Originally Posted by
Purpleanga
Why is it so disgusting? That's what did cause the crash. Loss of situational awareness and not following procedures, as in getting out of an aerodynamic stall. All the sides are going to try to go by their interests but at the end of the day, you can't blame management for the CA not looking at his speed and forgetting how to get out of a very basic approach to landing stall. Stress, working conditions might have had a factor but an approach to a landing stall is basic student pilot pre solo 101 stuff. It's very unfortunate for the pax but some times there are freak accidents, I would definitely look into colgan though if this happens again.
Think about the A/C as well. The profile was being followed, but loss of sit awarness was key. Everyone is going to slam the pilots, and some blame is deserved. But don't forget the environment as well. Severe Icing forecast and SLD was present. The co-pilot was jabbering like a monkey about the ice build up. If the had all ice protection on and they were still picking up ice, then it was SLD period. In any event it should have been, "get the heck" out of there. The captian didn't notice that the A/C slowed because the auto pilot had trimmed the airplane tail to a maximum nose up position and when the pilots received the shaker the capt slammed the throttles forward producing a 20 degree nose up... remember the auto pilot trimmed max nose up based on power settings. Then the airplaned stalled probably tucked a wing due to ice again and well the rest we know. It is easy to second guess but situationally the crew was way behind and it bit them. I'm sure the new legislation will all make us safer in the end. I'm sure 1500 hours will make all pilots bullet proof and able to save all passengers from terrible accidents from ever happening. I wonder why ALPA signed off on the new HR 3371 so fast?