May 12, 2009
The National Transportation Safety Board is holding hearings this week
into the February 12, 2009 crash of a Continental Airlines turboprop
near Buffalo that killed 50 people. The Dash-8 Bombardier operated by
Continental contractor Colgan Air went down in a snowstorm as it
approached Buffalo's airport.
Though weather, through icing, may have played a role in the crash, the focus of the hearings is on pilot training. Exhibit A is the transcript of the cockpit voice recorder. The testimony is from the now deceased co-pilot, Rebecca Lynn Shaw:
Shaw: I've never seen icing conditions. I've never de-iced. I've never seen any I've never experienced that. I don't want to have to experience that and make those kinds of calls. You know, I'd have freaked out. I'd have, like, seen this much ice and thought, Oh my gosh, we're going to crash.
Shaw's comments were part of a conversation with pilot Capt. Marvin Renslow, who also expressed concern about the build-up of ice on the plane. He later commented that Colgan Air had hired him with only 625 hours of flying time.
The NTSB has not yet determined a cause of the crash and has not placed the blame on weather, even though it was snowing heavily in the area. It has noted that when the stall indicator sounded, Renslow responded by pulling the nose of the plane up, making the stall worse.
Besides this hearing, the board said it will also hold another hearing when the investigation is complete.
The crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407 was the worst U.S. air disaster in seven years. It also followed by mere weeks the miracle on the Hudson, in which US Airway Capt. Chessly Sullenberger and his crew landed their jet in the frigid waters of the Hudson without the loss of a single life.
In post-crash interviews, Sullenberger modestly deflected the hero treatment, attributing the feat to training.
We did what we were trained to do, he said.
