Colgan Airlines stall recovery

[30West]

Flyer, I am amazed at your refusal to see the obvious and instead rationalize away the fact that this guy - this crew - screwed up in a big, unacceptable way. They stalled the airplane. Stalled it. It matters not that possibly you or I might do the same someday, or something equally stupid. If you or I do, then we would fully deserve the blame for the resulting senseless accident.

That being the case, how do you, or anyone for that matter, feel it's your place to judge, given by your own admission it could happen to you someday? What purpose does it serve to slam these guys on public forums?
A true professional will listen to the facts and circumstances, make his or her own reflections and hopefully take something away from it and maybe even change the way they do something, rather than turn it into an online mob beating.

 

[Long Time Gone]

Not only did he stall the aircraft, but was severely uncoordinated at the time. Look at the rudder pedals on the animation. His carelessness put that aircraft into a spin, and she put the nail in the coffin by retracting the flaps on her own during the spin. They lost 2300 ft in under 30 seconds, a descent rate of about 5000fpm.

 

[Flyer1015]

Flyer, I am amazed at your refusal to see the obvious and instead rationalize away the fact that this guy - this crew - screwed up in a big, unacceptable way. They stalled the airplane. Stalled it. It matters not that possibly you or I might do the same someday, or something equally stupid. If you or I do, then we would fully deserve the blame for the resulting senseless accident. If I were a betting man, my money would be that this accident will be squarely placed on the shoulders of the crew, in particular the pilot. Contributing factors may very well end up being training, work environment, etc., but they will almost certainly not be be considered causal.

Give it a rest! I'm amazed at the lack of professionalism and idiot-ism displayed by everyone bantering this crew and speaking of them own selves as god's gift to aviation. Dead men can't defend themselves. Why don't you put a lid on it and comment once the final NTSB report comes out, and THEN see where the official blame lies (bad training program, Colgan's policies, it's a joke).

 

[AAsRedHeadedbro]

30West and Fyer, you guys shock and anger me. Who the ******************** are you to tell me and all of the other guys who agree with me that I am unprofessional for seeing exactly what happened, and yes...calling him out?! This guy who called himself a pilot deserves to be criticized in public in the strongest possible way for what he did to those 48 unsuspecting people who had to ride the ship down with him after he leveled the airplane and forgot to add power until it was too late. In 24 years of flying and 18 years with my airline, I have never, I'll say it again, NEVER seen anybody do that. He made a hugely UNPROFESSIONAL error that cost 48 people their lives and destroyed as many families, including his own and his first officer's. This guy deserves no sympathy. None. If he'd simply killed himself, that would be one thing, but through his glaring ineptitude, he killed himself and 49 other people.

Ask the families he destroyed if they feel we should somehow not be so harsh on him!

And if I were to kill a bunch of passengers through my ineptitude, hell yes I'd deserve to be damned. I would have earned it. Hell yes.

You have some ********************ing nerve defending this guy on any level and then getting on my ******************** and and calling me unprofessional. You don't know me. I'll just call you unprofessional for having the gall and audacity to defend this guy on any level.

I don't know why I ever come back to this board!

 

[airplane wizard]

You would had you perceived it to be a tailplane icing stall.

would the shaker go off if it was a tail stall?

 

[LazyLightnin']

would the shaker go off if it was a tail stall?

No. The shaker is a function of slow airspeed. And no matter what kind of stall it is, the plane won't fly without adequate airspeed. It's science.

 

[Andy Neill]

And no matter what kind of stall it is, the plane won't fly without adequate airspeed.

But in the case of a tail plane stall, the problem is excess airspeed requiring the tail to be at an angle of attack creating the stall. If the aircraft is slowed, the stall goes away....but that wasn't the problem here.

 

[IBNAV8R]

The stall (hence shaker and pusher) is purely a function of AOA. To recover from a stall, the wing must attain a flyable AOA. To fly, there must be sufficient dynamic forces (speed) to support the aircraft at a flyable AOA.

Well short of being god's gift to aviation, I am expert enough to draw my own conclusions from the depicted data. While I have never actually experienced a tailplane stall, I know enough to tell the control inputs indicate the crew believed they were trying to recover from this, and not a wing stall.

Anyone else notice the plane had enough energy to climb even after activation of the pusher? Even in the stall, and after the flaps were raised, rudder inputs were effective at bringing the wings back to level. Of course I wasn't there but, I can safely say this was recoverable well after first roll departure. Raising the flaps coincided with the vertical rate reversal. This might have made a difference but clearly the Captain did not appear to be gaining control. It would be speculation, on my part, to say it was recoverable after the second roll departure but once entered, the rudder inputs stopped. Again, speculation, but did he quit trying at this point?

Are there really people on here that think the FDR/CVR data is going to somehow change in the final report?

 

[8inMan]

We can all sit here and say this and that. Clearly the basics were lost. Call it a "MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON"

They got slow, got spooked at shaker, yanked back on the stick. The rest is history. Sad, but true.

I agree.

 

[airplane wizard]

Apparently it is the following procedure:

1) do not add power.
2) pull on the stick pusher as it is trying to push forward.
3) retract flaps.
4) retract gear.

Yes, I feel these guys are being pretty badly hammered in the media. But someone please help me to understand this...

