Continental/Colgan DHC-8 crash, Newark-Buffalo.

NTSB issued a safety alert less than 2 months ago instructing pilots (all pilots, not just Q400s) to activate boots as soon as they enter icing conditions, noting that as little as 1/4 of ice on the leading edges can increase stall speed by 25-40 knots.

http://ntsb.gov/alerts/SA_014.pdf

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Originally Posted by Delta777LR

Thats true Tom

To be honest, that very last incident in the US I heard about a crash due to icing was American Eagle Super ATR flight 4184 back in 1994 (15 years ago) in Indiana, killing everyone on board. Most of these turboprops was doing well in winter destinations. But as you stated too, I dont believe any of these northern Dash 8s will be transfered to the south or just warm climates.

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Been a few accidents due to icing inbetween those, http://aviation-safety.net/database/dbl ... ng=&page=2

Here's the company that produces the Deicing system for the Q400 along with a description of the systems it uses.

http://www.aerosafety.zodiac.com/?p=ela ... on_deicing

[quote=T-Bird76]

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Originally Posted by "Phil D.":13pz5x3x

I understood that one of the big advantages of the Q400 were its ability to act as an ATR replacement in the north. It's a great shame this may end up being blamed on icing as well.

I recall FlyBe was having trouble with their Q400s a while back, and the type received a lot of bad publicity after like 3 crashes in as many weeks, right? What was the cause of those and why was it seemingly only limited to Q400s?

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[/quote:13pz5x3x]

That was SAS Phil and as a result SAS removed the Q400s from their fleet. However the issue was fixed. This certainly wasn't a landing gear problem like what SAS had.

I have to say from my perspective since I fly rather often for Biz its very discomforting to see so many accidents in recent months. Very sad day for all those lost, their family and friends.

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I don´t agree that the landing gear issue was/is solved, how come a Colombian operator had 2 accidents last year with landing gear failures (-300 series) when it was "fixed" already in 2007?
The SAS 400Q was turned into firefighting planes by Bombardier.
Also the NTSB report of the Buffalo accident isn´t done yet, so we don´t know what caused it. It could´ve been a landing gear issue together with icing that made the airplane stall.

News reports are saying NTSB is stating the aircraft made a 180 turn possibly to get rid of the ice. Also they are saying the plane didn't nose dive but came in flat.

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Originally Posted by cancidas

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Originally Posted by FlyingColors

This states the boots use "bleed air" and that is compressed air so it should be heated, yes?

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no, it's not hot air. not in the sense you're thinking. the point of the boots is to inflate and break ice off the leading edge of the wing. jets use bleeds to heat the leading edge of the wing to keep ice from forming in the first place.

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I know that but..

"The Q has bleed air supplied pneumatic boots on the wing leading edges, engine inlets, verticle, and horizontal stabs. It also has electric boots on the props. The pneumatic boots operate in six cycles of six second inflations, followed by either 44 seconds or 144 seconds of dwell time between cycles (fast vs. slow mode). "

From what I'm reading here is this type has bleed air supply, and that is hot- via compressor/turbine.

Any Q experts here to clear this up?

So the autopilot was on despite the icing?

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Originally Posted by Alessio

So the autopilot was on despite the icing?

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Yes, but NTSB says this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Today they issued some more chilling details about the aircraft's last moments.

- Final 800 foot drop took 5 seconds.
- After the flaps and gear were lowered, the plane's nose pitched up 31 degrees, then down 45 degrees. The aircraft rolled left 46 degrees then right 105 degrees.

About 260meters for us metric people in the last 5 seconds or 52 meter/second, that´s free fall... :(

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Originally Posted by GothamSpotter

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Originally Posted by Alessio

So the autopilot was on despite the icing?

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Yes, but NTSB says this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Today they issued some more chilling details about the aircraft's last moments.

- Final 800 foot drop took 5 seconds.
- After the flaps and gear were lowered, the plane's nose pitched up 31 degrees, then down 45 degrees. The aircraft rolled left 46 degrees then right 105 degrees.

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Interesting.. I wonder if they had some sort of asymmetric flap situation or something or if they just got into a stall and couldn't recover.

I haven't really been following the accident, so forgive me if some of these questions are repetitive... But, was the autopilot flying during all of this? Looks more like maybe they deployed the flaps, the aircraft pitched abnormally nose high and got into a stall and started to roll off to the left, so the crew took over and tried to counter by pushing the nose down and turning back right... I wonder where the power was at during all of this. 31 degrees nose high at final approach speed power settings especially if you've been picking up ice will quickly bleed off any "excess" power you have (i.e. which would explain a stall leading to the first nose high attitude and then quick nose low attitude).

A few interesting developements re 3407 today. First I am little concerned about the Captain's experinance, it was revelead tonight he only had 110 hours on the Dash 8, and I believe at least a good part of his Saab time at Colgan was on the CO side out of IAH, where he probably did not due a lot of flying in icing.



The captain, Marvin Renslow, 47, of Tampa, Fla., was believed to be handling the duties of the pilot during the final moments aboard the Dash 8 Q400 plane, operated by Colgan Air. He had 3,379 hours of flying experience but had only flown the Dash 8 since December.

The flight's first officer, Rebecca Lynne Shaw, 24, of Seattle had 2,244 hours of experience and had flown the Dash 8 for 774 hours.


I am not trying to blame the crew for anything here, merely sharing information released today.

Regards

LGA777

He grow up in Iowa, so I guess he had some experience with icing during his PPL time?
http://www.mahalo.com/Marvin_Renslow
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29179150/ they had the +2 (co-pilot) and +3k(pilot) flight experience with the this airline, is that true or is it total time?

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Originally Posted by Alessio

He grow up in Iowa, so I guess he had some experience with icing during his PPL time?

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While the Captain did grow up in Iowa I am not sure if he actually learned to fly their.

I grew up in the Tampa area, (ironically near where the Captain resided) but only about 1 pct of my 26 plus years working in the industry occured their. We have several members of this site who grew up locally but are pursuing their flight training in different parts of the country, which is very comon.

Regards

LGA777

Any more info?!