Challenger Crashe at TEB

"Capt.Doug" wrote in message
...

There was no visible moisture. The sky was crystal clear. The only wing
contamination possible would have been light frost on the bottom of the
wing
where the fuel had cold-soaked after landing- if the plane had made a
quick-turn.

When I walked past my car in the driveway about a half hour before dawn this
morning, the sky was crystal clear with no visible moisture and there was no
frost on my car. When I left for work about a half hour after sunrise, the
sky was crystal clear with no visible moisture but enough frost had formed
on my car during that time that I needed to lightly scrape my windows off
before I left.

Had the same thing happen in SFO once in the lear on a "dawn patrol"
departure. Clear sky, no visible moisture but frost started to form on the
wings and top of the fuselage right about sunrise. When the passengers
arrived we had the line crew use their "garden sprayer" deice setup to
lightly spray the frost off the wings and top of tail and away we went with
no problem.

Not speculating, but an area they will be looking at with the TEB incident.

Thank you for pointing this out. The "visable moisture" requirement is for
in-flight icing, not frost. Temp/Dewpoint at TEB yesterday morning was
M04/M08. Obviously the "collecting surface" was below freezing and the temp
dewpoint spread was narrow enough for the humidity to sublimate and create
frost on the wings.

Jim

"Jim Burns" wrote in message
...
Thank you for pointing this out. The "visable moisture" requirement is
for
in-flight icing, not frost. Temp/Dewpoint at TEB yesterday morning was
M04/M08. Obviously the "collecting surface" was below freezing and the
temp
dewpoint spread was narrow enough for the humidity to sublimate and create
frost on the wings.

Jim

Sounds like we're closing in on an answer, or at the very least reasonably
informed speculation.

Joe Johnson wrote:

"Jim Burns" wrote in message
...
Thank you for pointing this out. The "visable moisture" requirement is
for
in-flight icing, not frost. Temp/Dewpoint at TEB yesterday morning was
M04/M08. Obviously the "collecting surface" was below freezing and the
temp
dewpoint spread was narrow enough for the humidity to sublimate and create
frost on the wings.

Jim

Sounds like we're closing in on an answer, or at the very least reasonably
informed speculation.

Mechanical failure and errors in the cockpit have been ruled out already?
Nothing wrong with speculations, but why limit it to a narrow area?