1) Nolan Law Group: Q400 Turboprops Operated by Colgan Air Need to Be Grounded

CHICAGO, Feb. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Colgan Air Dash 8-Q400 airplanes like the one that crashed from in-flight icing need to be barred from operating on routes where icing is possible.
 
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) cannot assure the public that the airplane has been thoroughly tested before approval for airline service, that Colgan Air has the training procedures in place to assure that crews can safely fly in icing conditions, or that a crew of average ability (the FAA standard) can handle meteorological conditions of less-than-severe icing.
 
Until answers about the cause of the 12 February 2009 crash can be definitively provided by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTS, prudence would dictate not flying these aircraft in icing conditions.
 
"The FAA cannot tell us that this aircraft is safe," said Don Nolan, who has successfully represented many clients injured, killed or widowed by icing related mishaps. "The crash of Continental Connection flight 3407 (operated by Colgan Air) is yet another where the air carrier, the industry, and the FAA resort to comforting blandishments about safety and subsequent revelations reveal deep concerns."
 
The concerns about this latest icing crash are many:
-- One factor common to all turboprop icing events is sudden wing drop. The uneven build-up of ice on areas of the wing unprotected by de-ice boots may be a factor. Contributing to the danger may be the differential activation of the de-ice boots. Further, the propwash from two engines rotating in the same direction can cause ice to accrete unevenly.
 
-- All of which adds up to an airplane vulnerable to stall prior to reaching published stall speeds or the speed at which lift-producing airflow over the wings is disrupted.
 
-- Further, the control yoke is equipped with a stick shaker to warn the flight crew of approach to stall. This critical safety feature likely did not activate in a timely manner in the Colgan Air crash. If the stick shaker did not activate soon enough to give the crew an opportunity to prevent a stall, the warning was therefore untimely and represents a design defect.
 
-- The crew's correct reaction to stick pusher activation is critical. Reportedly, stick pusher training was not provided to Colgan Air pilots. If this is so, the crews are not adequately trained to handle imminent stalls in icing conditions. Aircraft and crew deficiencies may combine with fatal effect.
 
-- Colgan Air is a new operator of the Dash 8-Q400, which means this is the first winter operating this model for most of the Colgan crews. The amount and type of simulator training and periodic updates on operations in icing conditions is unknown. Other global investigative bodies investigating icing- related mishaps have documented shortcomings in crew training and awareness. Until the NTSB investigation is complete, Colgan crews ought not be permitted to operate this aircraft in icing conditions.
 
-- Most icing-related crashes occur within the conditions prescribed by the FAA for aircraft certification. This being the case, aircraft are regularly dispatched to fly in conditions of less-than-severe icing where they are vulnerable to crashing. For example, the 2005 icing related crash of a Cessna Citation V business jet on approach toPueblo, Colo., was not in severe icing.
 
-- For purposes of insuring the safety of the flying public, and until proven otherwise, we need to assume, as is likely the case, that the conditions on 12 February were not "severe" icing. Since airplanes have crashed in icing less than severe, an immediate precautionary halt to operations by Colgan Air of Dash 8-Q400s airplanes in icing conditions is necessary to forestall further tragedy.
 
Jim Hall, an attorney with Nolan Law Group and former Chairman of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board added, "The FAA cannot demonstrate the Dash 8-Q400 can be safely operated by Colgan Air within the airplane's certification requirements. For the safety of the flying public, the Q400 turboprops operated by Colgan Air should be barred from operating in icing conditions. Declaring an operation to be safe, in the absence of conclusive proof, is not sufficient."
 
Nolan Law Group has represented dozens of victims of icing-related crashes in recent years and has pre-eminent experience in the hazards associated with inadequate aircraft design and substandard crew training and awareness of ice- contaminated airplanes.

