I was about to type basically the same thing, but you described my observations and opinions perfectly. I am a check airman at my airline and I was appalled and dismayed at the total lack of experience and resulting basic incompetence of our new hires up until we stopped hiring (thank God for that, in terms of stopping the flow of inexperienced new hires). Luckily for my airline, we are huge and have about 3,000 pilots. Upgrades to Captain happen at a snail's pace (9 years right now), so the captains these young men and women are paired up with are very, very experienced. Not only that, chronically poor pilots are weeded out quickly at our airline. Three strikes and you are out is our policy. Good thing, too.

The short answer is "yes". Fatigue levels are ridiculous (I worked for two majors). Technology is being used to compensate for reduction of cockpit staffing and increased fatigue. The quality of pilots today - at least in the airlines I have flown for - is very high, but I don't think it's maintainable. Everything is driven by the constant push for lower ticket prices, from that you can draw your own conclusions.

Would I recommend that an experienced pilot - military or otherwise - follow me into the commercial airline profession? No.

I also strenuously object to releasing of cvr recordings - inappropriate.

Todd - you are correct in your stall recovery procedures.

+1 to everything that's been said here... Yes, the proper recovery from a stall (or imminent stall) is to lower angle of attack (nose down), increase power and use RUDDER to level the wings as appropriate. This has been drilled into my head since Day #1 of my flight training that began back in 1990.

I have flown commercially (and am actually trying to get back into it, since the architectural profession is dead and I've no intention of sitting around out of work waiting for it to fix itself while I have another skill set I can try to use to help myself out). I have no idea what the hell these two were up to in the cockpit. I can't speak to Colgan's procedures for dealing with icing but (as with stall procedures) the basic procedure that's drilled into one's head regarding icing is - "climb or descend immediately to get out of the freezing level, employ anti/de ice equipment as appropriate and if necessary, declare an emergency". I've had several flights in icing and it's never a comforting feeling and I've never taken it lightly (although I'm well aware first-hand that airplanes will TYPICALLY fly with some ice packed on them - depends on the particular airplane and its aerodynamic characteristics how well or how poorly it will though).

FWIW I interviewed for CoEx years ago and thought the hiring interview process was utterly dysfunctional (shortly afterwards, 9/11 happened so it didn't matter anyway), but their process in particular was more of a mind-f*ck than it was any sort of technical evaluation. I think the ASSumption was made that you were technically competent to even be sitting there, so they spent the interview futzing around with crap about whether or not it's appropriate to take off one's suit jacket when invited to in a formal interview setting or not (I wish I was making this up - I'm not). Some airlines have better reputations for this than others and for focusing on technical aptitude/competence versus personality and/or whatever other B.S. ritualized hazing crap they're screening for. Suffice it to say that the airline hiring process runs the gamit from very good to deeply dysfunctional. I'm sure I'll run into this again as I get back into commercial aviation - something I'm not looking forward to.

One parting thought: The role of a First Officer is to check the Captain and ultimately to keep him/her honest with respect to their flying, procedures and command. The role of the Captain (to be perfectly frank) is to serve as the scapegoat for the company in the event of an incident or problem - it is NOT to fly the airplane (computers do that now). The sort of commercial flying I did (as a cargo rat) was the envy of a lot of the "jet jockeys" that I'd flown with in the past who were flying with regionals, since I actually hand-flew all my routes, often single-pilot IFR in large propeller-driven aircraft (PA31, Be99, Be1900, Metro, etc.) It was "real" flying and I'm grateful for it - to echo what's been said above, I am NOT particularly thrilled with the rapidity with which computers and electronics have replaced good common sense skills, sound decision-making and old-fashioned stick-and-rudder ability. Maybe this will change but I doubt it - there's an old aphorism in aviation about "the airplane of the future" having a computer, a pilot and a dog. The computer will be there to fly the plane and the dog is there to bite the pilot if he tries to do anything. With a lot of "modern" aircraft, this isn't all that far from the truth.

