What's the 'main' cause of the fatal Buffalo plane crash?

Hi all,

Here's the clarification regarding icing, if icing is cited as the main reason for the crash the market will settle as weather.

Regards,
Ryan

Thanks for the clarification.

Listen to the tower talking to the plane.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/4611013/New-York-state-jet-crash-Investigators-examine-role-of-icy-weather.html

Looking more and more like icing (aka bad weather)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29173163/

Don't rule out mechanical problems just yet:

Investigators are trying to determine what caused the nation's first fatal commercial airliner crash in 2½ years. One former aviation official said the nearly vertical drop suggests a sudden loss of control -- perhaps from icing or a mechanical failure.

Witnesses said they heard the plane's engines sputtering before the aircraft struck the house in a fiery explosion.

This might be a bit problematic to reconcile. How do we settle this if it turn's out that pilot error for failure to turn on the anti icing equipment in a timely manner, caused the loss of flight control due to ice accretion? The mindset of NTSB usually goes the route of "pilot error" if deicing or anti icing was not properly affected or instituted by the crew. I really don't put any credence in the media getting this right...I just read an article on this crash where a news outlet mentioned no less than 6 times in the article, that this Dash 8 Q400 was a "Jet"!!!

Further...there is good reason to believe that the NTSB would consider the "cause" of the crash to be pilot error....pilot failed to take appropriate measures to preclude ice build up... 'the cause of the ice build up was pilot failure to take apppropriate timely action'. I've read hundreds of these NTSB crash reports (former job required it), and that's generally how they see it...what was the root cause?

This reported a short time ago by MSNBC.."Icing on the aircraft is suspected to have played a role, but officials have stopped short of calling that the cause." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29194109/

If I remember right, the Bombardier uses a inflatable leading edge on the wing surface, which isn't nearly as effective to help reduce ice build up on the flaps and other control surfaces as using recycled engine heat like actual jets use. I have little doubt icing played a role, if not the primary cause, the only question might lie in whether the icing system was working properly (mechanical) or was used properly (pilot error). That's the tricky thing with a lot of these markets with more complex causation. It's not like an American Football or Basketball game, where there's a score and a winner; life is a bit more complicated.

We already have this clarification:

"Clarification: Icing problems will be considered weather related problems"

Bombardier does use leading edge boots as do most prop driven A/C. Their engines just do not product the volumes of heat that a jet engine is capable of.

Icing definitely played a role as indicated by the NTSB's preliminary analysis of the recorders. Clarification is STILL NOT there regarding the "main" cause. Failure to turn on the deicing equipment in a timely manner is 'pilot error', with failure of the equipment being 'mechanical malfunction' and icing being secondary to those. Another example...'an engine fails due to fuel starvation', doesn't become "Main cause of crash was engine failure"....no...it becomes pilot error when the pilot failed to ensure proper fuel quantity was loaded into tanks initially or failed to navigate effectively to ensure provided fuel was sufficient for the route.
All I'm saying is this will be very difficult to reconcile as to "main" cause when the media is unlikely to have the understanding or knowledge to give a qualified answer without the NTSB final ruling which could typically take a year.

In their report, the NTSB will say something like this: "Primary cause of accident: ice build-up leading to a loss of adequate lift and control of the aircraft. Contributing factors: the pilot-in-command's intentional entry into meteorological conditions conducive to icing; flight crew's hesitation in turning on icing equipment in the face of severe buildup; failure of the mechanical icing system to adequately compensate for the rapid build-up of ice; the pilot-in-command's inability to control the aircraft as it encountered the icing, inducing a loss of control; air traffic control's failure to adequately warn pilots in the area of severe and rapid ice buildup"... and so on, and so forth. There's always a primary cause, however.

If for example the NTSB comes out and says that the primary crash cause was pilot error in not turning on the de-icing systems, then the market would settle as human error. The market settles on the primary cause they state, not the contributing factors.

Ryan

That's precisely the way I understood the settlement rules...

Sky News are reporting that an Airline official has confirmed that the autopilot was on despite it being against airline policy to have it on during icy conditions

NTSB is confirming the same thing.

