Frontline documentary on the problems with regionals

"Morgans" wrote:


"James Robinson" wrote

In the NTSB presentations at the public hearing, they noted that
Colgan Air presented a video on tailplane icing in their training
courses. The NTSB went on to note that the Dash 8 is not susceptible
to tailplane stalls in icing, nor are any other current Part 121
aircraft.

The thirteenth conclusion in their summary was:

13 - It is unlikely that the captain was deliberately attempting to
perform a tailplane stall recovery.

I seem to recall something about the captain responded to a suspected
tailplane stall by taking the action that was appropriate to the
specific type of aircraft he had _previously_ been flying, from which
he had only recently changed to the type he was flying in the
accident. The pilots were not attentive to their airspeed in the final
moments of the flight, which probably was the largest contributor to
the cause of the accident, as I recall.

Yes, there was much discussion on various forums and blogs about how the
captain had previously flown Saabs, which were subject to tailplane
stalls. The NTSB would have know that, so it is interesting that they
express such a strong conviction that he was not trying to recover from
such a stall. They must have their reasons, but I suppose we will have
to wait for their final report to see what they are.

(I didn't listen to the NTSB hearing, so I don't know if they expanded on
their reasoning during the discussions.)