Pilot in Buffalo crash may have made huge mistake

[Buffacuse]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090215/ap_ ... _into_home

[BackInTex]

I really hate seeing that. The fact that there may be a clear human error that as it stands right now is clearly neglegent, will make the anquish more severe for the victims families.

[Thousandaire]

How do you get from that article that the pilot made a mistake?

[kayrharris]

I wondered the same thing. Maybe the article has changed. Here is another article that might
indicate pilot error, although it doesn't specifically use those words:



http://www.huliq.com/3257/77474/flight- ... pilot-ntsb

[Buffacuse]

Sorry--to clarify: he left it on autopilot way too long given the conditions. If in fact icing was diminishing his lift, being on autopilot would mask that, possibly until it is too late. That is why company/FAA policy clearly states that a pilot even approaching, let alone in, bad/icy weather should go to manual.

[BackInTex]

How do you get from that article that the pilot made a mistake?

"Federal guidelines and the airline's own instructions suggest a pilot should not engage the autopilot when flying through ice. If the ice is severe, the company that operated Continental Flight 3407 requires pilots to shut off the autopilot."

It was pretty clear to me, if this is the case (autopilot left on) that it was a pilot mistake.

[Estonut]

How do you get from that article that the pilot made a mistake?

"Federal guidelines and the airline's own instructions suggest a pilot should not engage the autopilot when flying through ice. If the ice is severe, the company that operated Continental Flight 3407 requires pilots to shut off the autopilot."

It was pretty clear to me, if this is the case (autopilot left on) that it was a pilot mistake.

This version of the linked article is 2 hours and 24 minutes old. At the time that 1000aire posted, the article contained none of those details.

[marriedmefliesfree]

I think it may not be as cut and dry an issue as it may appear to be. A quote from a board full of pilots:

"After this afternoon's NTSB press briefing the media was all over the idea that the crew was somehow doing something wrong using the AP in icing conditions. Do a google on the most recent articles on the Colgan crash and most of them start with, "Crew Used Autopilot in Icing Conditions!" or some such thing.

I only found one article (from CNN) that gave a full account of what the lead NTSB investigator Chealander actually said.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/02/15...ef=mpstoryview

These are very significant quotes from the CNN story, IMO:

1) The pilots were told before departure from Newark that there was "light to moderate icing" in the Buffalo area but that no other pilots had reported problems with their landings at the Buffalo airport. "It was really not a bad-weather day, and they chose to launch [from Newark]," Chealander said of the pilot and the first officer.

2) The plane was on autopilot during its approach to the Buffalo airport, Chealander said. As to questions about whether the autopilot should have been turned off, Chealander said using it even in bad weather situations "is normal. You're encouraged to use the autopilot to help you with the workloads of these high intense weather situations that we fly into all the time," he said.

3) He said the NTSB in the past has recommended to the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees civil aviation including commercial airlines, that in severe icing conditions, "it might be best to disconnect autopilot so that the pilot might have a better feel" for the aircraft's conditions. However, severe icing is "not what we saw here," Chealander said, adding that the FAA has no such disengagement rule in effect.

4) "To say that they should not have been flying on autopilot is not correct," Chealander said. The pilots' recorded remarks about "significant" icing did not indicate "severe" icing, he said.

5) Chealander said the plane's de-icing system was turned on 11 minutes after the flight left Newark, New Jersey, for Buffalo, and remained on for the entire flight.

We all know that in the aftermath of every aircraft accident, the interested parties fall all over themselves to point fingers at each other. The dead pilots usually take the fall. It will be very interesting, given the comments by Chealander, if they will be able to pin this one solely on the pilots.

I admit, I thought it would be an open and shut case of pilot error. Now I'm not so sure."

Additionally, it should be noted that icing can occur very quickly...it may not have been a case of flying on autopilot when they clearly should not have been. It's possible that the conditions didn't clearly warrant hand flying...