Website: http://www.nolan-law.com/

2) Two carriers stopped flights of prop planes in cold weather

Sat. February 21, 2009; Posted: 05:12 PM

WASHINGTON, Feb 21, 2009 (The Buffalo News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --

Two airlines stopped flying turboprop planes in icy climates after deadly crashes similar to the one that claimed 50 lives Thursday in Clarence -- and the nation's former top transportation safety official said the lessons of such earlier crashes should have prevented last week's tragedy.

Both American Eagle and Comair ended their cold-weather use of turboprop planes at least partly out of safety concerns. But Colgan Air, the subcontractor that runs Continental Airlines commuter flights like the one that crashed in Clarence, still flies turboprops in February from Newark to Buffalo.
 
Aviation experts said it is far too soon to blame the Clarence crash on icing, but the National Transportation Safety Board noted that the plane's crew reported significant ice buildup on the plane's wings.
 
Aviation experts said icing can cause a plane to suddenly lose control -- which is why Jim Hall, the safety board's former chairman, said federal regulators should do much more to make sure icing won't bring down more planes.
 
"What made this crash more than tragic was that it was foreseeable and likely preventable if not for the preference of profit over safety in some of the aviation industry and for the lax oversight of the Federal Aviation Administration in its failure to adequately address known safety risks related to icing," Hall said.
 
Neither Pinnacle Airlines, which owns Colgan Air, or Bombardier, the Canadian firm that built the Dash 8 Q400 plane that crashed in Clarence, returned requests for comment for this story.
 
But Laura Brown, an FAA spokesman, took issue with Hall's comments, saying the FAA has been pushing for improvements to prevent icing accidents for years now.
 
"And as a result, accidents involving icing have been reduced significantly in the last 15 years," Brown said.
 
'Caribbean fleet'
 
Then again, they could have been reduced in part because two of the nation's largest commuter airlines, American Eagle and Comair, stopped flying turboprop planes in cold weather.
 
After an American Eagle turboprop went down in icy conditions in Indiana in 1994, the airline "really made [turboprops] their Caribbean fleet," said Jim Kreindler, an attorney who represented the families of victims of that Indiana crash, which claimed 68 lives.
 
American Eagle officials could not be reached to comment, but the National Transportation Safety Board's report on that accident says the plane, en route from Indianapolis to Chicago, lost control because of ice accumulation. The ATR 72-210 turboprop was not equipped to handle icing and plummeted to the ground in Roselawn, Ind.
 
"The airplane was susceptible to this loss of control, and the crew was unable to recover," the board's report concluded.
As for Comair, that airline abandoned turboprops entirely after a Jan. 9, 1997, flight from Cincinnati to Detroit nose-dived 18 miles short of the runway, killing all 29 people aboard.
 
Comair eliminated turboprops from its fleet in the late 1990s because regional commuter jets are simply better aircraft, said Jeff Puth, a company spokesman.
 
"I'm sure there was a safety element to it," Puth added.
 
After the Comair crash, the safety board issued a devastating report that echoed Hall's comments holding the FAA responsible for the Clarence crash.
 
"The probable cause of this accident was the Federal Aviation Administration's failure to establish adequate aircraft certification standards for flight in icing conditions," said the report, which also blamed the FAA for failing to enforce proper deicing procedures and failing to require the establishment of adequate minimum airspeeds in icy weather.
 
Hall was chairman of the safety board at the time of both the Indiana and Michigan crashes, but he is by no means alone in warning of the dangers of icing, particularly for turboprop planes.
 
"Even a small amount of ice buildup can significantly decrease the lift force and increase the drag of an aircraft," said Puneet Singla, Ph. D., assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University at Buffalo.
 
And the wings of turboprop planes are far more likely to encounter icing problems than jets are, for two reasons.
 
Turboprops fly at a slower speed, making it easier for ice to accumulate, said Kreindler, the lawyer in the lawsuit that followed the Indiana crash.
In addition, "turboprops spend a much larger percentage of time in those altitudes where icing is likely to occur," said William R. Voss, a former FAA official who now serves as president of the Flight Safety Foundation.
 
