Airsupport

Tony. Kidding myself? Yeah I have so much invested in this that it is that important to me. Also Tony, please focus and read the entire post before you franticly start putting your thoughts down. Thats nice and all that you posted the cvr transcripts but who hasn't read those and who doesn't know what they were doing? Everyone does. Everyone knows they were goofing off. No new information there. What we have here are two planes that have crashed after stalling. We are only talking about the stall. The actual STALL ITSELF. Not the stuff after, not the stuff before. We are only talking about the stall. Oh, did I mention we are talking about just the stall and not how long it was before the planes actually crashed? I forgot to mention we are talking about BOTH crews reaction to the stall NOT all the other unprofessional things the crew of 3701 was doing that I AGREE with you about. BOTH crews went full power. BOTH crews held the nose up. BOTH crews FOUGHT the pusher. What part of that don't you understand? We are NOT talking about what happened after the stall as far as this conversation goes. Thats not what we are talking about. Yes the 3701 crew could have survived if they weren't trying to hide their problems. Nobody is disagreeing with that. The 3407 crew didn't have time to recover like the 3701 crew did, but like I said THAT IS NOT THE POINT OF THE OP!

We are talking about BOTH crews reaction to the shaker and the pusher. We are NOT however talking about what led to the stall or what they did afterwards.

Here. I am going to put down a timeline of events and you tell me if it was 3701 or 3407.

1. Airspeed bleeding off.
2. Shaker turns on.
3. Full power applied.
4. Nose held high.
5. Pusher activated.
6. Flying crew member attempts to overide pusher.
7. Plane becomes uncontrollable due to pitch oscillations and deep stall.
8. Plane crashes.

So which flight had this time line? This is the point of the OP. NOT which crew was more unprofessional, or which crew had more time to survive after the stall, or which crew knew the stall was coming or not. We are talking about the shaker going off and in the heat of the moment what the crews did. The only reason I brought that up whether or not they were suprised or not is because Rick was saying the reason 3701 was trying to "hold" altitude was so they didn't get violtated. Not correct. Is the reason 3407 was trying to hold altitude was because they didn't want to get violated? These crews were never trained on the pusher and what to do if it is activated. So now the question remains. Why did they both crews do what they did. We now have 2 planes that have entered full stalls in the last few years with a 100% fatality rate.

ZnCrO4

Quarrels between Airsupport and Tony C aside,

Let me be the first to say I am not an aerodynamic expert although having flown swept wing aircraft to the shaker at high alt (above 35K) and to the pusher and beyond at low alt (10k to 17K), I’d like to think I have something to add. I can tell you these two scenarios are indeed different although they both require the crew to do the same thing: Lower the AOA.

Now having that said how does the crew accomplish this? Well depends are we at high alt or low alt.

One can always lower the nose or release back pressure to lower the AOA. This method will work at both high alt and low alt. Now, turbine powered aircraft are designed to have a lot of excess thrust in order to be able to fly at high alt and in the event of an engine failure, to be able to fly engine out at low alt. So at lower altitudes there is a lot of excess thrust meaning you could lower the AOA by adding power, and thus not sacrificing as much alt as one would by just lowering the nose.

At high alt turbine engines will not produce the same amount of power and engine acceleration times will be slower than at lower altitudes. So engine thrust alone is not enough to recover if you are far enough on the back side of the power curve you will need to sacrifice some alt.

Now as for these to cases:

IMO and just MO:

-The CRJ should have never been there and it is a shame we lost two pilots, an aircraft and has further tarnished the reputation of regional airlines. Is it a training problem? Not my job to decide I just can tell you what I know….. not much.

-The Q, I think (emphasis on the I) that the crew misdiagnosed the problem. I believe both or at least one of the crew thought they had a tail plane stall. Why do I think this?
The actions of the left seater, stick to the chest and hold it. The actions of the right seater, bring the flaps up, all the way up. To me it looks like they did the perfect tail plane stall recovery, only problem? You don’t get a shaker with a tail stall. Can I blame them? No, I wasn’t there I can’t say how I would react.

Just my 2 cents, might be wrong, if I am please post intelligently…

rickair7777

Lots of good discussion here, and I guess I'm open to the possibility that 121 training on how to power out of an imminent stall may have affected the 3701 pilot's behavior to some degree. At least in the sense that the general concept of powering out of the stall was something they were familiar with from training (but not at FL410).

But ultimately I still feel they knew exactly what they were doing, and they believed that if necessary they could declare an emergency, dump a bunch of altitude and recover from the stall. They tried to avoid that initially because they did not want to get in trouble, probably on the assumption that they could always take drastic action later if holding altitude did not work.

Of course they did not know about the core lock risk, and probably did not recall that they could flame out their engines at high alt and low airspeed. It was engine failure, not stall, which prompted the emergency declaration.

kronan

I have to agree with TonyC here.
3701 intentionally chose to try and finesse the plane into maintaining level flight.

