Excel

I was looking for some unrelated information about core lock so I read the accident report of the Pinnacle airlines flight 3701 crash (the result of a dual-engine flame-out) and I came across something both interesting and alarming that I do not think has been mentioned in any of the conversations pertaining to Colgan 3407.

Midway through the report, it discusses how the aircraft was allowed to exceed both stick shaker and pusher and become fully stalled. FDR data confirms that as the aircrafts stick pusher activated, the pilots repeatedly pulled on the control column in an effort to override the pusher. This happened not once but repeatedly as the aircraft gained and lost altitude until the oscillations became so severe, the aircraft stalled. Based on their conversation 30 seconds before the shaker and pusher activated, these pilots new about the impending stall and yet, their natural reaction to the pusher was to fight it and pull up. I think it is unfortunate that the pilots fighting a stick pusher directly lead to a fatal accident and yet there wasn’t a real push to examine if stall training in the 121/135 world needed to be reevaluated. I understand that, at the time, the focus was on how unprofessional the crew was and why the engines rotors locked, but 4 years later we have another fatal accident as a result of poor management of an impending stall.

It is unfortunate that the first accident did not shed enough light on the consequences of fighting a stick pusher. Would the Colgan accident have been prevented if the NTSB and FAA took a closer look at stall training after this accident? Who knows… But when people think about Pinnacle 3701, they think about core lock and unprofessional behavior, not necessarily why the aircraft was allowed to fully stall in the first place… BTW, all of my stall training in the sim is always to the shaker, not pusher, but I expect that to change just like it should for 121 training.

The Farang

Pinnacle USE to train on stalls like this in the jet:

10000ft, 200 KIAS - Clean config/Landing Config/Take Off Config.

upon first indication of a stall recover, what you do is add pull power and pitch to 10 degrees (usually an increase in the AOA). Standards were +- 100ft on altitude/10 degrees on heading.

This technique does NOT work at FL410! or other high altitudes.

Training has now changed to more realistic scenarios and taking it all the way to the pusher. Maintaining altitude and heading is not a factor anymore.

The Colgan crash is different. I don't know much about stall recovery in the Q or how it performs. Obviously Fatigue could have caused the CA to react the way he did.

The problem with Pinnacle is they are too into 'checking' instead of TRAINING. PCs should be a training event where you LEARN. It seems things are slowly changing from the 'checking' mentality to 'training'

rickair7777

IMO you are completely off base here...

The pinnacle pilots were screwing around. They KNEW they were pushing the envelope and they did not want to get in trouble with ATC by descending to break an imminent stall. Instead they tried to power out of it, but being on the back of the curve they eventually experienced a full high-altitude stall. They took a risk to stay out of trouble and it cost them everything. They delayed notifying ATC every step of the way...until it was too late.

Personally, I think bombardier was remiss in not insisting that all operators were made aware of the core lock issue...I think they simply didn't want the publicity. Now we all know to put the nose WAAAAY down and start a 300+ knot re-entry.

The colgan pilots got surprised, and appear to have just done the wrong thing due to lack of training and/or ability. They were at least trying to do operate professionally. Sort of.

The Farang

Which is EXACTLY HOW PINNACLE PILOTS were trained prior to Colgan 3407. Although they did do some high altitude stall work to show you will lose a LOT of altitude to recovery.

Inconceivable

Because no pax died, 3701 was largely swept under the rug with promises from PCL management of "we will do better" and "look how many people we hired from FedEx." While Mefford looked the fool in the NTSB hearings and was gone soon after, the fact remains that PCL has a training culture that is rife with cronyism and is run on the cheap.

While I would have liked to know more about core lock when I was flying the plane, it really is a non-starter (no pun intended). These two suicided themselves without even knowing how much they didn't know. Blaming the engines is like blaming the blood clot that causes a heart attack: it was the lifetime of cheeseburgers that got you to that point

What the NTSB observed and where the FAA failed is why are such underprepared people in cockpits today? It's like buying a 16 year old a ZR- 1 for their birthday--in the end, when something bad happens, you really need to look at the parents whogave them the keys to the car...

rickair7777

I was addressing the OP...you hit enter before I did.

Excel

You know, I considered the fact that they might have been more concerned with holding altitude, but I am not so sure I would buy that. Unfortunately we will never know what the intent was. But I do believe that any pilot with reasonable experience would not fight a pusher/shaker in a swept-wing aircraft, especially at 40,000 feet. Weather they where purposely fighting the pusher, or they had the wrong reactions to the stall is not really the concern. I think the point is, this isn’t the first time the NTSB has been exposed to an accident where a pilot overpowered a stick pusher, whether it was on purpose or not, I am just wondering if the NTSB and FAA missed an opportunity to examine the system and culture of stall training in general.

mooney

they would try to fight it if they were concerned with saving their careers, as opposed to their lives, as that CA was. He didn't want to do a carpet dance in front of the CP/FAA......do we REALLY need to train that in a CRJ, at FL410, with engines already at 98% N1 and thin air, not able to climb, losing airspeed, behind the power curve, powering out by firewalling the thrust levers and getting a whopping 1-2% N1 without decreasing AOA isn't really going to do anything?? I always thought that came down to lack of common sense and basic aerodynamics more than a lack of "training"

FlyJSH

For those who haven't watched a zillion students try to power a 152 out of a stall, I guess we do.

Yet another example of how there is no replacement for experience.

mooney

except 30K and 20 hours in a CRJ level D sim