Hall said he is particularly concerned about turboprop planes that are equipped with pneumatic deicing boots, which he, in an op-ed submitted to The Buffalo News, called "a technology invented in the 1930s which has not changed much since."
 
The heated wing technology that jets use is much more effective in controlling ice, said Hall, who faulted the FAA for consistently ignoring the safety board's recommendations for tighter icing controls on turboprop planes.
 
"The FAA should ground all aircraft of this type until the NTSB investigation is completed and it is clear they can be operated safely," said Hall, who headed the safety board from 1994 through 2001.
 
But Brown, of the FAA, said: "I don't think we have any information that would cause us to ground the aircraft."
 
Reforms slow
 
While Hall contended that the new model of the plane that crashed in Buffalo was not adequatedly tested before it was approved for use, Brown said that model included a modernized deicing system to meet an upcoming upgrade in the FAA's standards.
 
Despite Brown's contention that the aviation agency has toughened its standards on icing, the safety board says the FAA has ignored the safety board's call for greater icing regulation for 12 years now. And neither Hall nor Steven Chealander, the safety board member who is currently in Buffalo to investigate Thursday's crash, are pleased about it.
 
"The serious safety risks posed by icing conditions must be addressed for more than just the short term," Hall said. "I hope that this accident will finally cause the FAA and the commercial aviation industry to take these risks seriously so that a tragedy such as this will not happen again."
Meanwhile, at a news conference in Buffalo, Chealander held up a pamphlet that read: "NTSB Most Wanted List Transportation Safety Improvements," which includes several recommendations regarding icing.
 
"They're recommendations that we feel are being moved too slowly, or for other reasons, we feel needed added emphasis," Chealander said.
For example, the safety board wants to require that airplanes with pneumatic deicing boots activate the devices earlier.
 
"The process has been to activate the boost system once you recognize that there's ice formed on the wings. We recommend that you maybe turn it on sooner than that," Chealander said.
 
At the same time, Chealander stopped far short of Hall's comments, and far short of criticizing the turboprop plane that crashed in Clarence.
"This Dash 8 is a workhorse airplane," he said, stressing that investigators have not yet identified icing as the cause of the Buffalo crash. "It's not real susceptible to ice. It flies in ice all the time. I've talked to some Continental pilots today who fly it. That's not a concern."
 
Asked about the fact that two airlines have already stopped flying propeller planes in the Northeast due to icing conditions, Chealander wouldn't comment. "I don't want to get into that, because then you're going to come up with speculation and analyze [this accident]," he said.
News Staff Reporter Brian Meyer contributed to this report. jzremski@buffnews.com . 
 
3)
Updated: 02/21/09 07:29 AM

THE TRAGEDY OF FLIGHT 3407
Turboprop's safety record scrutinized in wake of fatal crash
Landing gear glitches,other incidents sparkworldwide concern
By Charity Vogel

News Staff Reporter

While the turboprop plane that crashed in Clarence last week has a relatively good safety record in the United States, the plane has a history of mechanical problems that have caused concern around the world.
 
Until the Clarence crash, nobody had been killed while on board a Q400.But there have been some close calls, many involving the plane’s landing gear.
 
In Japan, officials demanded safety improvements to the aircraft after an incident in March 2007 in which a Q400 made an emergency landing in Kochi after its nose landing gear failed to descend. The plane skidded down a runway on its belly, sending off showers of sparks. All 60 passengers got off safely.
 
In Europe, Scandinavian Airlines grounded its fleet of Q400s in 2007 after emergencies related to landing gear on three different planes within 45 days in Lithuania and Denmark. In one case, the plane’s landing gear crumpled.
 
From Scotland to Portland, Ore., and from Pittsburgh to Australia, problems with the Q400 have ranged from icing to instrument failure to an explosion of a tail compartment prior to takeoff, in addition to the landing gear issues.
 