I have far more respect for anyone who has REAL hard-IFR, hand-flying ability than I do someone with a lot of "fluff" hours in their logbook that are basically sitting there watching a bunch of computer screens and watching a computer video game they happen to be sitting inside. But I'm old-fashioned like that.

[QUOTE=Porsche-O-Phile;4660593]d use RUDDER to level the wings as appropriate. This has been drilled into my head since Day #1 of my flight training that began back in 1990.
/QUOTE]


No.... no rudder... this is not a 172.


I think you(digital yeager's and computer bob hoovers) might be confusing inexperience with incompetence..

Biased on the data it looks like the FO was doing a checklists when both of there inattentiveness let the speed bleed off. This isnt the end of the word... and I bet even the old crusty 10,000 hour aviation gods can recall a time at least once in there perfect career when workload or something distracted them long enough for the speed to get 10kts slow.(if they can even remember the last time they flew something without auto-throttles).

Slow speed events have happened and will happen again.

The ntsb will judge but looking at the data it was with pilot flying actions after the stick shaker sealed there fate..... and the pilot monitoring not being able to make the tough conclusion(in a very short period of time with the plane is rocking all over) that the (supposedly better) guy sitting to the left might be doing it wrong and is going to kill you. When the stick shaker goes off.. the plane isnt stalled.. adding power and maybe dropping the nose(although with the buffer just power would have worked) would have solved the problem. In Icing conditions in most turboprops the shaker comes on very early well before the stall. Pulling up into the pusher overriding that and actually stalling was not the appropriate action. Only question remains is.. did human factors play a part? did he think this was a tailplane stall condition? did he fully understand the difference? Was training to blame for his airmanship?

in a rough rough rough approximation yes. It was a normal to put the condition levers near full for the approach.

I agree with the first and last point. I took every opportunity to do upset training\areobatics\stalls\spins ext.. but I could have got here without any of that.
The second point is a good way to die. If you operate the aircraft like you do on every flight instead of Pinnacle 3701'ing around then you have a good chance at the flight ending like all the rest of them. I do alot of ferry flights and "testing it out" is not something I want to do. Both transport category aircraft I have flown have very dangerous stall characteristics. They have shakers and pushers for a reason. Stall characteristics were traded for design and operational efficiency's.(keep those ticket prices down!)

Some how I made it through two training programs and did not end up a smoking hole :rolleyes: I think there is a fundamental problem with accepting a 500 hour guy over a 400 hour guy assuming at this level that hours in a light plane = skills in an airliner. (On an interesting note Russians have the same problem.. hours in an AN-2 do not translate well to swept wing jets)

Back to flight info... *puke*

-First officer BIFF
former low time large turboprop puke
now RJ slave
(back to 5 leg a day "milk runs" and timing out 2 days in a row)
guess what was on my W2 last year
(the reason I am driving a toyota)

So were they just twisting knobs and typing in numbers when the autopilot horn went off?

Wasn't this discussed a while back and with this aircraft and tail icing? If I recall correctly, the situation is somewhat challenging to recognize and when you do it's almost tooooo late to correct.

you go into a stall, the yoke tarts to shudder. the pilot grabs it too tightly, trying to control it. for a moment he succeeds in pulling it back into his own lap.


not a very good explanation, but it's all i can think of at the moment.

"just twisting knobs and typing numbers"? its not that simple... this isnt an issue of "too lazy to hand fly" it was ok to have the autopilot on.

Flying time ,or the lack of it, always comes to the surface during any investigation of an accident. Thirty years in the flying business taught me that "total time" doesn't mean a damn thing. Airmanship is something you have or don't have. It is the container that situtational awareness comes in. Some twenty years ago after doing a check ride on a flight engineer that failed, he commented at the debrief " I've got 3000 hours in this equipment" My reply was, "No you don't. You have 300 hours.. ten times!