Woot woot, This market just propelled me to the rank of Psychic!!!!

I just tripled my stake, went off to make a cup of tea and lost it all again :(

I looked through the NTSB database and found the reports from two accidents (in 1994 and 1997) where similar type/size airplanes crashed after encountering icing conditions with autopilot on. Here are a couple of abstracts:

1994: "Primary cause: the loss of control, attributed to a sudden and unexpected aileron hinge moment reversal that occurred after a ridge of ice accreted beyond the deice boots while the airplane was in a holding pattern during which it intermittently encountered supercooled cloud and drizzle/rain drops, the size and water content of which exceeded those described in the icing certification envelope. The airplane was susceptible to this loss of control, and the crew was unable to recover. Contributing to the accident were: 1) the French Directorate General for Civil Aviation's (DGAC's) inadequate oversight of the ATR 42 and 72, and its failure to take the necessary corrective action to ensure continued airworthiness in icing conditions; and 2) the DGAC's failure to provide the FAA with timely airworthiness information developed from previous ATR incidents and accidents in icing conditions,3) the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA's) failure to ensure that aircraft icing certification requirements, operational requirements for flight into icing conditions, and FAA published aircraft icing information adequately accounted for the hazards that can result from flight in freezing rain, 4) the FAA's inadequate oversight of the ATR 42 and 72 to ensure continued airworthiness in icing conditions; and 5) ATR's inadequate response to the continued occurrence of ATR 42 icing/roll upsets which, in conjunction with information learned about aileron control difficulties during the certification and development of the ATR 42 and 72, should have prompted additional research, and the creation of updated airplane flight manuals, flightcrew operating manuals and training programs related to operation of the ATR 42 and 72 in such icing conditions."

1997: "The Federal Aviation Adminstration's (FAA) failure to establish adequate aircraft certification standards for flight in icing conditions, the FAA's failure to ensure that at Centro Tecnico Aeroespacial/FAA-approved procedure for the accident airplane's deice system operation was implemented by U.S.-based air carriers, and the FAA's failure to require the establishment of adequate minimum airspeeds for icing conditions, which led to the loss of control when the airplane accumulated a thin, rough, accretion of ice on its lifting surfaces. Contributing to the accident were the flightcrew's decision to operate in icing conditions near the lower margin of the operating airspeed envelope (with flaps retracted) and Comair's failure to establish and adequately disseminate unambiguous minimum airspeed values for flap configurations and for flight in icing conditions."

Meaning? This one's going to be hard to tell, though it's most likely 3, 5, or 6... :(

This question became stupid with this clarification:
Icing problems will be considered weather related problems
Icing is a normal condition of flying, if the pilots were on autopilot when flying under icing conditions it is probably a "human error" but now with the clarification it is still a weather issue. Strange

It's only a weather issue if the NTSB say that the crew not turning off the autopilot was a contributing factor. It could really go both ways, the NTSB will either say human error was the main reason with a contributing factor being ice or they'll state the opposite.

Regards,
Ryan

This will take a long time to settle if the NTSB does a thorough job, which they will:

The full investigation could take a year, as investigators probe factors ranging from the mechanical condition of the plane to crew training and the weather.(2/16)

Well, I'm in no rush to collect, so I can wait a year. :) However, the NTSB usually issues a preliminary report rather quickly, especially in high-profile cases such as this; I'd say we won't have to wait too long.

Yes, icing is a 'normal' condition of flying, but so are such atmospheric anomalies as thunderstorms, microbursts, and extreme wind shear. Any of those can take down a plane; as Ryan pointed out, the NTSB will list one or the other as the primary factor.

(Again, though, all precedent says that the report will state the primary cause of the wreck was ice accumulation on the aircraft, brining about a loss of lift and control, while the aircrew's entrance into the icing conditions and their inability to cope with that loss of control were contributing factors.)

Ok - rubber leading boots are to be used when leading edge ice acrues substantially enough to allow for it to break off during flight. If the crew was on Autopilot, and allowed the aircraft to slow to the point when the leading ice would travel to other sections of the wings (to much AOA) then the crew was at fault for not allowing extra air speed and slowing too much for icing conditions. I am unfortunately going to say simply - this was almost all crew failure to recognize icing and taking appropriate steps to alleviate the issues.

