As they approached the outer marker at Buffalo in their Q400 turboprop, Capt. Marvin Renslow, 47, and First Officer Rebecca Lynne Shaw, 24, had allowed themselves to be distracted by an extended conversation about their previous icing experience compared to their current icing conditions. They were now too fast for so close in.
About 3 miles from the outer marker, Capt. Renslow quickly reduced power to near flight idle and called for flaps 5 and gear down. In response, Shaw selected 5 degrees of flaps, put the gear down and moved the condition levers to maximum rpm. As the airplane slowed, Renslow called for flaps 15.
Two things happened next that are hard for many pilots to understand.
First, as the autopilot leveled the airplane at the glideslope interception altitude, it appears the pilots had forgotten they were at near-idle power. Neither pilot mentioned the pitch attitude of the airplane had increased from 3 degrees nose-up to 9 degrees nose-up, that the numbers on the airplane’s indicated airspeed display had changed from white to red or any of the other numerous cues of their deteriorating airspeed.
It is hard to imagine they had forgotten something so basic as the fact they were practically at idle power. But an abrupt slowdown creates a common trap for pilots of heavier, faster airplanes. It is easy to get out of the loop as the autopilot manages things for you. You can easily forget that you are in a major transition and fail to bring power back in when you should. In our 30 years of flying jets together, John and I have each made that same mistake and been rescued by our alert copilot.
The second thing that happened may be even harder to understand. When surprised by the stick shaker and autopilot disconnect, neither pilot responded appropriately.
The captain, who like every other pilot had for years been trained to pitch down and add full power at the first sign of a wing stall, instead pulled back hard on the yoke — a 37-pound pull — and added only partial power. Meanwhile, the first officer, without the captain’s command, raised the flaps, thereby increasing the stall speed.
The result was the crash of Colgan Air 3407 and 50 fatalities.
What could have been going on in the minds of these pilots that interfered with the years of training each had received? We’ll never know for sure. But during their airline training, the crew had repeatedly been required to watch a NASA-produced video titled “Tailplane Icing.” The video describes tailplane stalls, which, when they occur, are caused by ice accumulation on the horizontal stabilizer. The tailplane-stall recovery procedure taught in the video directed pilots to pull back on the control column, reduce the flaps and, for some aircraft, use only partial power — exactly what this crew did.
Moreover, in spite of the fact the Q400 they were flying was not susceptible to ice-contaminated tailplane stall, there was nothing in the training program that told the crew these recovery actions did not apply to them. Since they were required to watch the video multiple times, they can be forgiven for having thought the recovery actions did apply.
The inclusion of this video in airline training programs was part of a zealous “safety cause du jour” push by the FAA. The sad thing is that very few aircraft in airline service are actually susceptible to ice-contaminated tailplane stall. Requiring pilots to watch this video when it did not apply to their aircraft introduced the risk of creating more accidents than it prevented (as it may have done in this case).
The FAA seems to be acknowledging this. In June 2014, it issued a national policy notice requiring that the NASA video not be included in the training for crews of aircraft not susceptible to ice-contaminated tailplane stall. Plus, the FAA recently replaced the icing video with a new one, giving the lame, self-serving excuse that “much has occurred since NASA’s original 1998 ice-contaminated tailplane stall video.” Then the agency added, “The information in this training video supersedes, supplants and replaces the instruction in all previous NASA tail-stall icing training videos.”
The Colgan Air Flight 3407 crash may not be an isolated case of unintended consequences from inappropriate governmental zeal. It may, instead, be part of a pattern.
For openers, there is the congressional response to the Colgan Air crash requiring all new airline hires to have 1,500 hours and an ATP certificate. This is ironic considering the qualifications of the Colgan Air pilots. Renslow had 3,379 hours and an ATP. Shaw had 2,244 hours and an SIC type rating in the Q400. The knee-jerk congressional response might have only resulted in increasing the cost of flying, thereby inducing some passengers to choose the significantly higher fatality rate of traveling on highways instead.
Another case of government overzealousness might be the “discovery” that the majority of aviation fatalities result from loss of control. The FAA has recently decided that the Colgan Air crash was a loss-of-control type of crash that can be avoided through better sensitivity to stall warnings. The new approach is to not require pilots to demonstrate slow flight with the stall warning on — putting us at risk of having a new generation of pilots uncomfortable with flying an aircraft at minimum controllable airspeed. The result is likely to be fast landings, bounces, gear collapses and runway overruns.
Zeal is a good thing, but when combined with governmental power without full consideration of unintended consequences, it can be dangerous.
