Originally Posted by
Mesabah
The assumption is that if the aircraft had been barking airspeed constantly, the Colgan crew would have not taken the airplane to the shaker, and beyond. The Captain pushed the power to the 70 degree point, the pusher then broke the stall, but the FO put the flaps to 0. Clearly, the startle factor with confusion, was an issue in this accident.
For reasons of mitigating inadvertent activation, the stick shaker margin has been significantly reduced from its original design. In fact, in the patent, the auto-pilot was to remain on, and do the recovery procedure, not the pilot.
The stick shaker was continuous, and indeed in the case of the Colgan mishap, activated some 20 knots sooner than it would normally activate, due to incorrect crew configuration of the stall warning system for icing conditions. Neither shaker, nor airspeed indication, nor stall annunciation, nor airframe buffet, nor pusher activation served to alert the pilot to the need to recover from a stall...or push the power up beyond partial, for that matter. Go figure.