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Colgan-Buffalo crash...

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ultrarunner

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 26, 2001
Posts
4,322
It will be interesting to see what the emails actually say.

A lawyer for families suing over the deadly 2009 plane crash into a house near Buffalo, N.Y., says newly released emails show the flight's operator, Colgan Air, doubted its pilot's ability to fly the plane six months before it crashed.

Attorney Hugh Russ says that despite the misgivings, Capt. Marvin Renslow was allowed to fly the Q400 plane one month after Colgan managers exchanged emails showing he failed to make a list of pilots promoted from a smaller Saab plane.

All 49 people aboard Flight 3407 and a man on the ground died when it crashed into a house in February 2009. Passengers' families are suing the airlines in U.S. District Court in Buffalo.

Colgan parent Pinnacle Airlines says Renslow passed Colgan's FAA-approved training program before being promoted.
 
The emails were interesting and not good for Colgan. They showed the highlights on nightly news.

No one seems to ever bring up how there was still hope until the FO took it upon herself to raise the flaps.
 
No one seems to ever bring up how there was still hope until the FO took it upon herself to raise the flaps.

It's amazing what fatigue can do to a person's judgment.

I'm very disappointed that the mental state of the pilots was not included in the probable cause by the NTSB, or even listed as a contributing factor.

Yeah, she did the wrong thing, but the report doesn't really answer why. It's kinda like saying the cause of a car crash was that they hit a brick wall. Yeah, that's true, but doesn't really help.
 
It's amazing what fatigue can do to a person's judgment.

I'm very disappointed that the mental state of the pilots was not included in the probable cause by the NTSB, or even listed as a contributing factor.

Yeah, she did the wrong thing, but the report doesn't really answer why. It's kinda like saying the cause of a car crash was that they hit a brick wall. Yeah, that's true, but doesn't really help.

Well at least fatigue got enough attention from the accident that they're trying to get the rules changed.

However, every report I've read is completely understating the effect of raising the flaps on an aircraft on the edge of a stall.
 
Agreed. Whatever little bit of lift they had left at that point, it evaporated once those flaps started coming up. :(
 
I can't really blame her actions. If you do something and don't like the result, undo it immediately. That's what I would have done. It was just an unfortunate coincidence that the a/c stalled just after she selected those flaps so she just undid what she perceived as putting the a/c in peril. Their fate was sealed long before she retracted the flaps.


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Is it possible that she believed that they had a tail plane stall? If so, then raising the flaps would have been correct. Obviously, the stall was conventional, but if she believed otherwise, it could explain her actions.
 
If Pilots really respected their profession, they would call all the news stations around the country. The real reason behind the Colgan crash was lack of rest. If they could have returned to EWR and guaranteed a hotel room at their base. These senseless death would never had occurred. We are all guilty of get-home-itis!
Carriers do not care 2 cents about pilots. It was protecting their margins of profit.
When all else fail...blame it on a dead man.
I feel sorry for the Renslow family name being dragged through the mud!
 
I can't really blame her actions. If you do something and don't like the result, undo it immediately. That's what I would have done. It was just an unfortunate coincidence that the a/c stalled just after she selected those flaps so she just undid what she perceived as putting the a/c in peril. Their fate was sealed long before she retracted the flaps.


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Your first instinct during a stall pusher event would be to raise the flaps, just because you had just put them down? Or did I misunderstand, because I would think a first reaction would be to go to max power.
 
Is it possible that she believed that they had a tail plane stall? If so, then raising the flaps would have been correct. Obviously, the stall was conventional, but if she believed otherwise, it could explain her actions.
You'll never get a stick shaker, or pusher for that matter, with a tail plane stall. Those are associated with a positive angle of attack.
 

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