Now, in the wake of the Clarence crash that killed 50 people, officials at the National Transportation Safety Board said this record of incidents will factor into their investigations into what caused Continental Connections Flight 3407 to plummet to the ground last week.
 
So far, investigators have discussed icing on the plane’s wings, as well as possible pilot error, as reasons for the crash.
The landing gear of the plane is also under scrutiny, safety board officials confirmed.
 
“That weighs in as part of the investigation,” said NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway. “We are looking at all aspects of the aircraft. We are looking at maintenance, mechanical issues, aircraft structure, the airframe.”
 
In particular, he said, investigators will be looking for “stresses on the metal, any indication of failure in the metal.”
 
At Bombardier, the Montreal- based company that makes the Q400, executives continued to defend the aircraft, which is viewed in much of the aviation community as a “workhorse” model able to fly and land in all sorts of conditions.
 
Today, 219 of the Q400s are flying around the world, about one-fourth in the United States, said Bombardier spokesman John Arnone.
The model debuted in 2000 and has logged 1 million flying hours and 1.5 million takeoff and landing cycles, “virtually incident- free,” Arnone said.
 
“The Q400 has an exemplary safety and support record,” he said.
 
Some experts agree. “These are mechanical [occurrences]. These things do happen,” said Fred Mirgle, chairman of the aviation maintenance science department at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. “They do not affect the overall safety of the plane.”
 
Other experts said the plane’s mechanical history is cause for concern, especially in light of the Clarence crash.
“[Investigators] will look very carefully at what happened with the loss of control of the airplane. And the landing gear descending is one of the things that happened right before the loss of control,” said John Hansman, director of the International Center for Air Transportation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
 
“If there was a problem with the landing gear that somehow impacted the aircraft’s handling qualities, that could be a problem,” Hansman said.
The Buffalo News analyzed incident reports for the Bombardier Q400 aircraft dating to the plane’s introduction in 2000. The reports were gathered from authorities in Canada, which collects information on Q400s from around the world because the plane is made in the country. The News also reviewed reports from the Japanese government.
 
U. S. records filed with the Federal Aviation Administration showed that the Q400 plane involved in the Feb. 12 crash had no prior accidents or serious incidents.
 
Throughout the United States, there were 11 reports filed with the FAA about other Q400 planes. Worldwide, there were 80 such reports.
 
The News review found:
• Twenty-two percent of the occurrences — more than one in five — with Q400 planes involved landing gear malfunctions or failures. In some cases, the problems were severe enough to warrant emergency landings and complaints from governments and airlines about the planes. In other cases, the problems were less severe, and involved problems with lights or hydraulic systems.
 
• Two of the reports involved icing on planes. In Edinburgh, Scotland, a plane taking off in December 2006 had icing problems and some failure in its instruments; the plane landed safely. In March 2008, a plane in Canada experienced vibrations on both propellers, believed to be due to icing.
 
• Eight reports centered around engine problems. In a few of those cases, the plane’s engines lost power or shut down during flight.
 
• A few of the incidents remain under investigation. In Portland, a pilot preparing for takeoff in March 2007 reported an explosion coming from a compartment at the tail of the plane. The 74 passengers were unhurt.
 
Other reports detailed incidents involving bird strikes and mechanical problems with other parts of the plane.
At Bombardier, executives said that problems with the landing gear were fixed after the string of incidents with Q400s in 2007 — one in Japan, and three in Northern Europe.
 
“The company shortly after the first incident [in 2007] initiated a regimen for all operators to inspect the aircraft,” said Arnone. “The provision was for an inspection, and then, if necessary, a replacement and repair.”
 
All new Q400s are made with safer landing gear, the company said. The plane, which sells for $26 million, is assembled at Bombardier’s Toronto plant from parts manufactured all over the world, including China, Mexico, Ireland and England.
 
