Are you kidding me?? All the guys I fly with tell me how our planes are not meant to be hand-flown, and how it is dangerous to do so :rolleyes:

Listen kids, fly the darn airplane!

Sorry. Now back to topic on hand...

As Colonel Sherman Potter would put it: "Bull hockey". Sure, it didn't cause the accident, but it sure as hell didn't help prevent it. Inattention to details, not paying enough attention, not being proactive.

The ATR could then, and can now, handle ice. It cannot handle what can only be described as an extreme, freak icing event. I would be no more afraid to fly an ATR in ice then any other aircraft.

If you don't pay attention to what is going on and take steps to prevent catastrophe, the hand of God may well smack you down.

I understand the desire to say it wasn't totally the fault of the crew (quite rare for the FAA, actually) but its unrealistic to say they weren't a link in that chain. It would be like saying that the crash of Delta 191 was attributable to the L-1011 and the crew had nothing to do with it.

In training I had an instructor that was in the holding pattern 2,000' above 4184. Same type of plane, similar conditions, same holding pattern, he heard them on ATC. I though he was an immense ass when he said, "If I was in that plane that accident wouldn't have happened." Cocky. Arrogant. Rude. I think he had a point though - he was well aware of what was going on at the time and was paying attention.

Agreed. If you don't click the autopilot off and hand fly - how are you going to know what's going on? If the autopilot is slowly trimming control pressure off how are you going to know if you don't constantly check the trim indicators? Fly the plane - they're all designed to hand fly.

Yeah well RJ drivers seem to be perfectly happy playing "Airline Pilot" and "managing systems..."

What systems, exactly, are they managing that a DC-9 crew isn't? Thanks for being a voice of reason in an otherwise unreasonable business LoL

Lost some good friends that night.

Tough video to watch.

Reading some interesting stuff today about Pilots and Automation, and came across a study in which a Pilot mentioned that they sometimes don't know who is control: machine or airplane? He cited Roselawn as an example, in that during the dive one of the Pilots re-selected flaps, but the computer overrode them because they were above Vfe...

Has anybody heard any mention of a flap re-selection during the dive?

Never heard of it...and we went through that accident in excruciating, gut-wrenching detail at the school house.

Alas, the ATR is not quite that sophisticated. If you select flaps 300kts above Vfe, they will go down - it'll ***** at you, but there is no overriding.

There was at the time. Go check out the AD that came out after the accident. The MFC flap override protection was removed from the programming.

i agree with otto, it wasn't the airplanes fault. I was in Chicago that night. Miserable, but typical for halloween in chi town. Let's not blame the ATR.

I can't find any such AD...do you have a link or a copy of it? I searched the FAA database.

And...for those in the area at the time of accident, rememeber that icing conditions can change drastically in just a few thousand feet both laterally and vertically.