FLYING Magazine News Pilot Proficiency Weather

Ice-Contaminated Tailplane Can Bring About Deadly Consequences

Pilots of twin-turboprop aircraft continue to find themselves victims of a stall when icy conditions are a factor.

Friday, December 13, 2024 at 08:52 AM ET

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Pilots of twin-turboprop aircraft continue to find themselves victims of an ice contaminated tailplane stall, perhaps because they may not recognize the signs and understand the differences as compared to a traditional wing stall. [Courtesy: Textron Aviation]

Key Takeaways:

Ice-contaminated tailplane stalls (ICTS) are violent, require pulling back on controls for recovery, and are distinct from normal wing stalls, which require pushing forward; however, many pilots mistakenly believe all aircraft are highly susceptible to ICTS.
ICTS primarily affect twin-turboprop aircraft and typically occur in icing conditions when flaps are extended or power changes are made with flaps deployed, affecting the horizontal stabilizer's angle of attack.
While the Colgan Air accident was a wing stall, a 2022 Beechcraft King Air 90 crash was confirmed by the NTSB as an ICTS due to structural icing on the tailplane, highlighting the danger of specific, often subtle, icing environments even with ice protection systems.

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A tailplane stall can be very violent with the controls quite literally snatched from your hands. Often it takes an enormous amount of back pressure on the controls to break the stall—sometimes even requiring that the copilot assist in this recovery.

However, pilots of twin-turboprop aircraft continue to find themselves victims of an ice contaminated tailplane stall, perhaps because they may not recognize the signs and understand the differences as compared to a traditional wing stall.

Scott Dennstaedt, Ph.D

Scott resides in Charlotte, North Carolina, and flies regularly throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast U.S. He is a CFI and former NWS meteorologist. Scott is the author of "The Skew-T log (p) and Me: A Primer for Pilots" and the founder of EZWxBrief.