The Q400 plane that crashed in Clarence was built in 2008, according to FAA records. However, The News review of the accident and incident data reports from around the world showed that 11 reports about landing gear problems were made in 2008 and 2009, after the problems were presumably fixed.
 
In Japan, scrutiny of the Q400s continues after problems with the planes were reported, including a 2005 incident where white smoke filled the aircraft, forcing an emergency landing, and a 2004 incident where a plane slid off a runway.
 
In the 2007 Kochi incident, the plane’s nose landing gear failed to deploy because the door did not open, according to a 2008 report by Japan’s Aircraft and Railway Accidents Investigation Commission. Investigators blamed a missing bolt.
 
But a Japanese reporter who has been part of an investigative team at the Kochi Shimbun newspaper said that public reaction to the accident was intense — and heightened, after the crash of Flight 3407 in Buffalo.
 
“People’s impression was very emotional,” said Kazuhiro Ike, who flew to Buffalo to cover the crash. “They think very seriously about the Q400s safety problems. They think, are we guinea pigs?”
 
Mirgle, at Embry-Riddle, said that landing gears on planes take a beating — “landing gear catches hell,” he said— and that might explain the number of occurrences with the Q400.
 
If the crash in Clarence hadn’t happened, he added, the landing gear on this model plane would probably never come under scrutiny.
“There are a number of landing gear problems with all airplanes,” Mirgle said. “We just don’t know about them.”

cvogel@buffnews.com
 
4)

February 22, 2009

Safety of small planes under scrutiny

Aviation expert: Experience levels may differ, but all routes safe

By Dan McLean, Free Press Staff Writer
SOUTH BURLINGTON — The painted name and logo on the fuselage doesn’t match the companies that own and operate the majority of planes flying out of BurlingtonInternational Airport.

About 59 percent of people flying from Burlington last month boarded one of 12 contracted, regional air carriers that fly on behalf of five major brands: Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines, United Airlines and US Airways. Historically, pilots for the contract carriers have less experience than the national carriers, an aviation expert said, emphasizing that it doesn’t compromise safety.
“They are not less safe. They are less experienced — and there is a difference,” said Michael Boyd of Boyd Group International Inc., an aviation consulting firm in Evergreen, Colo.

Contracting airline companies have come under increased scrutiny since the deadly Newark, N.J.-to-Buffalo, N.Y., commuter-flight crash earlier this month. In Burlington, only AirTran Airways and JetBlue Airways fly all their own routes, airport officials said. AirTran flies 117-passenger Boeing 717s, and JetBlue flies 150-passenger Airbus 320s from Burlington, said Bob McEwing, the airport’s director of planning and development.

United flies Airbus 319s on its Burlington-to-Chicago route, but that will change in late March, when the airline will replace the larger jets with smaller, contracted regional jets.

Larger planes — AirBuses and Boeings — typically have more experienced crews, McEwing said.

“The regionals are really a stepping stone to the major carriers,” said Tad Hutcheson, AirTran’s vice president of marketing and sales. However, he said, some very experienced pilots have spent their careers flying for the contract carriers. AirTran has hired many seasoned pilots who used to work for Eastern, TWA and Delta, he noted.

“All airlines have to meet FAA requirements or they wouldn’t be flying,” Hutcheson said, referring to Federal Aviation Administration rules.

“They are not always stepping stones,” Boyd said of the contract airlines. “This is not the junior varsity team. It’s not like you are dealing with some shiny-faced kid who doesn’t know where the ignition switch is.”

The major airlines have cut back on hiring, Boyd said, bolstering the number of experienced pilots at the contract airlines.

A closer look

The flight that landed on a house Feb. 12 in Clarence, N.Y., and killed all 49 people on board and a man in the home, was flown by Colgan Air, a unit of Pinnacle Airlines and contracted with Continental. The cause of the crash has not been determined.

The crash closely follows the much-heralded emergency Hudson River landing by veteran US Airways pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, whose jet was disabled when geese struck both engines.

