Colgan 3407 Down in BUF

[Pilot]

I don't know if you guys really post significant current events on the board (I haven't been here long enough to see), but if it's inappropriate feel free to delete it. It's important to me, at least, because I lost some fellow pilots late last night.


It's on CNN now.

Bad news... A Bombardier Q400 operated by Colgan in Continental Connection livery crashed in Buffalo, NY late last night, about 10:20pm. I caught wind of this about two and a half hours ago, but I've spent most of the time on the phone and on some aviation message boards. I know that the weather up there was not great, but it wasn't AWFUL.

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Quick rant: Bombardier is pronouced bum-bar-dee-a, not bom-ba-deer, the newscasters sound like idiots when they say it.
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Reports now are saying 48 on board, no survivors, plus one fatality on the ground . It crashed in a residential neighborhood. I read that the eye-witnesses say that the airplane was on fire before hitting the ground, so who knows. The CNN images are horrific, the tail of the airplane is sticking out the side of the house. 3 1/2 hours after impact, it was still on fire. "Massive fire" according to the ticker on CNN.

The media is going to portray the victims as numbers. "48 casualties, 48 were killed," etc. These are 48 PEOPLE that perished. Grandparents, Fathers, Mothers, Daughters, Brothers, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins... It's a horrible tragedy, but they media never seems to step up to the plate to acknowledge that...

One of the pilots (I believe the First Officer) was female... a little harrowing because I know two girls who fly for Colgan, and they're actually sisters... twins, as a matter of fact. They used to fly a different airframe, the Saab 340, and I'm hoping they haven't switched.

LiveATC.net has a feed of the radio transmissions with Buffalo Approach and Buffalo Tower.

http://archive-server.liveatc.net/kb...2009-0300Z.mp3 You'll be able to listen to that right in IE or FireFox, but I won't be surprised if they pull the tapes off the internet. If so, I'm hosting it for a little while, but you'll have to download it to listen. http://my.fit.edu/~nmitrani/KBUF-Feb-13-2009-0300Z.mp3 (Right-click, save as. Just clicking it won't work.)

The brunt of it is about halfway. It's a lot of radio to sit through, but for those interested, I'll break it down.

12:42, transmission by Colgan. Sounds like a normal transmission, it doesn't sound like she's stressed or worried.

15:08-15:23, Colgan received and reads back their approach clearance. Something sounds a little "off" in her voice this time. Other people are saying that she sounded fine, but it sounds weird to me. Maybe it is just me.

16:07 is the last transmission by Colgan 3407.

Around 17:00 ATC realizes something's wrong and tries raising 3407 over and over, and asking other aircraft to look around for the aircraft.

20:27, Tower realizes something is VERY wrong, looking for ground communication with someone on the ground in the aircraft's last know position.

21:47, they start using the word "emergency."
23:57, ATC notifies all aircraft of the accident.
28:11, another aircraft asks if ATC found Colgan, and ATC has to give the bad news again.
29:17, Cactus 1452 passes over the site, notifies Tower "we saw the ground, you guy's know what's going on?"

Arrivals continued into Buffalo after only a short delay. Must be a eerie / creepy feeling, flying the approach and flying over the crash site and burning wreckage... that's something I never hope to experience...

This proves once again that you can't take anything for granted. It's a wake up call. Not everything can end happily like the Airbus in the Hudson.

I hate plane crashes. It makes me sick just thinking about it.


I stole this from a thread in another board:

"Here one day, gone the next. Do NOT wait to tell someone you are sorry or that you love them"


Fly safe, drive safe, play safe... whatever it is that you do, be safe!