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Thread: Colgan 3407 Down in BUF

  1. #1

    Default Colgan 3407 Down in BUF

    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.

    ______
    Quick rant: Bombardier is pronouced bum-bar-dee-a, not bom-ba-deer, the newscasters sound like idiots when they say it.
    ______

    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!
    Last edited by Pilot; 02-13-2009 at 04:06 AM.
    To fly west, my friend, is a flight we all must take for a final check.

  2. Default

    CNN is also saying that icing on the leading edge might be to blame. I would think that a civilian transport aircraft would have de-icers on it. Also, why would a regional turbo-prop be carrying so much fuel that it burned for so long?
    A NEW HIGH SCORE! What does "high score" mean? New high score, is that bad? What does that mean? Did I break it?

  3. Default

    You would think there would have been a transmission like, were going down...



  4. Default

    Another plane just crashed in London everyone appears ok.



  5. #5

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Hodgie View Post
    CNN is also saying that icing on the leading edge might be to blame. I would think that a civilian transport aircraft would have de-icers on it. Also, why would a regional turbo-prop be carrying so much fuel that it burned for so long?

    I take everything I see on TV that's aviation-related with a grain of salt. Newscasters tend to speak like they know what they're talking about.

    Most airliners (I'd say ALL but I'm not 100% certain) are approved for flight into "known icing conditions." That just means that if there's icing at your altitude and along your route of flight, you can fly through it. These aircraft DO have the appropriate anti-ice and de-ice equipment. This aircraft is fitted with de-icing boots on the leading edges of the wings. These boots inflate to break the ice off the leading edge. There was a rumor that if used too frequently, these boots would actually just flex the ice, creating a gap of air in between the leading edge and the actual ice, rendering the boot useless. This myth has since been debunked.

    In normal flight, the boots on this aircraft (I believe, don't quote me) cycle once every three minutes. When on the approach, like this aircraft was, I think they cycle every minute.

    Ice shouldn't have been a factor, as other aircraft were reporting the icing to dissipate at Colgan 3407's altitude.

    The tail is a different story, thought. I'm not sure if there is any anti-/de-ice equipment on the tail. Had the tail been iced up and "stalled" (loss of lift, or in the tail's case, downforce) the airplane would have pitched down uncontrollably. It's very hard to recover from this type of stall, but it can be done with enough altitude. However, this airplane only had about 1,500 feet to recover... not nearly enough altitude. This would have caused the plane to enter a very steep dive, which coincides with the end result.

    The crash happened over a key point in the approach, a point where the pilots configure the plane for landing. Something they did somehow upset the plane. Whatever it was, it didn't leave them enough time to fix it or to send out a mayday call. I imagine about 15-20 seconds between the time when something went wrong and the time they impacted the ground.


    As far as the fuel goes... This airplane, as all are when operated under these conditions, are required to have "IFR Fuel Reserves." Generally, for the airlines, that means that the aircraft must be able to fly to the intended destination, then to the alternate airport, then for 45 minutes beyond that. That could very well be 2 hours or more worth of fuel. Thie plane burns about 2,400 pounds of fuel per hour. Two hours worth of fuel would be just under 730 gallons. That's a decent amount of fuel confined to a small area. Plus, jet fuel is fairl oily. Don't forget about the actual house and airplane structures themselves burning.



    I always seem to type more than I intend to...
    To fly west, my friend, is a flight we all must take for a final check.

  6. #6

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by ZERO View Post
    You would think there would have been a transmission like, were going down...
    I don't even think they had enough time to fully understand the problem. Maybe 20 seconds, judging by their altitude and eye-witness accounts. They say the aircraft was nearly vertical on it's way down... that's a very fast descent. I think even 20 seconds is more than they had.

    It's unfortunate, things can take a turn for the worst very quickly.
    To fly west, my friend, is a flight we all must take for a final check.

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