The captain of Colgan’s Buffalo-bound flight, Marvin Renslow, 47, is believed to have been handling the duties of the pilot aboard the Dash 8 Q400 plane. He had 3,379 hours of flying experience but had flown the Dash 8 only since December, according to the Associated Press.

A Colgan-operated Dash 8 Q400 also flies from Burlington to Newark. Passengers should not be concerned, airport director Brian Searles said. The Dash 8 Q400 is a propeller plane, known as a “turboprop,” and is a “terrific aircraft. It’s a workhorse,” Searles said.

Colgan requires “double the amount of flight training time prior to operating this type of aircraft than is required by FAA regulations,” according to a statement on the company’s Web site. Continental spokeswoman Julie King said, “Prior to entering into an agreement with a carrier, we do our due diligence to ensure they are in full compliance with all government and safety regulations.” Continental flies a fleet of Boeings on routes that are not contracted, she said.

The only other turboprops flying to Burlington are on US Airways’ service to New York City, Searles said. US Airways contracts with Piedmont Airlines to run that route with 37-passenger Dash 8s.

Twelve turboprops take off from Burlington International each day, Searles said. The airport director said he would prefer to have “100 percent” jet-powered airplanes — but that’s not because of safety concerns. “Turboprops have a terrific safety record,” and they use 40 percent less fuel than a 50-passenger regional jet, he said. But they are slower, and passengers tend to prefer flying aboard a jet, he said.

Elizabeth Halpern, 41, was preparing to fly from Burlington to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on JetBlue on Friday morning. “I like the larger planes,” she said. She doesn’t mind the smaller, regional jets — but has been drawn to JetBlue’s marketing campaign. “It feels newer, connected to the consumer.”

“When you decide to fly somewhere you are taking a leap of faith,” she said, adding. To her it’s “a non-issue” which company actually owns the plane.

Searles offers an assurance to passengers: “You are going to have a qualified crew no matter what. ... People don’t have to worry about their relative safety on any particular aircraft. These folks are in training constantly.”

There is no safety difference, for example, between GoJet Airlines, which is one of United’s three contractors at Burlington’s airport, and JetBlue, which flies their own AirBuses, Searles said.

Changing model

The contracted airlines that serve Burlington change frequently, “sometimes without our knowledge,” Searles said. “They get interchanged all the time.”

The number of airlines contracting for the national carriers has increased substantially over the last 10 or 15 years, he said.

The change in the business model, the airport director said, was brought about by the competition from the discount airlines. “Contract airlines have lower costs. And that is really the story,” he said.

Some of the changes are related to the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Searles said. “With the dip in traffic post-9/11, there was a lot of reorganization,” he said.

The increasing number of contracting airlines has increased the service for passengers by providing more frequent service to more destinations, Searles and McEwing said.

United’s decision to replace the Airbus in March is a bit of disappointment to McEwing. “I’d rather have a mix. And I like the Airbuses flying from here to Chicago. They are comfortable,” he said, adding, “I’d never say one aircraft is safer than another.”

Contact Dan McLean at 651-4877 or dmclean@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com. To get Free Press headlines delivered free to your e-mail, sign up atwww.burlingtonfreepress.com/newsletters.

Additional Facts

FLYING FROM BTV

The airlines that serve Burlington International Airport; the contractors change frequently:
AirTran: none
JetBlue: none
United: GoJet, Mesa Air Group, Trans States Airlines (in late March United will be completely run by contractors in Burlington)
US Airways: Air Wisconsin, Chautauqua Airways, Piedmont Airlines, Republic Airways
Delta: Atlantic Southeast, Comair (Comair will be replaced in March by Freedom Air)
Continental: Colgan Air, Express Jet
Northwest: Pinnacle Airlines
Source: Burlington International Airport
 
5) 

Updated: 02/22/09 08:38 AM

Flight experts angered by icing rules in wake of Flight 3407 crash
FAA faulted for takingtoo long to act on issue
By Jerry Zremski and Robert J. McCarthy

 NEWS STAFF REPORTERS

 WASHINGTON — A gap in federal regulations allows turboprop planes to be flown without ever being certified as safe in the most dangerous icy conditions — a fact that has enraged flight safety experts for more than a decade and that’s drawing new attention in light of the crash of Flight 3407.
 
