Captain's Training Faulted In Air Crash That Killed 50 - WSJ.com

 

If that is actually true, Colgan is in big trouble. However WSJ would be shocked to learn that airlines don't train to the stick pusher. I've never done it. The point is to catch it before the pusher isn't it? But if a Captain tries to get out of a transport certified airplane out of a stall by yanking the yoke back that is some serious lack of basic flying knowledge and skill. And apparently the FO that was basically sleeping in row 14 didn't help either.

 

Guys that I've talked to who have flown the dash-8 have speculated that the captain may have thought he was in a tail stall. Apparently the indications can be confused easily with a main wing stall and the proper technique to get out of it is opposite to a main wing stall i.e. pull back and add power instead of pushing forward. Im not offering this as fact...as I've not been trained on a tail stall or all the way to stick pusher in the sim (though I suspect we all will be now).

It's definitely bad press for Colgan, Pinnacle and Continental. One of the things that I take exception with in the article was the notion that the captain's 109 hours was low by industry standards. At the time of the accident, Im not sure Colgan had even been operating the type for a year yet. Even the most seasoned 747 captain with 20k hours and gray hair has only 100hrs in type at some point.

 

Look for mandatory stick-pusher training as a result of this accident.

 

"He had a history of flunking check rides"

"pilot training academy"

This will not end well...

 

I doubt they had a whole lot of time to think about what kind of stall it was in a matter of seconds, my training says that if you get the shaker you add max power wait for the airspeed then get out of it. He probably aggravated it knowing that they were very close to the ground and couldn't accept what the pusher was doing. It would be interesting to see the recreations if it really is possible to get the pusher over 1500agl and still recover.

 

You don't get a shaker and a push in a tail stall. in matter of fact it happens at relatively high approach speeds when you change the flap configuration. I speak from experience I have had a tail stall in both the SAAB and the Jetstream 32.

 

Interesting that Colgan seems to think the Captain kept his past training failures from them. Are they unlike every other airline and don't require a copy of your Airman Records prior to employment?

 

Which will call to question why he was put up for rides. In the tng dept I was in, any failure to meet standard was first an item for the tng dept and the instructor.

 

At the end of the day guys, this article is nothing more than additional speculation. Media has no new information based upon the facts, so they engineer numerous facts about the pilot/company and use the power of suggestion as a means to create a story.