Continental Flight 3407 crashes in Buffalo, 44 aboard

[Tishabet]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/02/13/plane.crash.new.york/index.html

now reporting 48 aboard (44 passengers, 4 crew)

[dd74]

Terrible stuff. It sounds like the plane dropped right out of the sky. No one survived.

[Normy]

They are reporting that there is heavy icing in the area.

-The Canadian-built DeHavilland Dash-8 aircraft that was involved in this accident has VERY good behavior when covered with ice. I flew this aircraft type in 1993-94, and on many occasions in the Northeast we iced it up. On one occasion over Virginia, we entered a cloud, and within about 30 seconds we lost 30 knots of airspeed and the airplane began to stall- we had buffet and the nose dropping up and down! This airplane has the stall characteristics of a Cessna 172, and we easily got out of the situation by lowering the nose and increasing prop speed from 900 to 1050 RPM.

What happened in this one? I don't know. The Dash-8 I flew had vastly weaker engines than the Q400 involved in this accident. I will tell you that this is a VERY easy to fly plane- the only thing about the Dash-8 that I could possibly criticize is that the rudder is extremely sensitive; any time you moved the throttles, you had to bump the rudder trim. And you didn't touch the rudder pedals with your feet; you THOUGHT about coordinating with the ailerons and your THOUGHT was enough rudder pressure [feet on the floor..] to keep the ball in the center!

Something went badly wrong this time. Prayers with the families of the crew and passengers.

N

[red-beard]

I'm pretty sure I've taken that flight.

[Zef]

Remember me the crash of the ATR 42 some years ago....in icy conditions....!

[ramonesfreak]

i live about an hour from here and there was hardly what you would call icy or bad weather..best i can tell it was in the mid 30's, very light dusting of snow on the ground this morning

[jeffgrant]

Originally Posted by srandallf

i live about an hour from here and there was hardly what you would call icy or bad weather..best i can tell it was in the mid 30's, very light dusting of snow on the ground this morning

Doesn't mean there wasn't icing at altitude.

[IROC]

Originally Posted by Zef

Remember me the crash of the ATR 42 some years ago....in icy conditions....!

That's exactly what I thought...

[ramonesfreak]

Originally Posted by jeffgrant

Doesn't mean there wasn't icing at altitude.

yea i know...but it seems odd. if the wings were frozen and interfering with ability to control, wouldnt the pilot have had stress in her voice and communicated same to the controller? something tells me this was intentional. im just paranoid

[ramonesfreak]

interesting
http://www.avsim.com/avwx/avsim_wxus_icing.html

[dhoward]

There was icing reported in pireps, but only two arcraft requested expedited altitude out of weather.
http://archive-server.liveatc.net/kb...2009-0300Z.mp3

[rattlsnak]

Possible tail plane stall or prop beta issue, but either way it sux big time, and if CNN's 'experts' get anything right, I'll be amazed.

They are reporting possible carb icing, among other things. WTF?? Morons...

[dhoward]

Carb icing?
Yeah, them turboprop carbs is trouble I tell ya...

[450knotOffice]

The ATR crash in '94 at Roselawn, Indiana was an ATR -72.

I'm with Norm on this. The Dash-8 is well known for its ability to handle a lot of ice. In fact, as common as they are and considering where they are most commonly used - in the cold, icing prone northern states - I can't think of one single icing accident that has involved a Dash-8.

My feeling on this one is that there was something else that led to this accident and that icing may have been a non-factor, or that the crew may have simply screwed this up all by themselves.

This is a Dash-8 Q400:

[beepbeep]

SAS had big problems with undercarriages with three spectacular landings and sold all of them.

Is this 6:th Dash that crashed?

[Hard-Deck]

Ice could have occured and built fast and could not be shaken at low power setting on approach.

Can a Dash-8 have a rudder hardover by chance?

[fingpilot]

Tail ALMOST ALWAYS stalls before the wing with a T-tail.

Noseover and dropped wing (180 degree turn) would soon follow.

Soon as I saw T-tail turboprop, suspect that's what will turn up. 5 miles from airport, (about 3000' AGL) final approach fix, final descent started, flaps and gear to come out. Flaps change tail loading (increase tail load), probably happened so fast crew didn't have time to react ESPECIALLY if autopilot was engaged. Pilot wouldn't 'feel' tail 'lightening' with autopilot on if there was icing reducing it's effectiveness.

Sad lesson to have to relearn if that was it. This is already written in blood on most checklists.

[ramonesfreak]

local news is nonstop on this story..wonder about the rest of the country. its freakin amazing. if a greyhound bus with 50 nuns flew off the grand canyon you would hear the story for about 5 minutes. this story is even superseding the usual drive by shootings and stabbings

it is very sad. i live under a flight path in rochester and they fly overhead all day long...i often wonder "what if..."

[ramonesfreak]

local coverage here just reported that the woman who escaped from the house, just prior to the fire starting, heard a woman crying from inside the plane

gerry neiwood the sax player was on the plane and another member of chuck mangione's band (all locally born) was on that plane... gerry played sax on the simon & garfunkel 1st live in central park concert. that is a huge loss...if you listen to that concert, youll here paul simon introduce him

sad

[ramonesfreak]

Chuck Mangione's Bandmates Die in Fatal Crash

Posted Feb 13th 2009 1:10PM by TMZ Staff

Two members of Chuck Mangione's band were among those who died in the plane crash in Buffalo last night.

A publicist for the famous jazz musician identified the band members as Gerry Niewood and Coleman Mellett. Through a rep, Mangione said, "I'm in shock over the horrible, heartbreaking tragedy."

The band was supposed to play a show in Buffalo tonight. That show has been canceled.