New WSJ article on awful Pilot Pay in Colgan crash

[Superpilot92]

They misinterpreted this as an icing tail-plane stall which would have been the correct procedure. After the conversation of heavy icing what would your initial response be.......

I disagree, nothing in the dialogue made it appear they thought it was Tail Stall.

 

[FmrFreightDog]

Most of us have done things we later realized were less than safe but got away with them and leaned from the experience.

Like the tower??

 

[FmrFreightDog]

We all know his recovery, or lack of, caused the crash. However, I believe the real culprit here is fatigue. Both of them where dead tired. F/O and Capt. commuted in, and neither of them had any sleep.

Careful there, skippy. 99% of the commuters out there are responsible when it comes to their commutes. I, along with most of my colleagues, posses the ability to look at the first day of my trip, calculate the fatigue factor, and then judge whether or not I can afford the luxury of a same day commute. If you're going to start trying to tie commuting into fatigue, you're asking for trouble. As a commuter, my attitude is that it is my responsibility to be reasonably rested for the first duty day of my trip. If, looking at my trip, I don't feel like I can do that with a same day commute, I'll come in the day before. Most are just like me. Most are responsible. The moment we as a group try to pin even one link of the error chain in the accident on commuting is the moment we risk losing the ability to commute. Be careful what you wish for unless your idea of fun is packing the wife and kids up in a moving van every time a base closes or opens...

In my 20 years in this business, I dare say I've only ever met one "truly irresponsible" commuter...

 

[waveflyer]

I know it's been mentioned- but it still seems like the captain mis-identified this as a tail stall- or at least got the two confused and didn't know what was going on. But the fact that this stall happened in ice at a configuration change- and his strange recovery leads me to think a tail stall was at least in his head.

The only training we get is that tail ice video- and it's just not enough. We should be in the sim and shown and practice tail and wing stall's simultaneously in the ice.

There's been way too many accidents and mishaps involving turboprops and ice. At some point, you have to look at training.

I'm always happy to hear the media cover wages in the regionals. It isn't enough to always be safe-and every regional pilot knows this. You find yourself doing bad commutes, and not spending money on hotels, and/or working too much to make ends meet.

 

[waveflyer]

Careful there, skippy. 99% of the commuters out there are responsible when it comes to their commutes. I, along with most of my colleagues, posses the ability to look at the first day of my trip, calculate the fatigue factor, and then judge whether or not I can afford the luxury of a same day commute. If you're going to start trying to tie commuting into fatigue, you're asking for trouble. As a commuter, my attitude is that it is my responsibility to be reasonably rested for the first duty day of my trip. If, looking at my trip, I don't feel like I can do that with a same day commute, I'll come in the day before. Most are just like me. Most are responsible. The moment we as a group try to pin even one link of the error chain in the accident on commuting is the moment we risk losing the ability to commute. Be careful what you wish for unless your idea of fun is packing the wife and kids up in a moving van every time a base closes or opens...

In my 20 years in this business, I dare say I've only ever met one "truly irresponsible" commuter...

be a little less naive. Commuting helps airlines avoid very standard moving expenses that is completely business standard at every other professional job. They brand commuting as being something they tolerate- but they speak out of both sides of their mouth. "Well you can always commute" "It's your choice to commute" I've heard both when it suits management.

 

[eaglesview]

I know it's been mentioned- but it still seems like the captain mis-identified this as a tail stall- or at least got the two confused and didn't know what was going on. But the fact that this stall happened in ice at a configuration change- and his strange recovery leads me to think a tail stall was at least in his head.

The only training we get is that tail ice video- and it's just not enough. We should be in the sim and shown and practice tail and wing stall's simultaneously in the ice.

There's been way too many accidents and mishaps involving turboprops and ice. At some point, you have to look at training.

I'm always happy to hear the media cover wages in the regionals. It isn't enough to always be safe-and every regional pilot knows this. You find yourself doing bad commutes, and not spending money on hotels, and/or working too much to make ends meet.

This crew would not have had enough experience to identify a tail stall even if that was the culprit.

In my opinion the media is skirting the real problem. In order to save a buck the major carriers are dumping experienced crews on the street to make way for the "acme/walmart" regional with the lowest bid. You think UAL,AAA,DL ect gives a rats a$$ about the experience level in those cockpits? I agree with a previous post stating not all regionals are created the same. I commute from a city that uses gojet/trans states to service chicago. I am not comfortable to put it mildly. Also it's not just the flight crews. If a regional doesn't care about who they hire in the cockpit I wonder where they are getting their mechanics?? On the other hand I will commute on eagle any day and feel as though I am in good hands.

I wonder how many of those families bought their tickets on Coninental.com and thought they were getting on a CO flight. That is fraud plain and simple. I am not picking on CO here as all of the majors are doing it. It's still fraud

I hope those families get everything they deserve which obviousley will never get enough.

