Colgan 3407 Down in Buffalo

[twighead]

Do you regional guys practice the tail icing recovery maneuver in training? I've had it on occasion in various corporate training. It's worth going through as it's not something you would naturally do in that circumstance.

I've never heard anything about it in my 3.5 years at PDT. I fly almost exclusively in the Northeast and go into BUF a few times every week. After watching that NASA video and seeing what happened to Colgan, my confidence flying in icing conditions had been shaken somewhat.

 

[Motive Flow]

I thought CNN who I have worked with had a good spot on how rare accidents are.

I thought that was pretty good too. The best quote from the CNN newsbabe this morning was when introducing Mary Schiavo as having a "law firm that sues airlines." That pretty much hit the nail on the head.:smash:

 

[satpak77]

For what its worth, at both Simuflite and Flightsafety recurrent for the King Air 350, tail stalls are covered as is (of course) wind shear and TCAS collision avoidance, along with your standard ice on the wings buildup stuff

 

[LowlyPropCapt]

I've never heard anything about it in my 3.5 years at PDT. I fly almost exclusively in the Northeast and go into BUF a few times every week. After watching that NASA video and seeing what happened to Colgan, my confidence flying in icing conditions had been shaken somewhat.

I'm not sure your confidence should be shaken yet, but it should prompt you to enhance your knowledge with regards to icing. I know I have spent some time reviewing things, especially the tailplane icing stuff. We do not yet know for sure that ice was a link in this accident chain, no matter how things may look right now... But it still doesn't hurt to expand our knowledge.

Ice is hazardous. We can mitigate the risks to a large degree, but since everytime we accumulate ice we are flying untested airfoils, we can never completely eliminate the danger. It is so easy, especially in the Dash, to be unconcerned in the presence of ice because we see so much of it, but we should always be suspicious of it. My hope somehow we are able to glean some information from this tragedy that will make us all safer.

 

[PropPiedmont]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2238323060735779946&hl=en

not to say this was the cause- but good info that may apply.

I remember watching this video in training at Piedmont. Not sure if it was during new hire training or during a CQ.

 

[WSurf]

I'm not sure your confidence should be shaken yet, but it should prompt you to enhance your knowledge with regards to icing. I know I have spent some time reviewing things, especially the tailplane icing stuff. We do not yet know for sure that ice was a link in this accident chain, no matter how things may look right now... But it still doesn't hurt to expand our knowledge.

Ice is hazardous. We can mitigate the risks to a large degree, but since everytime we accumulate ice we are flying untested airfoils, we can never completely eliminate the danger. It is so easy, especially in the Dash, to be unconcerned in the presence of ice because we see so much of it, but we should always be suspicious of it. My hope somehow we are able to glean some information from this tragedy that will make us all safer.

Well said Prop, we just don't know yet. I heard it was reported that the windshield was covered in ice. Was the Windshield Ice put on normal, or was it still on warmup? I have had the windshield covered in ICe and Selecting Normal cleared it right up. Were the boots on Continous Fast Cycle or was he like some other people that wait for ice to build then cycle the boots?
Was there a malfunction of the de-icing system? There are so many questions that still need to be answered and they will come soon.

 

[Lynxman]

I thought you were supposed to wait for a little bit of ice to build up and then cycle the boots.

 

[indianboy7]

I thought you were supposed to wait for a little bit of ice to build up and then cycle the boots.

not anymore. NASA did a bunch of tests and realized that bridging was not a factor with new deice technology.....we keep the boots going continuously whenever we have ice on the airframe at my airline.

 

[LowlyPropCapt]

I thought you were supposed to wait for a little bit of ice to build up and then cycle the boots.

Nope... At least not on the DHC-8-100/300. Bombardier says start the boots at the first sign of ice on the airplane. I have never seen "bridging" in any turboprop I have flown. Occassionally, you will run someone who claims to have seen it, but I think it is sort of like the Loch Ness Monster... It doesn't really exist.

 

[Raskal]

Nope... At least not on the DHC-8-100/300. Bombardier says start the boots at the first sign of ice on the airplane. I have never seen "bridging" in any turboprop I have flown. Occassionally, you will run someone who claims to have seen it, but I think it is sort of like the Loch Ness Monster... It doesn't really exist.

Same here, I was told to wait for accumulation back when I first flew a King Air but have since been taught not to wait. I've never seen bridging either.

The policy on the saabs I fly is the boots to auto/continuous in ice conditions, but I don't like this much when in actual icing-there is a 3 minute dwell time in between cycles and that's too long sometimes. Often I'll cycle them manually. Does anyone who flies the Q series know if that continuous mode is actually continuous or has a dwell time also?