The Dash 8 is one of the main aircraft used in the remote northern parts of Canada. I've flown on many of these flights where weather conditions would routinely require postponing, canceling, or re-routing flights (Almost more often than not). Aviation guidelines must be followed to ensure safe flights. I am confident that Bombardiers Dash8 is designed and capable of flying in adverse conditions but not beyond conditions deemed acceptable by aviation guidelines.

A note of interest;
Bombardier as a company started out by making these in the 1930s: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Bombardier_(PSF).jpg

Here's a better link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bombardier_(PSF).jpg

...maybe not.... I guess y'all gonna have to copy'n'paste if you want to read that.

@ msdickerson: I know what you're saying, but the NTSB looks at it like this: if the pilots had done everything exactly the same way they did, yet there had not been icing conditions, would the plane have crashed? If the answer to that is 'No', then icing will be listed as the primary cause. If, OTOH, the answer is 'Yes', then pilot error will be the primary cause.

(FWIW, I'm a licensed single- and mutli-engine FAA pilot [with a high-performance rating to boot].)

Also a near death question.

Pilot experience now being called into question... this is definitely pointing toward human error for me.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/17/national/main4805800.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_4805800

Investigators examining last week's Continental Connection plane crash have gathered evidence that pilot commands -- not a buildup of ice on the wings and tail -- likely initiated the fatal dive of the twin-engine Bombardier Q400 into a neighborhood six miles short of the Buffalo, N.Y., airport, according to people familiar with the situation.

The commuter plane slowed to an unsafe speed as it approached the airport, causing an automatic stall warning, these people said. The pilot pulled back sharply on the plane's controls and added power instead of following the proper procedure of pushing forward to lower the plane's nose to regain speed, they said. He held the controls there, locking the airplane into a deadly stall, they added.

The investigation is still at an early stage, and National Transportation Safety Board officials have warned about ruling out potential causes or prematurely jumping to conclusions. But in the past few days, government and industry crash experts have gained a better understanding of the sequence of events as they have compared information from the plane's flight recorders with radar and weather data.

Mark Rosenker, the NTSB's acting chairman, said Tuesday that investigators still have "lots of data that needs to be examined," and "still more evidence that needs to be collected," before announcing firm conclusions.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123492905826906821.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us

In my flight training, one of the first things we discussed and practiced was A) recognizing an impending stall, B) preventing a full stall from occurring, and C) recovering from a stall if it does occur. I'd say that by my 20th hour, I had stall recognition, prevention, and recovery fully stuck in my head. It's difficult, then, for me to imagine some pilot with thousands of hours (both in and out of type) hauling back on the yoke to break a stall; that just makes no sense. But then again, things happen, you know?

It's important to keep in mind that airflow disruption caused by an accumulation of ice on an aircraft's lift and control surfaces can and will raise the stall speed for any given aircraft. With that in mind, perhaps a rapid buildup of ice raised the stall speed on 3407 to the point that the PIC was caught off guard: "This can't be a stall; we're flying far too fast for that!"

I suppose it remains to be seen whether the NTSB will list the ice as a contributing factor, or the primary one. Hmmm.....

Here's a timely and informative NASA video from a few years ago some of you may find of interest:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=560_1234634990

sql: Have you ever read Laurence Gonzales' Deep Survival? It does a great job of explaining why we, as humans, are extremely vulnerable to errors like this. Well worth your time if you get the chance. It's an enjoyable read, too.

Disclaimer: I know nothing about flying an airplane, but I found the following news clip interesting:

CLARENCE, N.Y. — A commuter plane that smashed into a house apparently plunged flat to the ground rather than nose-diving, ending up pointed away from the airport it was trying to reach, investigators said Saturday.

Investigators did not offer an explanation as to why the plane was pointed away from the Buffalo airport, but it does raise the possibility the pilot was fighting an icy airplane: Air safety guidelines says a pilot can try a 180-degree turn to rid a plane of ice.