While federal officials say icing is just one of many factors they are examining in the wake of the crash, which killed 50 people the night of Feb. 12, some pilots and other aviation experts are convinced icing played a role.
 
More than a few are angry about what they see as the Federal Aviation Administration’s industry-influenced inattention to a grave danger for turboprop planes like the one that crashed in Clarence: “Supercooled large droplet icing,” or freezing rain that sticks to the plane.
 
After a similar accident in Roselawn, Ind., in 1994, “we stood tall and said this should never have happened and should never happen again,” said Stephen A. Frederick, a retired pilot who wrote “Unheeded Warning,” a book about that crash. “We committed our lives to make changes. Now, 50 more have committed their lives.”
 
The National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation of the Clarence crash, expected to last at least a year, will determine whether freezing rain had anything to do with the downing of Flight 3407.
 
But the flight crew reported icy conditions — and that has prompted aviation experts to note that the safety board has been pushing for new rules for flying in freezing rain for 12 years.
 
For much of that time, the FAA left the issue in the hands of a 55-member committee culled largely from the aviation industry. That panel began issuing recommendations three years ago, and the FAA has been studying them ever since.
 
The FAA defends its rule-making process as painstakingly slow out of necessity, but Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N. Y., and other critics don’t buy it.
 
“It’s very troubling that the agency in charge of safety repeatedly makes recommendations and they are not accepted,” said Schumer, who added that it is “no secret that the FAA at the top was not well-run.”
 
New rules needed
It’s also no secret that the safety board has listed new rules on flying in freezing rain one of its “most wanted safety improvements” since 1997.
“Before another accident or serious incident occurs, the FAA should evaluate all existing turbo propeller-driven airplanes in service using the new information available” about the dangers of freezing rain, the safety board says in the most recent edition of its most-wanted safety recommendations.
 
The FAA should use current research on freezing rain and large water droplets to revise the way aircraft are designed and approved for flight in icing conditions, the safety board says. In addition, those new standards should be applied to aircraft that are already certified for flight, said the safety board, which labels the FAA’s response to its recommendations “unacceptable.”
 
In wake of those 1997 recommendations, the FAA turned the issue over to an “Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee.”
The 55-member panel includes about 35 entities from the aviation industry — such as Boeing, Airbus and the Regional Airline Alliance — along with a collection of unions and the National Air Disaster Alliance Foundation, which works to raise safety standards and support the families of crash victims.
 
Asked why the panel was weighted toward industry, Laura Brown, an FAA spokeswoman, said: “It’s generally because people who have expertise in these areas come from industry.”
 
But aviation experts wonder if the rule-making delay is connected to the industry’s influence—and its concerns about the expense of retrofitting planes to make sure planes can fly safely in freezing rain.
 
“I suspect that relates to what it really costs to do this,” said Joseph L. Schofer, associate dean of the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.
 
Others worry, however, that the cost of not bolstering icing regulations is especially high — in human lives.
 
Families of the 68 victims of the Roselawn crash, which involved a turboprop flying in icy conditions, have compiled a list of a dozen similar accidents worldwide since the mid-1990s. And Jerry Skinner of the Nolan Law Group in Chicago said one Cessna turboprop model has experienced at least 26 accidents in icing conditions.
 
The safety board’s concern, and that of experts like Skinner, is that the pneumatic de-icing boots commonly used on turboprop planes just aren’t up to the job of removing the huge amounts of ice that can cling to a plane flying through freezing rain.
 
