The more news I read and see about flight 3407...
 

... (the commuter plane that crashed near Buffalo last week)... the more I think it was a pilot error problem. It appears that the pilot had only 2 months experience flying a turboprop and his flight assistant was only like 25 years old... I wonder how much experience she had flying a turboprop AND in bad weather conditions.

And they also had the plane on autopilot which they shouldn't have been doing.

Newark to Buffalo is what... like a 1 hour flight? Why was it on autopilot?

I would never fly in a turboprop anyway... but damn... you expect every time you get into a plane that the people flying know what they are doing.

What a horrible fuckin tragedy that I feel was most likely totally avoidable. Of course we'll find out more as time goes on... but I'm thinking heads at Continental and Colgan will roll.

I agree with you on this one Jay.. Sad story...

Probably the worst way to lose a close one...

Ugh, probably. Very, very tragic.

yes very shitty

To an extent.
But how do you get experience unless you're experiencing it? Not every pilot in the world can be a 30 year veteran without putting in 30 years first.


Plus, the problem with human error is... every human is capable of it.

Why shouldn't it have been on autopilot? Has it been confirmed there was ice? I thought NTSB said it was normal to be in autopilot...but not if there was ice?

There was ice and they shouldn't have been on autopilot.

If you are an inexperienced pilot flying in adverse conditions I would think that focusing for one hour should be critical.

So sad... :(

Yes,it was a greater feeling when the pilot landed safely on the river and nobody died.Now something tragic happened :(

I saw the replay from the flight recorder; they had turned on the deicer, and right before it tanked, there was a LOT of strange kicking around.

i have been hearing 'ice buildup' get thrown around a lot

I dont fly Turbo prop period.
Tne company that makes the props Hamilton beach has has a bunch of prop failures over the years.
I do however fly Continental all the time out of Newark.
Scarry stuff.

Here we go...... even before any investigation is done whatsoever the easyest thing to do is blame the pilots.

First of all, turbo props are not unsafe in any way..... Fokker50 is one of the safest aircraft flying and guess what..... it has two turbo prop engines. Even if this was caused by a prop or engine failure in any way i wouldn't doubt stepping on a prop again for a second. Before you say things like that, read up on the difference between props, turbo props and jet engines then come back and say what aircraft you think has the safest engine configuration.

Secondly it is perfectly normal flying a short flight on autopilot. Do you ever think about the work load for pilots on short flights? Workload is higher on short flights, remember that! Autopilot is the perfect solution for this. It's not because it's a prop that it doesn't have a fully automated autopilot with ILS. Again, read up on autopilots, ILS, procedures BEFORE you say things like that. Did it ever occur to somebody that the pilots might have been fighting a battle they couldn't win untill the last second of their life? If ice actually was involved then yes, flying on autopilot was not a good choise to make at all, only when you fly by hand you can be fast enough to respond to any quickly changing flying charasteristics of the aircraft due to icing but i'm pretty sure the pilots had de-icing enabled as this is a standard checklist item.

Third don't ever judge a pilot on his age. A 25 year old can be flying this type of aircraft for 4 years and let's not forget the intensive sim training for getting that type rating. No pilot can fly any passenger aircraft without a type rating, wich is a training specialized for that type of aircraft. Before a pilot takes one passenger to the sky with any airliner you can be sure he/she has done every move, emergency, etc..... untill it's boring in the sim.

I can't take it people almost every time start to blame the pilots.... almost EVERY crash that has ever happened can't be blamed on a pilot error totally, 98% of all crashes happen because a chain of events, not ONE event.

Question for you. Can an aircraft be in autopilot but the crew still activate the flaps or undercarriage independant of the autopilot?

Yes, there are several autopilot types and they each have several systems or configurations.

They also have categories:

Cat I
Cat II
Cat III wich is again devided into several configurations

Most aircraft override the autopilot when a pilot gives input by hand but they get a warning sound the autopilot is disconnecting itself.

Example of your question: Pilots are doing an ILS approach, they have autopilot on, they CAN set flaps without the autopilot disconnecting and they can operate the gear without the autoipilot disconnecting but when they give any input to the yoke it disconnects itself. For the engine power they can use autothrottle, some aircraft demand to push a button on the side of the thrust lever, some disconnect automaticly when a pilot gives input to the lever.

Also: new reports say the pilots went for full enigne power or full throttle moments before the crash.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/0...h.html?ref=rss

I flew Newark to Toronto on the exact same type of aircraft the day after that happened.

I overheard one of the flight attendants talking to another passenger about the tragedy. She was in the same flight attendant class as all of the ones that were on board that day.

She said on that flight, it was one of the flight attendants on there's first job ever. She was 43 years old and she had never worked in her life. Her husband was a rich man, and she was a homemaker her whole life. She just wanted to be a flight attendant.

So sad :(

Yeah that last quote was basically what the NTSB said this morning on the radio.

What they have so far is this:

They didn't find any proof of severe icing, de-icing was enabled almost during the whole flight, the aircraft started to pitch and roll when they applied a FLAP setting, the pilots went for full throttle moments before it crashed.

Sounds like (but offcourse could be something else):

A - Windshear: a difference in direction and speed of the wind over a short time, very dangerous when flying at low altitude, it caused crashes before.
B - Split flap: Flaps don't work fully on both wings, you have one wing dragging more than the other, very dangerous situation, again, certainly at low altitude.
C - Pilots applied to low airspeed: The aircraft was flying at very low airspeed and when they applied flaps the aircraft further slows because of the drag and stalls, this would mean that autothrottle wasn't enabled.
D - Engine failure: One engine was feathering, very dangerous when at low speed and low altitude, also it needs to be trimmed instantly or the wing with the failing engine could drop.

I think the main thing here is altitude.... they did apply full throttle to save the aircraft so if they had this happen at higher altitude they might have been able to save the aircraft and passengers.

one's safety on an airplane ~ the price paid for the ticket

discount airlines = cost cutters. Cheap flight crews (ie noobs), maintenance-on-a-budget, etc.

Well... as more info comes to light, I stand by my previous assessment.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090513/...lane_into_home

This is the reason why I don't fly any more, period.

(and i used to fly a lot)

How much Flight time you got in the Right or Left Seat????

No offense but dont second guess unless you have had their training, thier time in the seat and have taken the same type of journey in the same sort of weather.


Did you know that at least 65% of the time a large aircraft lands, the onboard computer does it??

Thats what the ILS lights at the begenning of the runway are for.

The auto pilot flys as well and often better than the human can because it can make the decisions faster and detect smaller amounts of changes.

I have zero time in the "right or left seat."

But that's not the point here. I'm not second guessing anything this time around. Read the link. They are totally angling towards fatigue and inexperience and incorrect decision making.

Ergo... Pilor error.