About 15 seconds prior to things going to hell in a handbasket, they asked Ctr for a lower altitude....they could have bought the bullet by telling Ctr they were departing 410 for a lower altitude, "declare" an emergency for the autopilot disconnect and beg mea culpa to ATC. But, no-they wanted to wait until they had been cleared to a lower altitude

They spent the majority of the last few minutes of their lives trying to hide the magnitude of the situation they had elected to put themselves into. ATC thought they still had 1 engine running until the very end game

The best training in the world is of absolutely no help for an individual pilot electing to push to the LIMIT. A limit that was established in a brand new airplane, with brand new engines, and test pilots who new what they were doing

dojetdriver

First off,

Tony, I miss when you used to post more often

Second, I hate to be a stickler;

But it's Colgan 3407.

TonyC

I'm sorry to be blunt, but I do believe you much invested, to the point you're willing to make excuses for someone. It's easier to swallow that they made a mistake based on poor training than it is to accept they were trying to hide a mistake. That bias has caused you to read things -- surprise and fear -- into a CVR transcript that are not there.



You know, I could take offense at your suggestion that I didn't read your entire post, and that I am frantic when I post, but I'm going to consider your emotional involvement and ignore the insult. Back when FlightInfo.com was run by a pilot, I invested a considerable amount of effort and energy posting on this topic, and I've drawn logical conclusions based on the study of CVR and FDR transcripts. You may not agree with my conclusions, but attacking me personally will not change them.


The fact that you and I have read the transcripts does not prove that everyone has read them, or if they've read them they recall in detail what was said and done in what sequence. I would speculate that most people have not read them, and most people don't have the patience or attention span to read them.

The important thing here is your assertion of what was going on in their heads during the stall. You claimed they were surprised, they were afraid, and they didn't know what to do. How did you know that? You said "after seeing the videos and reading the transcripts [you] can promise [us] that they were just as suprised about that shaker and pusher going off as the colgan crew was." I disagree with that point, and I introduced a portion of the CVR transcript to support my point. You have yet to show me where in the CVR transcript you get the idea they were surprised.


I understand all of that.

The original poster posed a question. Why didn't the Flagship 3701 accident prompt stall training?

Good question. Notice, the original poster stipulated that the crew knew the stall was coming at least 30 seconds before the shaker and pusher.

What the original poster assumed in his analysis is the crew's "natural reaction" to the pusher was to pull.

What has been postulated in this thread, the point with which I agree and with which you disagree, is that their reaction was not a natural reaction, nor was it a trained response, but it was an attempt to further cover up their ineptness. Consequently, it was not deemed noteworthy in and of itself as an area for improved training.

You and I agree about the sequence of events -- we simply disagree on the why -- not the why about them getting there, or the why about what happened afterward, but the why of the arms of that crew pulling on the yoke when the pusher was going the other way. Why did they do that?


You say it was due to bad training. They were surprised, scared, and just doing what was natural.

I say it was not a surprise, and they were trying to stay at four one oh until ATC had cleared them lower.



What you've been talking about is why they did what they did, and you claimed the transcripts support your opinion. What's useful in looking at the transcripts after the stall is determining the attitude and motivation of the crew. You would have us believe they acted irresponsibly up until the stall, were surprised and scared by the stall and followed their poor training, then reverted to irresposible again all the way down to where they swapped seats again -- no engines, no autopilot, no sunshine -- just gravity and trim -- and the Captain finally admitted he had no engines.

I don't buy that. The CVR transcript does not support your theory.


That's Continental 3407, not Flagship 3701. The stall was not the direct cause, nor the proximal cause of the crash of Flagship 3701. They recovered from the stall and killed themselves by trying to cover up their mistakes.

Start with item 1. Airspeed bleeding off. Who knew it? Continental 3407 did not. It took them by surprise. We might learn a lot from studying the why's of that situation, but I think it's clear they were unaware of decaying airspeed. In stark contrast, the crew of Flagship 3701 was well aware of the airspeed problem long before they reached level-off, long before the shaker, and long before the pusher. Who could then argue that the stall took them by surprise?

The crew of Continental 3407 was caught off guard, surprised, and no doubt scared when their airplane stopped flying like they thought it should, and they did the wrong things. Their mistakes were honest, and perhaps due to training that could have been better. To compare their demise to that of the Flaship 3701 crew is dishonest and dishonorable.



We'll never be in their heads, so we'll never truly know what motivated them. Based on the events documented on the FDR and CVR, I cannot agree with your analysis. They were not surprised, it was not a heat of the moment failure, and they most definitely were trying to avoid being violated. If they were not concerned about being violated, pray tell why they didn't immediately inform ATC they had lost both engines and request a vector to the nearest airfield.



Both Captains drank Pepsi -- should we analyze that?




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TonyC

I know it was Pinnacle and Colgan, but I thought they were operating as Flagship and Continental. If that's not correct, I apologize. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Don't ever apologize for being a stickler!



[EDIT TO ADD: I just took a look at the COLGAN 3407 CVR transcript -- you are exactly correct. Thanks again for correcting me. My apologies for the mistake.]






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dojetdriver

No problem Tony

Pinnacle Airlines, callsign flagship, D.B.A. (in this case) Northwest Airlink. However, as we all know, it was an empty repo.

Colgan Air, callsign Colagan, D.B.A. (in this case) Continental Connection. As opposed to Continental Express .

BenWalker

2 years late, and still a qualified statement. Well said.

Al Czervik

I disagree. Experience is everything. But a seeing the futility of a 152 powering out of a stall is far different from the dangers of high altitude swept wing aerodynamics where these guys got caught.