Evidence laid out by safety investigators pins the cause of
an airline crash into a house in update New York last year on
errors by the pilots, but officials said the root problems
extend far beyond a single event.
National Transportation Safety Board chairwoman Deborah
Hersman said the accident casts doubt on whether regional
airlines are held to the same level of safety as are major
airlines, and she promised the board will pursue the issue.
She also criticized the Federal Aviation Administration for
taking too long to address safety problems raised by the
investigation, saying the same issues have turned up before.
"Today is Groundhog Day, and I feel like we are in that
movie," Hersman said, referring to the 1993 Bill Murray movie
about a Pittsburgh weatherman who repeatedly lives through
the same day.
"We have made recommendations time after time after time.
They haven't been heeded by the FAA."
FAA officials did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.
Hersman praised FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt for
initiating regulation changes in response to the crash on
February 12, 2009, when a plane dove into a house, killiing
all 49 people aboard and one man in the house.
But Hersman said Babbitt has been unable so far to push
reforms "across the finish line" and that congressional
action may be needed.
Continental Connection Flight 3407, operated for Continental
Airlines by regional air carrier Colgan Air Inc., was
approaching Buffalo-Niagara International Airport when the
twin-engine turboprop experienced an aerodynamic stall and
went into a dive.
Investigators said Captain Marvin Renslow should have been
able to recover from the stall but that he did the opposite
of what he should have done. In the final seconds of the
flight, two pieces of safety equipment activated - a stick
shaker to alert the crew their plane was nearing a stall and
a stick pusher that points a plane's nose down so it can
recover speed, investigators said.
The correct response to both situations would have been to
push forward on the control column to increase speed, they
said. But Renslow pulled back on the stick shaker,
investigators said.
When the plane stalled and the pusher activated, Renslow
again pulled back three times.
"It wasn't a split-second thing," NTSB safety investigator
Roger Cox said. "I think there was time to evaluate the
situation and initiate a recovery, but I can't give you a
number of seconds."
Seventy-five percent of pilots who had experienced the
stick-pusher activation in training also responded by pulling
back instead of pushing forward, even though they knew ahead
of time to expect a stall, investigators said.
The first officer, Rebecca Shaw, 24, should have stepped in
to push the plane's nose down herself when Renslow responded
improperly, but she may not have because she was a relatively
inexperienced pilot, investigators said.
Shaw had earned less than $US16,000 ($NZ22,474) the previous
year, which may have been why she lived with her parents near
Seattle and commuted across the country overnight to Newark,
New Jersey, to make Flight 3407.
She felt sick but did not want to pull out of the trip
because she had already traveled so far, according to a
cockpit voice recorder transcript. It's not clear how much
sleep either pilot received the night before the flight, but
investigators said both pilots likely were suffering from
fatigue. Shaw also e
rred at the beginning of the flight by programming an
ordinary airspeed into the plane's computer, rather than the
higher airspeed needed for freezing weather, investigators
said. The plane did not accumulate enough ice on the wings to
stall, but the mix-up on speeds caused the stick shaker to
warn of a stall even though one wasn't actually imminent.
Renslow's pull-back response, however, created a stall.
Shaw also violated FAA guidance by sending a text message
about five minutes before takeoff from Newark's Liberty
International Airport, and both pilots violated rules against
nonessential conversation during flight below 10,000 feet
(3050m).
Colgan's pilot training program was also criticised for not
giving Renslow remedial attention despite his failures on
several tests of piloting skill.
The airline also might have confused pilots by including
training information on types of stalls that do not occur in
the kinds of planes they flew, investigators said.
Colgan said in a statement that the pilots were properly
trained in how to recover from a stall.
"We have taken a number of important and specific steps to
further enhance all of our training and hiring programs," the
statement said.
Since the accident, Babbitt has persuaded regional airlines
to make a series of voluntary safety improvements. FAA has
also increased inspections of its pilot training programs.
But the agency is still drafting regulations to address the
most critical safety issues raised by the accident. Final
action is months or perhaps years away.
