13 MAY 2009 _______________________________________ *Sad, Brutal, Curious: NTSB Hearings On CO3407 Reveal Cockpit Chatter *Buffalo crash: Pilots acted 'just opposite' of normal practices *El Al to sue state over U.S. flight safety downgrade *Final UPS DC-8 flight lands at Louisville International Airport *Southwest Jet Lands Safely After Tire Blows **************************************** Sad, Brutal, Curious: NTSB Hearings On CO3407 Reveal Cockpit Chatter Crew Had VERY Little Warning Of Accident The hearings conducted by the NTSB, Tuesday, are proving to be as nearly as painful as the accident itself -- to those left behind. The transcript of the cockpit voice recorder aboard Continental Connection Flight 3407, leaves little question that the pilots of the Bombardier Q400 violated anyone's definition of "sterile cockpit" while on approach to Buffalo Niagara International Airport the night of February 12th. In a conversation which continued until less than three minutes before the plane came down on a home in suburban Clarence Center, New York, First Officer Rebecca Shaw and Captain Marvin Renslow chatted about icing, including Shaw's near-complete inexperience with it when hired, and openly discussed shortcomings in both their own experience, and in training offered by the regional airline. Shaw commented that her 1600 hours before joining Colgan were all flown in the Phoenix area, and that she experienced more ice on her first day at the new job than in her previous logged time. About 5 minutes before impact, she commented to Renslow, quote - "I've never seen icing conditions. I've never de-iced. I've never experienced any of that. About 3 minutes before the crash, Renslow commented that after flying in Florida, where the panhandle area of the state was the only place he'd seen ice, he was surprised by how much ice a Saab 340 turboprop could pick up, quote - "...and still keep truckin'...saw it out on the spinner, ice comin' out about that far, my eyes about that big around, I'm going, gosh. I mean, Florida man, barely a little, you know, out of Pensacola." The situation deteriorated rapidly after that, as the plane descended through 2-thousand-300 feet, with little to suggest the pilots knew exactly what was happening. NTSB investigators who examined the cockpit data recorder say one of the pilots responded to the plane's automated stall protection system by overpowering the stick pusher to command a sudden nose-up pitch, stalling the plane. The 3407 crash will put training issues, especially among the regionals, in a harsh light for some time to come. The NTSB has determined that Renslow had no hands-on training with the stick-shaker which alerts Q400 pilots to an imminent stall, or with the automated stick-pusher designed to recover angle-of-attack if the pilot fails to do so. In a recent interview with ANN, John King of The King Schools hypothesized that Renslow may have mistaken the stick shaking for a symptom of a tailplane stall, which would indicate a nose-up command in response. Neither pilot apparently noticed decaying airspeed until it was too late. The New York Times reports that Colgan admitted Monday that when it trains pilots in a flight simulator, the stick shaker and pusher are not part of the syllabus, because the FAA doesn't require it. The airline has insisted throughout the investigation that its training of Renslow and his qualifications met all FAA requirements. It seems likely the NTSB will ask the FAA to add a few more requirements in the coming scrutiny. Renslow's pilot history is also drawing raised eyebrows. The Wall Street Journal reports he failed five "check rides" in a cockpits and simulators. Two of those failures happened after he was hired at Colgan, and the company says it knew about a third which had happened earlier, but that when Renslow applied for the job, he didn't mention two earlier failures during his general aviation career. Colgan says Renslow had been successful in six checkrides since his last "unsatisfactory," but the airline has also recently replaced a number of its senior check airmen. One issue which clearly had little to do with Colgan, but is common across the industry, is pilots choosing to be based in cities far from where they choose to make their homes. In the case of Flight 3407, Renslow lived in Florida, and Shaw in Washington state, but both were based in Newark, New Jersey. While both had plenty of available rest time before the accident flight, they didn't necessarily use it resting. Both had to commute long distances on February 12th. Notably, Shaw took a red-eye Wednesday night to arrive at work Thursday morning in New Jersey. FMI: www.ntsb.gov aero-news.net **************** Buffalo crash: Pilots acted 'just opposite' of normal practices By Alan Levin, USA TODAY WASHINGTON - As the turboprop droned toward Buffalo in darkness, the pilots did the inexplicable. TRANSCRIPT: Pilots joked around before crash The turboprop had gotten too slow for safe flight and a warning system known as a "stick shaker" began vigorously vibrating the control column. Pilots are trained to react to such warnings by speeding up and lowering a plane's nose. But Capt. Marvin Renslow did the opposite, according to a dramatic video animation and thousands of pages of documents released Tuesday by federal crash investigators. Renslow yanked the nose up and slowed the plane even more. The actions by Renslow, 47, and co-pilot Rebecca Shaw, 24, are baffling, according to veteran accident investigators and a senior manager at their airline, Colgan Air. FIND MORE STORIES IN: New York | Seattle | Buffalo | Federal Aviation Administration | Newark | National Transportation Safety Board | University of Southern California | Bombardier | Colgan Air "It's just opposite of what any pilot would do," said Michael Barr, an aviation safety instructor at the University of Southern California's Aviation Safety and Security Program. "I did not see that the crew performed . correctly," said John Erwin Barrett, Colgan's director of flight standards, who testified in the first day of a three-day hearing into safety issues raised by the New York crash. The crash Feb. 12 near Buffalo killed all 49 people aboard the Bombardier Q400 and one man on the ground. The flight from Newark to Buffalo was being operated by Colgan under contract with Continental Connection. The reasons for Renslow's and Shaw's