Plane down in BUF

[densoo]

I don't think the flaps going from 10 to zero (at 22:16:35 on the video) helped. Shortly after, it rolled. I was surprised to not see mention of this on the NTSB slides. To anyone who listened to the whole briefing, was this issue brought up? It makes me wonder if the captain could have recovered it if the flaps had stayed out. Nothing on the CVR indicates either pilot mentioning flaps. They just come up. I wonder if one of the pilots reacted as if it were a go-around, bringing some flaps up as power went in, resulting in the fatal loss of lift.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxywEE1kK6I

 

[Frontier1]

I don't think the flaps going from 10 to zero (at 22:16:35 on the video) helped. Shortly after, it rolled. I was surprised to not see mention of this on the NTSB slides. To anyone who listened to the whole briefing, was this issue brought up? It makes me wonder if the captain could have recovered it if the flaps had stayed out. Nothing on the CVR indicates either pilot mentioning flaps. They just come up. I wonder if one of the pilots reacted as if it were a go-around, bringing some flaps up as power went in, resulting in the fatal loss of lift.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxywEE1kK6I

F/O said she put the flaps up

 

[rajflyboy]

I don't think the flaps going from 10 to zero (at 22:16:35 on the video) helped. Shortly after, it rolled. I was surprised to not see mention of this on the NTSB slides. To anyone who listened to the whole briefing, was this issue brought up? It makes me wonder if the captain could have recovered it if the flaps had stayed out. Nothing on the CVR indicates either pilot mentioning flaps. They just come up. I wonder if one of the pilots reacted as if it were a go-around, bringing some flaps up as power went in, resulting in the fatal loss of lift.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxywEE1kK6I

If for some reason they thought they were in a Tail Stall... going flaps zero may have been the right choice >> although they screwed up their analysis of what actually happened >> a normal wing stall

 

[densoo]

F/O said she put the flaps up

OK, thanks. Still wonder why.

 

[rajflyboy]

Not sure if anyone else has been through a PC check recently, but i just got back from mine and the stall recovery has changed at my airline. We do training in a deep stall situation now, never did before. The requirements for recover is now "Minimum Altitude Loss" as opposed to the number of 50 feet loss max which used to be the requirement. I think the Feds are realizing that teaching zero loss for years and years to a pilot the muscle memory is going to be for zero loss on stall recovery, not a good technique, never liked training it, or performing it. Minimal loss is a good practice.

Pretty simple

There's the checkride way to recover from a stall and then there is the real way to recover from a stall >> which involves lowering the nose to reduce aoa.

Minimum altitude loss >> great way to get yourself into a secondary stall

 

[nwaf16dude]

I agree with most of what's been said on here regarding the stall recovery, but talking details of stall recovery is "getting in the weeds" and missing the big picture, i.e. "how the h&ll did they end up at the point where they needed to perform a stall recovery?" That's where the big lessons learned ought to be from this one.

 

[rajflyboy]

I agree with most of what's been said on here regarding the stall recovery, but talking details of stall recovery is "getting in the weeds" and missing the big picture, i.e. "how the h&ll did they end up at the point where they needed to perform a stall recovery?" That's where the big lessons learned ought to be from this one.

TRUE for sure

 

[SuperFLUF]

I agree with most of what's been said on here regarding the stall recovery, but talking details of stall recovery is "getting in the weeds" and missing the big picture, i.e. "how the h&ll did they end up at the point where they needed to perform a stall recovery?" That's where the big lessons learned ought to be from this one.

Take a low skilled pilot, add fatigue, a 15kt stick shaker speed increase by having the icing speed switch on (without telling the FO) and slowing for a vref that does not have that icing speed computed and you get someone who reacted improperly to a stall that wasn't even happening.

...and that is one of the travesties of the final ruling. Fatigue was not a contributing factor.
Vice-chair Sumwalt (a former USair pilot) said something to the effect that 'while they were fatigued, that did not affect their performance.'

What, what, what!? That's like saying, while the driver was drunk, it did not effect his running a red light.

The chairwoman wanted that included, but was out voted by the two pilots on the board who seemed to be on a witchunt after the captain.

 

[IslandDriver]

I have to agree that the real factor is why did they even get into the stall? Why did they get so slow?

Basically a lack of Situational Awereness...I do not even think they knew that they were stalling...no one was monitoring the approach...the whole thing could have been avoided if someone was actually flying the airplane...like having their hand on the power levers when they started the descent and approach. And maybe looking at the PFD.

One thing I have never heard brought up was the fact that the captain transitioned from the SAAB. He only had a little more than 100 hours in the D-8 (I know that has been mentioned) but one thing that I have never heard was the fact that this was the first airplane he ever flew with tape instead of an airspeed indicator.....just something to think about. He was not used to seeing what slow speeds looked like on the tape...

Just an observation...

Situational Awareness and flying the airplane...lesson one in any private pilot lesson plan!

Again too much beer and pizza!

 

[igneousy2]

Take a low skilled pilot, add fatigue, a 15kt stick shaker speed increase by having the icing speed switch on (without telling the FO) and slowing for a vref that does not have that icing speed computed and you get someone who reacted improperly to a stall that wasn't even happening.

...and that is one of the travesties of the final ruling. Fatigue was not a contributing factor.
Vice-chair Sumwalt (a former USair pilot) said something to the effect that 'while they were fatigued, that did not affect their performance.'

What, what, what!? That's like saying, while the driver was drunk, it did not effect his running a red light.

The chairwoman wanted that included, but was out voted by the two pilots on the board who seemed to be on a witchunt after the captain.

The NTSB has said the same thing about the switch...however, I don't seem to understand how an early stall warning could have caused this accident. Regardless if the stall warning fired on-time or early...the recovery was jacked up, After watching the animation it seems to me that if the stall warning did go off early, it gave the Captain a "head-start" on the failed recovery.