Graduation Speakers

[Naked Gents Rut]

Didn't she graduate before women could even vote?

[Asher]

Crew error likely in Buffalo crash, experts say

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON – Flight data point to possible flight crew errors rather than ice accumulation as a key factor in last month's plane crash in upstate New York that killed 50 people, U.S. aviation safety experts said today.

The National Transportation Safety Board said information obtained from the craft's data recorder shows the stall warning system had activated before the accident and there was some ice accumulation, but no mechanical problems were found with the plane.

The data "shows that some ice accumulation was likely present on the airplane prior to the initial upset event, but that the airplane continued to respond as expected to flight control inputs throughout the accident flight," the board said in a statement.

Continental Connection Flight 3407 was about eight kilometres short of the Buffalo Niagara International Airport, flying in icing conditions the night of Feb. 12 when the plane tumbled out of control and plummeted onto a house. All 49 people aboard the plane and one man in the house died.

The board said data shows the speed of the Dash 8-Q400 Bombardier, a twin-engine turboprop, had slowed to 240 km/h when the aircraft's stick shaker activated. The device warns pilots of an impending stall by shaking the control yoke. When that happened, the board said, the plane continued to slow and "there was a 25-pound (11.3-kilogram) pull force on the control column," forcing the aircraft's nose up.

Aviation safety experts said pulling back increases a stall, and that pushing forward and increasing air speed would have been the correct response.

"Pulling up is the wrong thing to do when the airplane is giving you a stall warning," said William Waldock, a professor of safety science at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University who has investigated accidents for more than 30 years. "You increase the air speed by pushing the nose down. He's pulling up fairly abruptly. There's an old adage that air speed is life."

"It's sounding more and more like a human-factors accident," Waldock said.

Colgan Air Inc., which operated the flight, said in a statement: ``Nothing in today's announcement pinpoints a cause nor does it offer theories on a cause. ... We stand by our FAA-certified crew training programs, which meet or exceed the regulatory requirements for all major airlines and include training on emergency situations."

A key question from the beginning of the board's investigation has been whether the plane experienced an aerodynamic stall caused by icing and the pilot's reaction to the stall. Ice accumulation can change the shape of a plane's wings, causing it to lose lift.

Turboprops rely on deicing boots on the leading edge of the wings that inflate and deflate to break up ice. The decades-old technology isn't as effective as the deicing systems on jetliners, which direct engine heat to the wings to melt ice.

Former NTSB investigator Greg Phillips said it appears so far that the ice in the Buffalo crash "wasn't anything the plane shouldn't have been able to handle."

Investigators are continuing to examine aircraft's deicing system and to probe the flight crew's training, the board statement said.

"You still have to leave the possibility of the icing system operation open until those examinations are complete," Phillips said.

The NTSB has scheduled an unusual three-day public hearing in which all five board members will be present for May 12-14 on the crash. The hearing will cover a range of safety issues, including the icing effect on the airplane's performance, cold weather operations, sterile cockpit rules, crew experience, fatigue management, and stall recovery training, the statement said.

[The Mad Monk]

Until the science types finish "THE BOMB!"

They did.

It was used by some farmer from Missouri.

[Lorizael]

My best friend almost died in that plane crash. Changed plans last minute and didn't make the flight. He now firmly believes in a supernatural luck entity.

[Naked Gents Rut]

Fate will catch up with him sooner or later; you can't cheat death.

[Asher]

If there was a supernatural luck entity, he would never have had to go to Buffalo to begin with.

[Asher]

Fate will catch up with him sooner or later; you can't cheat death.

[Lorizael]

If there was a supernatural luck entity, he would never have had to go to Buffalo to begin with.

Connector flight. He was meeting up with some lesbians in Canada.

[Naked Gents Rut]

Asher got the reference.

[Asher]

Connector flight. He was meeting up with some lesbians in Canada.

The lumberjacking industry has done wonders for our lesbian population.

[Lorizael]

He just posts faster than I do.

[Elok]

I had Wes Jackson, some environmentalist weenie who took over an hour telling us we were all doomed, we were running out of fuel, climate change, the stars are right for Cthulhu and blah blah blah...terrible.