That video may be a cure for insomnia.

@mork; cute : )

is it sabotage if the pilot intentionally crashed the plane? That would not be human error if it was intentional.

CLARICATION please what if its a combination of bad weather and pilot error ?

@curios: I'm not the editor here, but generally speaking the NTSB report will list a probable cause--which is the primary reason--followed by several 'contributing factors'.

Here's another story blaming the pilots: http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/590444

Sabotage by the government doesn't seem too far fetched.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/911-activist-who-sued-government-killed-in-buffalo-plane-crash.html
A 9/11 widow who wouldn't take a cash settlement and refused to be quieted by the government was on board. Maybe the government had a hand in it?

Hmmm...for what it's worth, anything suggested by conspiracy nut and paleo-conservative Alex Jones is immediately suspect. (There are people on the site suggesting that the plane that landed n the Hudson river was brought down by the Mossad...meaning, I suppose, that some people really do have control over birds everywhere. Look out! That sparrow in the maple tree out back might just be a feather-covered ultra-small UAV controlled by the CIA!!!)

Not that these attorney are flight safety experts, but:

http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/story/591687.html
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/02/27/crash-lawsuit.html

<bump> No definite answer yet, but the NTSB says their investigations have focused on icing: http://capitalnews9.com/content/headlines/133774/ntsb-unveils-latest-in-flight-3407-crash/Default.aspx

<bump> Nothing definitive, but more fingers pointing toward pilot error: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/25/buffalo.crash/?iref=mpstoryview

"The crew of Continental Connection Flight 3407 pulled back on the plane's control column when it received a stall warning, pulling the plane upward, an update released by the National Transportation Safety Board revealed. "

"The pilot and first officer discussed "significant" ice buildup on the aircraft's windshield and wings before the crash, the cockpit voice recorder revealed. But in an update on the investigation, the NTSB said there is no indication that aircraft's systems failed, or that ice had a significant impact on the plane."

...And another to backup frogchop's comment: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Buffalo+crash+still+under+study/1433980/story.html

It's going to be interesting, for sure. In almost every air crash, a confluence of factors results in the disaster, and Flight 3407 is no exception. The thing is, which of the following probable cause reports will the NTSB release? Something like this?

"The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows: the pilot crew's failure to maintain attitudinal control, which resulted in a nose-high attitude that precipitated an unrecoverable stall at a low altitude. Contributing factors were ice accumulations on the control surfaces, and darkness."

...or like this?:

"The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows: an accumulation of ice on the surfaces of the aircraft, which led to loss of both lift and control. Contributing factors were the pilot crew's failure to maintain attitudinal control, flight into known icing conditions, and darkness."

We'll see. A secondary report should be out in mid-summer, and the final probable cause report sometime next winter...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/11/national/main5005408.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_5005408
Now the pilot's training is in question which should push this over the top for pilot error.

Non-sterile cockpit below 10,000' as required by FAA regulations CHECK
Exhausted copilot who says she should have called in sick CHECK
47 year old pilot flirting with pretty 24 year old copilot CHECK
47 year old pilot not properly trained to prevent/recover from a stall CHECK
Weather that would have challenged even the best pilots CHECK

All ingredients for your worst nightmare are in place, flight 3407, you are clear for disaster. The only equipment failure on this flight was between the pilot's ears.

oops, forgot the link: http://www.nypost.com/seven/05122009/news/regionalnews/crash_captain_was_coming_on_to_pretty_co_168824.htm

@frogchop: Nice post! LMAO. :)

OTHER MAIN CAUSES CITED;

As of the NBC 5:30 National News with Brian Williams, AT THIS TIME, the main causes are said to be PILOT AND COPILOT INEXPERIENCE (lack of training), and PILOT AND COPILOT FATIGUE.

• The airline showed its pilots a video of an unusual type of icing that prompts planes to nose-dive into the ground even though the Q400 is not susceptible to the problem. That could help explain why Renslow pulled the plane's nose upward, even though investigators have found no evidence that icing played a role in the accident.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-05-12-buffalo-crash-side_N.htm