This just happened to me last night, took off, just about to exit the pattern on the down wind and the engine lost power, it was automatic, push the nose down to set the glide, left turn right at the end of the runway, land, get out and see what happened, fix it and take off again.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2238323060735779946

This is the video that was posted when the Buffalo crash occured, in the first 6 minutes or so it explains the issues of tailplane icing and ice acretion on the tail can be significantly more than on the wing. If seen on the wing, you can be pretty sure more is on the tail. Once flaps are extended, nose pitches down and force required to get the nose back up can be dramatic. 400 lbs in some cases as stated in the video.

Of course it sure doesn't help that they were in icing conditions and not paying attention to the aircraft or that the PIC didn't have the best record in the first place, a sterile cockpit could have saved many lives in this situation.

The first time around tail icing was tossed around but this report doesn't mention it.

My relatively uninformed take is that either:

a. the pilot was quite good and quickly assumed (mistakenly) that he had a tail stall and acted accordingly.

or

b. the pilot was marginally capable, stall warning goes off and he panics.

Given his past record, I'd lean towards b. The reality is that some people are in the wrong job.

That just doesn't seem right. They were flying into "more ice than I've seen before" conditions. From that animation the autopilot was on till stick shaker. Seems like they would have been a lot more aware of conditions if they were making pitch and power changes instead of a control loop.

Does anyone have a link to the audio of the end of the flight or has it been released yet?

I've only read the printed version.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...23060735779946

Very interesting video (and yes, I watched the entire thing). A key point is made at about 9:30 in which it says that if flying on autopilot, it is likely that flight crews will miss warning cues indicating potential tailplane (horizontal stab) stalls. My old company had a rigid policy that there was NO AUTOPILOT TO BE USED DURING FLIGHT IN ANY ICING CONDITIONS - period. It was very clear. Of course on cargo planes, you're lucky if the autopilots even work at all (usually they don't), so most times you were hand-flying anyway. But there was definitely a rigid policy on this - for this reason.

Blundering along in the clag with the ship on autopilot seems grossly negligent to me.

How much does a 24 yo FO earn per year on one of these flying buses?

the FDR data isnt pointing to tailplane iceing... the nose didnt drop un commanded.. its pulled upward..

If you remember the icing video its an uncomanded drop.. not a stall WARNING (as in its not stalled yet.) as in this crash.


although with all the emphasis put on tailplane icing on turboprops nostatic's explanations are interesting.

Ahh. I sensed some condescension towards use of the autopilot in your first post.
It was fine to have it on.. the FDR data isnt pointing to tailplane stall or severe degradation in handling.. The autopilot is a good thing.. helps alot more then it hurts. trust me.. it isnt a "Lazy pilot helper" its a safety tool. If you had to constantly balance a broom handle on its end why you tried to set up a complicated machine with all the numbers correct and switches correct..you could do it.. but you would have more brainpower to evaluate WHAT you were doing if you had an "auto balancer"


" NO AUTOPILOT TO BE USED DURING FLIGHT IN ANY ICING CONDITIONS - period."

this aircraft and autopilot is certified to a high standerd... its ok to use the autopilot in ice.

ury 917 you have a PM

Plenty of gremlins in this situation. They both seemed to be pretty relaxed in some nasty weather conditions, until the poop hit the fan and then it was toooo late. Obviously there will be an explanation but unless one was there in the cockpit or seeing the ice on the wing, perhaps we will never know the definitive explanation.

I know one thing, I wouldn't have been talking about the weather under those conditions, my focus would have been on the instruments and flying the aircraft.

What about after you frequently encounterd those weather situations.. again and agian?

I had an instructor many years ago checking me out on floats, he said, "When in doubt, there is no doubt".

Bad weather is never a walk in the park, I don't care how many times you experience it. If they thought that icing was a walk in the park then the only thing that killed all those folks was stupidity. Very unfortunate.

When I fly, every landing is different. When they become "all the same" I better stop flying.