To the Skywest Crew with "Severe Icing" in DEN today...

[DrewBlows]

I've had my window ice up plenty of times (unheated)... it was FZRA but certainly not necessarily SLD....

The windows on the CRJ are heated which is why it's such an unusual event when ice starts to gather on one.

 

[Mr. Irrelevant]

I like where this thread is going. It's pretty much all over the place and we've covered a few of the standard flightinfo issues. I actually have a serious question though.

The CRJ doesn't have a whole lot of surface area available to pilots to determine the severity if icing conditions. It has the "ICE" warning on the EICAS the windshield wipers and not much else. I've never flown the -200, but you sure can't see much on the wing tips in the -700. In addition, the controls are hydraulic and provide an artificial feel that makes it impossible to determine anything about the flying characteristics of the aircraft other than the fact that it's out of trim.

In regards to the airplane being out of trim, wouldn't having hand-flown the SKW CRJ aircraft being discussed given the pilots an strong indirect indication? I understand that the PIC in this incident is very experienced. Not trying to upset rickair777 anymore here. Still, I wondered about their flying an approach that appeared to be done in known icing conditions and having the FO do the flying to such absolute minimums with only 15 hours in the aircraft. Maybe the FO had 10000 hours total time and a decision was made on strong prior experience or SKW policy is to switch legs regardless of conditions and aircraft/company experience? SKW policy to use the autopilot on all approaches regardless of conditions?

Also, I wonder how adding airspeed as one poster mentioned in the very beginning would lead to a tail stall. I'd always thought otherwise. Get airflow over the horizontal stabilizer!

Possibly something can be learned here about this SKW incident that might be of benefit to future check airmen and PIC's when making some of these decisions in lousy conditions. No offense to the PIC in the incident and obviously it is easy to Monday Morning QB. If the ice was that bad, I would think they'd figure it out before they got to 140AGL.

Mr. I.

 

[I_Love_Lamp]

The windows on the CRJ are heated which is why it's such an unusual event when ice starts to gather on one.

Foot, mouth, meet each other

My bad.

 

[DrewBlows]

In regards to the airplane being out of trim, wouldn't having hand-flown the SKW CRJ aircraft being discussed given the pilots an strong indirect indication?

Not likely. The CRJ has hydraulic controls so any feedback a pilot gets is artificial (someone who has recently completed ground school could probably expand on this). Even if you were hand flying, you would just trim to relieve stick force. The only indication you would have that something is wrong is when you run out of trim. At that point it's too late.

My personal wake-up call to the handling characteristics of an RJ came when I got in the simulator after a three month furlough. I had been flying C172s and PA-28s on my break and was very surprised in the sim when the control forces were lighter than the light airplanes I had been flying. Hydraulics are a wonderful thing, but they don't allow the control surface to move with the wind, so you don't get any direct control feel.

 

[ACT700]

Cardinal,

surely, there must be a seat in a shiny jet that's just being kept warm for you!

 

[No.W.]

Very true, the safety folks get it wrong on plenty of occassions, but usually the NTSB is a reliable source and "not under the influence" particularly of the FAA who they internally kind of regard as hacks. But the other decisions on this flight (letting a 15 hour FO perform the approach with VV100, keeping it coupled up in ice, flying right at VREF with a decreasing trend vector, not going missed) seem to indicate inexperience. Maybe the Capt. missed his cup of coffee, who knows, but taken only on the information presented in the report it looks like NOOB flying.. and every airline has managers that fly, sort of, usually who hold IP credentials, reference the worst aviation disaster of all time - Tenerife.

Arguably there are no weather related accidents. The airplane got into the weather under the command of someone. Once the airplane is in adverse weather the crew should have the ability to get out, or adjust, so that the safety of the flight is not in question. If the airplane (particularly a jet with a little wing) starts to resemble a popcicle on the unheated portion of the side window, starts to grow cool ice formations on the wipers, or anything else really interesting on an approach to minimums I'm probably taking the airplane (depending on the demonstrated skill of my FO - some are better and more experienced than I am) and seriously fingering the TOGA's.

But I would always defer to the Captain and crew. They were there and of course know a lot more than I do about their flight. My point is only that this business is getting to the point where the blind are leading the blind. At my airline we need to be keeping the 20,000 hour IP's, not chasing them off because "OH MY gOD, they make as much as a Vice President of ground services!!!!"

I can see that... I only know one thing, though, this captain/check airman has been with SkyWest for a LONG time(He was a C.Airman on the Brasilia)...and has a low 100's seniority number(in 2550 numbers). So, he is qualified to be doing the work. HOWEVER, I can't fathom a guess on what actually happened in that cockpit. He shared what He remembered...I especially remember the part about "pulling" and having "nothing there". I'm sure, in the future, given the same situation, He will be more conservative. I got the impression from His story that everything was fine on the approach...leading up to the incident. I KNOW there is more to the story than I remember. That's why I think it's important to not use online message boards to spread rumors. There are a lot of details missing.

 

[Way2Broke]

MOD INPUT:

Cardinal apologized and learned from the incident. Isn't that what we as pilots are suppose to do. I recall from my old CFI days that "Learning can be defined as a change in behavior as a result of expereince." Well I would say you guys gave Cardinal a experience here. Thread closed.