actions may never be known for sure, but the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) data at least begin to shed light on what might have led to their actions. The documents highlight numerous safety issues being examined by investigators. According to NTSB documents: . Both pilots may not have gotten adequate rest before the flight. Shaw had taken an overnight flight from Seattle before reporting to work and told Renslow she was feeling sick. Renslow logged into an airline computer system at 3 a.m. on the morning of the crash. . Renslow had failed four Federal Aviation Administration check flights to determine whether he was qualified to fly. He also failed an airline check. He was able to pass each of the checks after retaking the tests and the airline issued a statement saying his skills were adequate. . Investigators found that most pilots at Colgan had not been trained how to use a second safety device that attempted to save their plane as they went out of control. Known as a "stick pusher," it automatically pushes a plane's nose down to pick up speed when the aircraft gets dangerously slow. When it activated, Renslow overrode it, keeping the nose pointed skyward. . In the minutes before the crash, the pilots engaged in several minutes of conversation that was not relevant to the flight, according to a transcript of their conversation. Such discussions are forbidden while flights are below 10,000 feet under federal law. . 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. The union for the pilots, the Air Line Pilots Association, said it would be wrong to simply blame the pilots without looking at broader issues of training. For example, pilots are trained repeatedly on how to react when their plane gets too slow, as occurred in the Buffalo crash. But the training does not accurately reflect the real-world distractions that occur in actual flight, said Capt. Paul Rice, the union's vice president. "It's not realistic," Rice said. Colgan spokesman Joe Williams defended the airline's training, saying it had been approved by federal aviation regulators. Even though the NTSB records offer clues about why the accident occurred, it will take many months of analysis and additional investigation to determine the cause of the crash, Barr said. "Is it training? Is it stress?" he said. "It could be almost anything." http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-05-12-buffalo-crash-side_N.htm **************** El Al to sue state over U.S. flight safety downgrade El Al is considering suing the government for losses of tens of millions of shekels following the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's decision late last year to downgrade Israel's air safety level from 1 to 2, a ranking shared primarily by developing countries. El Al CEO Haim Romano told members of the Knesset Finance Committee yesterday the downgrade had wide-ranging implications for the airline, such as preventing it from expanding the number of daily flights to the United States, reducing its competitive power against U.S. airlines expanding their own service to Israel, and general harm to El Al's image. Advertisement Romano accused the Transportation Ministry of transferring responsibility for the security failings to other authorities, calling it "unacceptable" that a body charged with supervising air safety would shirk responsibility when faced with shortcomings in that arena. MK Ofer Akunis, chair of the Finance Committee, said in response, "The implications of the FAA's decision are grave, both to consumers and airlines, and lead to higher prices for airline tickets." Akunis also criticized the Transportation Ministry's handling of the downgrade, saying "more decisive action on the part of the ministry would have prevented the reduction of Israel's ranking at the outset." The ministry's director general, Gideon Siterman, said his office was making efforts to return Israel to its previous ranking. "Now there are additional steps that must be taken," he said, "but those depend on other government bodies and legislative action." http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1084836.html *************** Final UPS DC-8 flight lands at Louisville International Airport The final Boeing DC-8 aircraft flight operated by UPS Airlines touched down Tuesday morning at Louisville International Airport. The plane received a water cannon tribute as it rolled down the runway. UPS Airlines, the Louisville-based division of Atlanta-based shipping giant United Parcel Service Inc. (NYSE: UPS), last month made the decision to retire its fleet of 44 DC-8s as part of a cost-cutting initiative. The DC-8 largely has become a model of the past as airlines shift to larger, more efficient aircraft. Of the 556 originally produced, only 97 remain in service following the retirement of UPS's fleet, the company said in a fact sheet. UPS Airlines sought to eliminate excess capacity from its system as demand for air cargo shipping has declined through the global recession. UPS flies into more than 800 airports in 200 countries each day. The company now operates about 220 planes and charters an additional 309 planes, according to a separate UPS fact sheet. UPS once owned 49 DC-8 aircraft, but sold five over the years. The first UPS Airlines DC-8 flight, from Louisville to Milwaukee, occurred on Feb. 1, 1988. The company now will sell the planes, or disassemble them for spare parts and scrap metal. http://www.bizjournals.com/louisville/stories/2009/05/11/daily33.html **************** Southwest Jet Lands Safely After Tire Blows HOUSTON (CBS) ¯ A Southwest Airlines jet landed safely at Hobby Airport in Houston after one of it's tires caught fire. A Southwest Airlines jet landed safely at Hobby Airport in Houston after one of it's tires blew out and caught fire, CBS News reported Tuesday. Flight 519 from New Orleans to Houston was carrying 52 people when it encountered problems with its right-side landing gear, a Southwest Airlines spokesperson said. There had been earlier reports of problems with the landing gear. The pilot declared an emergency, and fire trucks met the plane and managed to extinguish the fire. Passengers could be seen evacuating the jet on emergency slides. No one was reported injured. http://kdka.com/national/southwest.airlines.jet.2.1008173.html *************** Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC