing. Note they are now back in the contiguous 48 as Saab replacements at AE.

The NTSB will get all of this hashed out. For now it is a good idea to enhance your icing knowlege. I know I will.