Colgan Sunshine Hearing
 

Pilots at fault in Continental Connection crash, investigators say - CNN.com

Here is a little gem from the article,

"Family members said they unknowingly purchased cheaper tickets, not knowing that by doing so, they were subjecting their families to additional dangers by putting them on more dangerous flights."

Now that the findings are out with 23 recommendations how many of them will we see actually put into effect?

Colgan Air 3407 Crash: NTSB Finds Safety Lapses, Shortcomings in Pilot Training, Wages - ABC News

"I think the biggest red flags here are going to be pilot hiring, the training and the monitoring because all these appear to have been substandard," ABC News aviation consultant John Nance said on "Good Morning America" today. "There's never just one cause in an accident but ... this really does show a lot of the problems in the industry and the wages really have to be looked at."

I was quite disappointed actually by the hearing. They put a huge amount of emphasis on the fact that the captain especially was unprofessional, fatigued, had significant long term poor performance, poorly trained, and flat out didn't know what he was doing. All of which appears to be true

BUT you get to a point where you need to put the blame on the company for having him in the cockpit instead of blaming the pilot. Colgan was the one responsible for having this pilot flying the plane. If I stuck two monkeys in the front of a Q400 and it crashed enroute, it would be a little silly to put the cause as "The Monkeys' inability to properly pilot the airplane..." It would read a little more like "yamahas3's improper decision to hire, pass, quality, and put monkeys in the front of an airliner, contributing factors being the fact that monkeys cant pilot a Q400."

This guy never, ever, should've been in command of an airliner. But he went for it and found a company that would give him that opportunity.

wait till you have an actual stick pusher in flight and try to tell me your first instinct was not to pull back. regardless of training for it, its happens so quick and is so startling/scary that i bet 95% of you will pull back as well.

the entire industry including there peers unfortunately threw these 2 under the bus.

And here is one of the better video reports

Airlines' Safety Lapses Exposed - ABC News

The captain pulling back induced the pusher, not the other way around.

When getting an unexpect shaker in flight, the IMMEDIATE reaction from any pilot should be a huge, flashing, neon sign going off in their head that reads "AIRSPEED!!!" followed immediately by the two things all pilots should have as a muscle memory to give them airspeed - pitching down and adding power.

This captain didn't have the ability to keep himself out of a situation he didn't have the skill to get himself out of.

And you know this 100% because you were there?????

You don't have to worry about the stick pusher IF YOU NEVER LET YOURSELF GET SLOW.

Agreed. Basic fundamentals of flying.

No I wasn't but a flight data recorder was and that thing is pretty dang 100%.

The aircraft slowed, the shaker activated, autopilot disconnected, the captain (in the NTSB's words) was "startled," and in the ensuing reaction (if you want to call that) AoA was further increased due to G-loading from the pull-back and further airpseed decay, and multiple pushers then fired. This is fact, straight from the NTSB and FDR.

In fact, had the captain done NOTHING WHATSOEVER and sat and watched the airplane fly with no pilot input through the shaker and until a pusher fired on its own, and only then attempted to recover from the wings level, nose low, airspeed increasing state (quite benign compared to the attitude he put the plane into) that would've ensued, its a good chance the airplane would've made it to its destination.

The guy screwed up bad, never should've been flying an airliner, and Colgan never should've allowed pilots like him the opportunity. He may have been a great guy, nobody is attacking him as a person, but as a pilot he was inferior and it ended up getting a lot of people killed.

Jimmy Hoffa:

Thanks for posting your first post, all be it a doozy.

THE STALL WARNING WAS GOING OFF SECONDS BEFORE THE STICK PUSHER !!!!

That means, they incorrectly identified a stall buffet on the wings, the slow airspeed indications, and the stall warning -- the most basic skill taught to ANY pilot.

The Stick Pusher and/or their lack of training on a Stick Pusher, is irrelevant. There is no training for a Stick Pusher. Why? Because if you're getting a stick push it means you are already in a deep stall. Nobody trains to recover from a deep stall because we spend all of our time trying to prevent one and just incase you approach one, there are enough bells and whistles and physical signals for you to react in time appropiately.

We could go on and on about what training they did not receive. For example, why did they not have inverted stall training? I mean, it is possible isn't it? Why didn't they have fugoid training in case the tail falls off? It is possible isn't it? The simple fact is, the Stick Pusher and the associated functions are in the Aircraft Operating Manual. Did the crew read it? Did they ask questions of the instructors about what a Stick Pusher is for? We don't know.

But what we do know is, he did everything opposite of what you do for a basic aerodynamic stall. I know that sucks, but it is what it is. The company shares some blame as another posted commented because based on his flying history, he should not have been PIC -- or perhaps should have been scrutinized a bit more.

They stalled ... they reacted incorrectly. Get over it.