While pneumatic de-icing boots can knock off ice from upward of 40 percent of a wing’s surface, supercooled large droplet ice can form on the back of the wing where it can’t be removed, said Tom Ratvasky, an icing research engineer at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.
And severe icing on either the wing or the tail of a plane will radically change its aerodynamics, meaning it will have to fly faster in order to stay aloft — which can be difficult for some lower-powered turboprop planes, aviation experts said.
 
A broader question
 
So did Flight 3407 fall from the sky because fast-forming freezing rain weighed it down and changed the shape of its wings or tail?
The NTSB’s investigation will attempt to answer that question, but some experts are convinced that it did.
 
“Icing very obviously has something to do with this accident,” said Kirk Koenig, president of Expert Aviation Consulting of Indianapolis and a commercial pilot for 25 years. “My opinion is this mostly can be blamed on the FAA, through their lack of guidance.”
 
The plane’s crew reported ice on the wings and windshield, as did another plane heading to Buffalo Niagara International Airport at about the same time.
 
According to the National Weather Service, the airport temperature was measured at 33 degrees shortly before 10 p. m. Weather conditions were described as “light snow, fog and mist,” with southwest winds of 17 mph, gusting up to 25 mph.
 
The plane was flying at about 1,650 feet above the ground when it began to experience problems. Slightly above that altitude, the temperature would probably have been closer to 29 or 30 degrees, according to Peter Goelz, a former managing director for the NTSB.
 
“There is a range of temperatures that can cause icing, and the weather this plane was flying through was in that range,” Goelz said.
For aviation safety experts, though, there’s a broader question than whether ice doomed Flight 3407.
 
“Until they can show that icing was not a factor, I’m not sure this airplane should be flown in icing conditions similar to those encountered during this flight,” said M. P. “Pappy” Papadakis, a lawyer and retired pilot in Texas who co-authored a textbook in aviation law.
 
Jim Hall, the former chairman of the safety board, has said the same thing.
The crew of Flight 3407 turned on the de-icing equipment 11 minutes into the flight, federal officials have said. And Brown, of the FAA, insisted that the Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 — the model that crashed in Buffalo—is safe to fly in icy conditions.
 
“The plane has a very sophisticated ice detection and protection system on it,” including features that the FAA is thinking about requiring in any new rules governing flying during icy conditions, Brown said.
 
Those rules — one for certifying newly designed planes for flying in freezing rain and another for making sure previously certified planes are safe in such conditions — “are both in the category of rules still under development,” Brown said.
 
‘Tombstone Principle’
The FAA is required by law to do an economic analysis of all proposed new rules, and agency critics said that slow-moving process is connected with its dual mission of serving both as a regulator of the aviation industry and a promoter of its growth.
“Whether they like it or not, they have this really strong advocacy role for the industry, too,” said Schofer, of Northwestern University. “It’s a challenge for the FAA to balance those two tasks.”
 
The FAA, however, insists it has not ignored the freezing rain issue. Brown noted that the agency has issued more than 100 airworthiness directives to address icing issues since 1994, ranging from changes in crew operating procedures to airplane design.
But the Feb. 12 crash in Clarence still raises questions for officials like Steven B. Chealander, the safety board member who was in Buffalo the past week.
 
Almost a year after he pleaded with Congress for tougher safeguards against icing on turboprop aircraft, Chealander found himself leading the investigation into the crash of Flight 3407 — and acknowledging some frustration with the FAA’s slow pace of action on the icing issue.
“Suffice it to say,” he said during his stay in Buffalo, “the NTSB identified recommendations that it would like to be moving faster than they are. It’s taken longer than we would like.”
 
Skinner — former safety chairman and Hall’s law partner — offered his thoughts as to why.
“As is said often, if not acknowledged by the NTSB, about the FAA: ‘The FAA acts according to the Tombstone Principle — little is accomplished in terms of safety until enough tombstones are raised,’ ” Skinner said.
News Staff Reporter Dan Herbeck contributed to this report.

jzremski@buffnews.com and rmccarthy@buffnews.com