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Colgan 3407 Down in Buffalo

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It's in all our natures to wonder and speculate after an accident...Ice...weather...mechanical...crew...it's part of the analytical nature of pilots, but still, a gear problem is reaching quite a bit.

yeah I hear you.....they went down past the marker it appears.

who knows, god bless to the crew and pax

going to bed, enough airplane crash cable news for me....
 
I didn't hear anything unusual from the crew of the Colgan flight.

Thats what struck me the most right there. She sounded just like I do when its the last leg of the day and the hotel/home is just minutes away.

All R.I.P. and you'll be in my thoughts tonight!
 
She seemed pretty calm as they were handed off to tower and they crashed like 1-2 minutes afterward? Something bad happened real quick..

Godspeed............
 
The Delta and Cactus that followed 3407 reported rime icing.

Metar:

KBUF 130254Z 24015G22KT 3SM -SN BR FEW011 BKN021 OVC027 01/M01 A2979 RMK AO2 SLP097 P0001 60004 T00061006 5101
 
Not that I know anything but flying out of ERI around that time the icing was pretty bad, took us 20 Min to get the ice off that we got on the way in. RIP I can't express how sorry I fell about this.
 
Thats what struck me the most right there. She sounded just like I do when its the last leg of the day and the hotel/home is just minutes away.

All R.I.P. and you'll be in my thoughts tonight!


To me, the approach clearance readback sounded perfectly normal, and as you say typical of someone looking forward to the end of the day. Listening to the tower handoff though she sounds a little preoccupied. Just my speculative observation though. People with lots more training than I will figure it out in due course, and no doubt their deaths will make the rest of us a little bit safer.
 
Icing played a role in the crash? opinions?

Just looked at the metar for buf....blowing snow and mist.....

KBUF 130505Z COR 25012KT 4SM -SN BR BKN008 BKN015 OVC021 01/00 A2983 RMK AO2 CIG 005V011 P0000


People on here complain about how the media gets it wrong and then posts something that would easily be mis interpreted if picked up by the media.

"Just look at the METAR" and what??? What is your point this is a routine observation at an airport. Where do you get Blowing Snow...BR is MIST...there is no mention of Blowing Snow anywhere in this metar...

And even if there was Blowing snow...what does that have to do with icing?
 
...there is no mention of Blowing Snow anywhere in this metar...

And even if there was Blowing snow...what does that have to do with icing?

12 knots of wind combined with falling light snow equals blowing snow.

But I agree with the last comment of your post.
 
People on here complain about how the media gets it wrong and then posts something that would easily be mis interpreted if picked up by the media.

"Just look at the METAR" and what??? What is your point this is a routine observation at an airport. Where do you get Blowing Snow...BR is MIST...there is no mention of Blowing Snow anywhere in this metar...

And even if there was Blowing snow...what does that have to do with icing?

I'll tell you that just a little bit south (ERI) it was at least Moderate Icing we had to get almost max power to stay at 190 Knots, not saying that it had anything to do with it.
 
This being a high wing aircraft, aren't these types of designs more susceptible to tail stalls especially when iced up?
 
This being a high wing aircraft, aren't these types of designs more susceptible to tail stalls especially when iced up?


Very true. Plus the circumstances point to it. The sudden crash, everything normal it seems, nose down attitude for crash, etc.
 
I just got back from the crash site. It's pretty well sealed up and from the looks of it they got the fire out. It's just smoking quite a bit. Very eery. RIP.
 
Just listened to the ATC tapes. Nothing solid, but her voice seems to change the further into the approach they got.

Damn this sucks...

She sounds more upbeat than I do after a long day of flying out of Newark. Nothing out of the ordinary to me.

Godspeed.
 
Only thing I noticed was that on several altitude assignments she only read back"3407" like they were busy handling something. I think the first was maybe on the letdown to 6000'. Or that could just be the end of a long day. I agree that the approach clearance readback all sounded fine.
Godspeed and condolences to all.
 
Only thing I noticed was that on several altitude assignments she only read back"3407" like they were busy handling something. I think the first was maybe on the letdown to 6000'. Or that could just be the end of a long day. I agree that the approach clearance readback all sounded fine.
Godspeed and condolences to all.

It sounds as though this liveatc feed is coming from a scanner that is scanning multiple frequencies (which is why you hear broadcasts from both Tower and Approach). The scanning of other frequencies could have resulted in transmissions being partially or entirely left out of this recording.
 
I am not normally the speculative type and I won't start here, but I noticed something interesting on the one close up photo of the tail: What is all that white stuff on the leading edge of the horizontal stab? I'm no expert and maybe it's the light, or something is damaged/melted, or maybe it is ice.

As you all know really nasty icing can be highly localized. Even though other aircraft weren't reporting icing of the scary variety it doesn't mean Colgan didn't run into some really ugly stuff.

Godspeed to the crew and passengers of this flight, as well as my brother and sister pilots at Colgan. My heart is definately very, very heavy this morning as I am thinking of them.
 
I am not normally the speculative type and I won't start here, but I noticed something interesting on the one close up photo of the tail: What is all that white stuff on the leading edge of the horizontal stab? I'm no expert and maybe it's the light, or something is damaged/melted, or maybe it is ice.

I'm pretty sure that 3000 pounds of jet fuel burns hotter than 32 degrees. Human life is worth a lot more than what they had to suffer through and let's all hope this accident was caused by nothing else other than an act of god. RIP to all the victims of this crash.
 

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