[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