Ailerons and rudder-------------> full cross control
control inputs--------------------> Maintain until ground impact

 

[WayBack]

I like how some of you guys are asking for sympathy for the late flight crew. Seriously? She didn't have a clue as to what she was doing up there, and he actions proved it. She was just along for the ride until her "very very very good connections at Alaska" got her hired.
Some say his "A-Game" wasn't on.....doesn't sound like he had an "A-Game" with 5 failures.
These two messed up and messed up big. Too bad they had to take the innocent with them.

 

[chainring]

Never been told that and never taught it like that.

I fly for a fractional on a Hawker and we have the same kind of profiles. Recovery with minimal altitude loss. And yes Ive been in the sim and the instructor is going " thats it, just hold it, hold it" all the time the shaker is just screaming at you.

So we stay in the stall region longer because the FAA wants minimal altitude loss.

Looks to me we should be teaching quicker stall recovery over altitude loss.

I think I remember being taught that way once way back in primary.

 

[LJ45]

I fly for a fractional on a Hawker and we have the same kind of profiles. Recovery with minimal altitude loss. And yes Ive been in the sim and the instructor is going " thats it, just hold it, hold it" all the time the shaker is just screaming at you.

So we stay in the stall region longer because the FAA wants minimal altitude loss.

Looks to me we should be teaching quicker stall recovery over altitude loss.

I think I remember being taught that way once way back in primary.

yep, that is a training and testing maneuver.

Real life takes: situational awareness, talent and experience to avoid and recover from a stall.

 

[30West]

30West and Fyer, you guys shock and anger me. Who the ******************** are you to tell me and all of the other guys who agree with me that I am unprofessional for seeing exactly what happened, and yes...calling him out?! This guy who called himself a pilot deserves to be criticized in public in the strongest possible way for what he did to those 48 unsuspecting people who had to ride the ship down with him after he leveled the airplane and forgot to add power until it was too late. In 24 years of flying and 18 years with my airline, I have never, I'll say it again, NEVER seen anybody do that. He made a hugely UNPROFESSIONAL error that cost 48 people their lives and destroyed as many families, including his own and his first officer's. This guy deserves no sympathy. None. If he'd simply killed himself, that would be one thing, but through his glaring ineptitude, he killed himself and 49 other people.

Ask the families he destroyed if they feel we should somehow not be so harsh on him!

And if I were to kill a bunch of passengers through my ineptitude, hell yes I'd deserve to be damned. I would have earned it. Hell yes.

You have some ********************ing nerve defending this guy on any level and then getting on my ******************** and and calling me unprofessional. You don't know me. I'll just call you unprofessional for having the gall and audacity to defend this guy on any level.

I don't know why I ever come back to this board!

Well, why don't you go back and reread my post and see if you can comprehend it this time. Where in any of it did I write that they didn't ******************** up? Nobody is arguing that point
The point is ANY one of us could make a stupid mistake at ANY time. What good does coming onto a public forum and dragging dead people through the mud do? In what way is that productive?
"judge not lest ye be judged". Sound familiar?
Actually you stay. Since this place is obviously top heavy with holier than thou judgemental ****************************************, it's perfect for you. I think I'LL go.

 

[Lear70]

But in the case of a tail plane stall, the problem is excess airspeed requiring the tail to be at an angle of attack creating the stall. If the aircraft is slowed, the stall goes away....but that wasn't the problem here.

Wha?

Care to revisit your explanation?

The problem isn't excess speed. Speed is a contributory factor, but minor. Tailplane stalls are unheard of in normal airspeed regimes UNLESS there is ice accumulation and a high TAIL angle of attack (adding flaps lowers the nose and INCREASES the AOA on the tail), and only secondarily causal from speed.

The most important indication of a tailplane stall is that the airspeed is not anywhere NEAR stall (easy to see on most modern aircraft) and that you JUST made a flap setting change, SOMETIMES but not always on the high-end of the speed range for that flap setting, and the aircraft pitches suddenly down, or starts pitch oscillating and then pitches down.

Powering back will help somewhat, but the most important factor is to take the flaps back out (something she may or may not have been thinking about, we'll never know), but ONLY if you KNOW you have the speed margin to do it and you KNOW it's not a wing stall.

I submit she didn't have time to think about it one way or another and he was too busy trying to get them out of the mess he induced that he probably didn't have time to think about it, either. 26 seconds isn't a long time...

Yeah, he got them into it by dropping the gear and throwing the props full forward without increasing power and failing to monitor his airspeed. That's pretty evident. Why he did it, and why she yanked the flaps up... only God knows now.

I just hope that the changes that are made actually DO increase safety and help prevent future accidents. Higher time requirements to be a Part 121 pilot will certainly help, as will better rest requirements, but at the end of the day, someone failed to conduct a proper background check on the CA. Additionally, whether it was for financial reasons or not, they both chose not to commute in the night before, get a full night's rest, THEN fly their sequence rested and prepared for a full day. She also chose to fly when congested. No amount of regulatory change is going to address those basic issues.

You can't tell people where they have to live and how far in advance they have to be in base before their trip, and I will bet you a c-note that won't even make it onto a list of possible reg changes. The airlines are already required to do PRIA checks, the days of not double-checking those are GONE, and people have to be willing to call in sick when they're sick. Were those causal? More than likely not... but they're likely contributory, as is the training culture at both companies.

Incidentally, I've been through 5 jet types, 4 airlines, and more 135 rides than I can count, and ALL of them stress NO MORE than 100 feet loss of altitude on any "approach to stall" demo (shaker onset). Pinnacle included. Reduce back pressure SLIGHTLY while adding full power. Ride the shaker out. Do not reconfigure until clear of shaker and accelerating through minimum speed for each new configuration.