 

[d328pilot]

The flap retraction killed them... if the flaps had been left down the plane wouldn't have departed so violently and they would've had a pretty good chance to pull it out. Right wing down, nose down and airspeed rapidly increasing, they would've had the knots to transition to a nose low unusual attitude... but w/ the flaps coming up all bets were off. The plane rapidly departed and fliped over which doomed them to a bad outcome. When you stall an airplane you don't change configuration until you are coming out of it... end of post.

Tailhookah

PS- I never have said that the CA didn't get them into it... the FO didn't help out and probably doomed the flight to a heinous ending.

I just can't see how the flaps being retracted had anything to do with the crash. They were already beyond the point of return when that happened. The captain's initial reaction to the shaker was to immediately pull back. Initially the left wing drops to which the captain reacts by applying right aileron. I am pretty sure the the Q400 has roll spoilers and as soon as he starts fighting the stall with the ailerons, he is losing what little lift he has left. He rolls almost 60 degrees to the left, then almost 90 degrees to the right before the flaps are touched. He is beyond 90 degrees before the flaps have had time to move more than 1 or 2 degrees.

Each time he fights the stall with the ailerons, he just makes it worse. He would have done better just letting go.

 

[Lear70]

It's about risk management. All airlines have a "risk management" department that analyzes the company's practices, including hiring, scheduling, etc, and attach a dollar sign to a hull loss accident like this one and compare it to what they're saving by cutting those corners.

I had this EXACT discussion with Phil Trenary, David White, and Jon Young back when Pinnacle was small enough for the "bigwigs" to actually meet with the pilots. I had an issue with the GIA pilots we were hiring - had one freeze on me in an abnormal situation and another one try to run me into a 747 on final in DTW in the same week in CAVU conditions, and asked them what was the price if we lost a plane because of it instead of increasing pilot pay and attracting higher-time pilots in that competitive marketplace.

Their answer: risk analysis. They believed that the risk of having an accident was so low that it offset the cost savings from paying so little and getting whoever was "FAR qualified" to fill the seat, then said something about our CA's being good enough to handle a "single pilot" kind of incident like I had described.

Airline management is well-aware of what they're doing. PCL just happens to be one of the operators that pushes their luck too far. It's their own "chain of events":

1. Hire sub-standard, VERY low-time pilots and HOPE they'll get enough experience and be OK before they cause a problem.
2. Train them as little as possible to just get them on the line and let the CA's do the rest of the work bringing them up to speed over their first year.
3. Schedule to the ultimate bare-bones minimums of the contract and the FAR's to squeeze every last hour of productivity out of them.
4. Push them when they question the completability of an assignment due to safety (TVC crash, and did it with me on multiple ocassions).

Out of the accidents, you've got 3 out of those 4 above in every single one of them.

I came from PCL. I have quite a few good friends over there who are EXCELLENT pilots, great CA's, but I also flew with enough pilots there that I would prefer to avoid a PCL flight unless I know the pilots personally and it's someone I trust or I can sit on the flight deck jumpseat for the flight. Same goes for some of the other regional carriers that have similar practices and low-time F/O new-hires and bare-minimum CA upgrades (although those have been diminishing since the economy slowed the hiring and expansion plans).

 

[30West]

This crew would not have had enough experience to identify a tail stall even if that was the culprit.

In my opinion the media is skirting the real problem. In order to save a buck the major carriers are dumping experienced crews on the street to make way for the "acme/walmart" regional with the lowest bid. You think UAL,AAA,DL ect gives a rats a$$ about the experience level in those cockpits? I agree with a previous post stating not all regionals are created the same. I commute from a city that uses gojet/trans states to service chicago. I am not comfortable to put it mildly. Also it's not just the flight crews. If a regional doesn't care about who they hire in the cockpit I wonder where they are getting their mechanics?? On the other hand I will commute on eagle any day and feel as though I am in good hands.

I wonder how many of those families bought their tickets on Coninental.com and thought they were getting on a CO flight. That is fraud plain and simple. I am not picking on CO here as all of the majors are doing it. It's still fraud

I hope those families get everything they deserve which obviousley will never get enough.

An idiotic and completely unfair generalization, and valid only if "acme/walmart" crews were all alike, AND the only ones in history ever to do something stupid. Enjoy your scary commute.

 

[skywiz]

I just can't see how the flaps being retracted had anything to do with the crash. They were already beyond the point of return when that happened. The captain's initial reaction to the shaker was to immediately pull back. Initially the left wing drops to which the captain reacts by applying right aileron. I am pretty sure the the Q400 has roll spoilers and as soon as he starts fighting the stall with the ailerons, he is losing what little lift he has left. He rolls almost 60 degrees to the left, then almost 90 degrees to the right before the flaps are touched. He is beyond 90 degrees before the flaps have had time to move more than 1 or 2 degrees.

Each time he fights the stall with the ailerons, he just makes it worse. He would have done better just letting go.

Don't forget the rudders. Once he pulled up, both wings were stalled (of course one more than another which caused him to go one direction before the other). The only reason he reversed his bank was his rudders. Ailerons were ineffective at that point. He also kept going back and forth overcorrecting everytime he put a rudder/aileron input in. If he would of just not over corrected and pushed forward on the stick...