BoilerUP

As every professional pilot knows, the "stall recovery" we all train for as part of the checkride stall series is NOT representative of a real-world stall recovery. While minimal altitude loss is ideal, pilots shouldn't be afriad to lose as much as necessary to BREAK THE FRIGGING STALL.

I believe Randy Babbitt should explain why the FAA continues to evaluate stall recoveries based in part on altitude loss...

Great Cornholio

I agree and this is the main reason I can think of as to why someone would pull back on the yoke when the shaker fired. When I got hired I had a hard time the first few stalls to not drop the nose and "fly it out" of the stall. Now I've been doing this for 7 years and a lot of emphasis has been put on not losing any alt during stall recovery. When the stalls are done in the sim its spelled right out for you. You have to stop trimming at a certain speed and in order to maintain alt you must add back pressure. Then during the stall recovery you have to maintain that back pressure. Release it and the nose drops and you lose alt and the sim instructor is up you butt about it. This makes back pressure your muscle memory for the stick shaker...even though it is a very bad thing if you actually have a stalled wing.

Now think about this A/P is on and the plane is trimmed at the shaker speed. Shaker fires "muscle memory" kicks in and you pull back on the yoke with the same force that you normally use in the sim. Bad part is that unlike the sim the plane is trimmed for this super low speed. The back pressure you added just shot the AOA thru the roof compared to maintaining alt like it has done every time in the sim. Now instead of an impending stall you are in a full stall. Of course at this point it should have been realized that the plane was stalled and stall recovery techniques (lower AOA) should have been used.

Not saying that this is what happened but just pointing out a theory for those guys who claim that no one would ever pull back with the shaker going off.

The main thing that sucks about this accident is the fact that it was a classic stall/spin accident which should never ever happen in the 121 world.

JayCypher

Nice wording TProp. It seems so many people forget that some ( most that I know actually ) multi engine planes have you fly out of the stall and keep the nose UP! Granted I do not fly the Q400 but I know of several other props that fly THROUGH stalls without lowering the nose.

It is very easy to be a Monday morning quarterback and critique things in retrospect. Like some others have pointed out, doing a stall recovery in a simulator when you fully expect it ( IE 441 ) and actually having it happen on the line is DRASTICALLY different. Lets not forget this was night time IFR with pretty good icing and after a long day. Unfortunately this was the worst time to be caught off guard. Mistakes were made here, but I find it terrible that so many people think that would never happen to them and that they are invincible to such things, especially since they were always insructed how to recover from a stall since private pilot training and every 6 months afterwards on their 441. If demonstration at some point in a flying career is the all thats required to be safe, we would have no accidents Please by mindful Murphy's law is timeless and still in effect.

afterburn81

I'm not going to sit back and give everyone my .02 on how to recover from a stall that was obviously pilot induced in the first place. Anyhow, I didn't get a chance to see the whole hearing on-line. What kinds of things are they proposing as corrective actions to prevent future catastrophes? Not what you would do, but what did the NTSP come up with. We all know the facts: a perfectly working airplane full of people and qualified crew members crashed and killed everyone + 1.

Very sad, but what if anything is going to come of this?

caboarder2001

A bunch of hoopin and hollerin and speaking in fancy terms and press interviews....and in the end....nothing. Not a single thing will change. Big airline lobbyists will persuade congress to let it all go.

lakehouse

if I could make 25K a year, skydive which I really enjoy, and work a 9am to 5pmish sometimes a little later, but go home every night, and really enjoy work....why would I leave flying jumpers till I could go to a job I wanted and not a regional?

Esp if I was flying a twin otter/skyvan/ka90/pac/porter by 25?

dojetdriver

Agreed, the whole PTS crap of minimal altitude loss is terribly unrealistic. Good grief, IF the speed bleeds down and it's required to lower the nose/lose altitude to recover airspeed, DO IT!!!!!!!!

That training/check rides are not based on this reality is simply asinine.

KC10 FATboy

Oh really? You can't be serious?

I've flown two airliners (a heavy with sweptback wings and a medium sized airliner with tiny little wings). I've also flown a business jet, the beechliner, and a trainer. Conventional wings and sweptback wings. All of them had the same recovery as my little Cessna 152.

I don't know what is so advanced with Add Power, Relax Pitch, Gain Airspeed??? Perhaps there are some aircraft out there that throw in a few tricks up their sleeves, but I don't know them.

Their airmanship and situational awareness were extremely poor that night.

KC10 FATboy

I hate in this instance when people keep using the phrase "Monday morning quarterbacking". What do you think is going to happen when you goof up and kill a bunch of people? Your actions are going to be scrutinized to the Nth degree.

Yes, we weren't there. It could happen to anyone of us (loss of airspeed). But all of us are trained to how to react to a stall. They got the stall warning a couple of seconds (I forget how many) before the pusher. Yes, it is going to get your attention, but the damn stall warning going off should have before that!

The ironic part is, the stick pusher was trying to do exactly what needed to be down ... lowering the nose.

The situation you described (high speed buffet in turbulent cruise) is very much different than theres.

Its a hard thing to admit; our fellow aviators and friends goofed up in the most basic way. For the sake of our family, friends, and passengers, that nobody else does this. We're better than that.

rickair7777

I noted that the NTSB elected not to include fatigue as a casual factor, by a 2-1 vote.