Originally Posted by
Killer51883
I also highly doubt that any flight crew would let the airspeed get that dangerously slow in those conditions.
Sadly, this might have actually been the case. From the Seattle PI:
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a fundamental pilot mistake -- what to do in a stall -- and not icing may have triggered the fatal dive of the Continental Connection plane that crashed near Buffalo, killing 49 on board and one in the house it hit.
Citing sources who have thoroughly examined information from the plane's flight data recorder, the paper said the commuter plane was flying at an unsafe speed as it approached the airport, and experienced an automatic stall warning.
According to the plane's flight recorders, Flight 3407's descent into Buffalo was routine until roughly a minute before impact, when the crew lowered the landing gear, followed by the command to extend the wing flaps, which enable the plane to fly at slower speeds.
Almost immediately, these people say, the plane's air speed slowed rapidly, causing a stall-warning device known as a "stick-shaker" to cause the pilots' control column to vibrate. This was followed by a "stick-pusher," which automatically forces the stick forward.
At this point, the captain appears to have pulled back with enough force to overpower the stick-pusher and shoved the throttles to full power, according to people familiar with the matter. Safety board officials said the nose pitched up to a 31-degree angle. Already at a dangerously low speed, the wings immediately stopped generating lift. The plane whipped to the left and then entered a steep right turn, losing 800 feet of altitude in less than five seconds. At one point the right wing was perpendicular to the ground, according to information taken from the flight data recorder.
The pilots continued to fight with the controls almost all the way to the ground, and in the final moments, "it appeared that they were beginning to make headway when they ran out of altitude," said one person who looked at the data.
Still speculation of course. This crew was new to the airplane and probably did not have much time in airplanes with a vertical tape airspeed display. This could have lead to a loss of situational awareness. The crew was slowing and configuring the airplane and did not notice just how slow they were going until it was too late. I could see the captain pulling hard on the yoke in response the the pusher - especially since the stall caught them by surprise.