Eck4Life

I would think that any idiot can realize why the airport officials would instantly proclaim that weather was not a factor. These tools know that if weather was a factor (which any pilot can deduce it was) they are potentially on the hook for not having the landing runway in an reasonably appropriate condition. It is disgusting to hear someone so blatantly absolve themself of any responsibility so quickly.

flyboy275

Agreed!

I am a current Tx Tech student residing here in the great city of Lubbock, and also an Instrument Rated pilot out there at the airport working on making the airlines here soon.

Now i was not on field during the crash, but i know the conditions here were definitely not favorable for flying. Lots of ice accumulation all over the place, and there was still freezing rain and sleet coming down at the time of the crash.

I hope they weren't in horrible icing conditions coming in. Any ATR drivers out there know how they perform in ice? How effective the De-icing mechanisms are.....etc?

Im promising you aswell that runway MUST have had ice coverage........the roads here were horrible when i was driving home at 2am......and it kept coming down until atleast 6am

HercDriver130

Flew ATR-42's in the NE corridor for AE in 1992-1994. If the onboard systems are used correctly and ground De-icing / Anti-icing is done correctly they would perform fine. Most aircraft have degraded performance in icing conditions and the ATR is no different. While the Roselawn accident was certainly caused by ice there were other factors which caused it to be a problem.... Roselawn gave the ATR's a bad rap.

Huck

I got a thousand hours in the wobblin' goblin (the -72).

No aircraft is certified into freezing rain. Even our heavies. You become a test pilot at that point.

I'll say this, though - I saw the CNN video of the crash site, and the wind was whipping by. Looked like a hurricane. One thing I remember about the ATR - I used to bottom out the rudder pedal on crosswind landings. Repeatedly. It has a very very small tail.

When you add a fairly new female pilot, it does not sound far-fetched that maybe her seat wasn't close enough, she couldn't get full rudder, throw in an icy runway, maybe full beta on the props (tends to pull the plane off the runway if you get sideways).....

As for flying in ice, though, that mother had 2800 shaft horsepower per side. There was very little that you could get into that those motors couldn't pull you out of. And icing is very thoroughly taught in ATR school now, I feel sure.

GlenWimpy

They say it landed short of the runway.............

Ve764

Is Empire a Part 121 or 135 ops???

AerisArmis

Witness reports are historically unreliable, unless the witness has some expertise in the matter (being witnessed). It's one of the first things taught at safety school. On the other hand, those 1000s of witnessses to UFOs could really be right. "Mars Attacks"!!!

Jetjok

No kidding. How about those unreliable folks who said "hey, it looks like that jet just landed in the Hudson River." I bet most of them didn't even have their degree in aeronautical engineering.

JJ

DelDah Capt

You are correct.....for all those wondering about icy runways or gusting crosswinds, it didn't matter. They never made it to the runway. They touched down about 300 ft. short of 17R. In that regard, the airport spokesman was probaly right that the condition of his runway was not a factor. However, the ceiling, vis, precip and tailwind were all certainly adverse and may turn out to have played a role. This was the the METAR at the time:


I'm assuming they were on 17R with that tailwind because it had an ILS and the ceiling was OVC005. Runway 35L had a LOC BC although it has a relatively low MDA for a non-precision approach at around 300agl.

ryguy

For those wondering this was a former COEX bird (Bar Harbor prior). Its previous tail number was N15827. I've got a lot of time in that aircraft and ATRs in general. They are just fine in ice and could be a handful in the wind.

Anyway, I flew into DFW that night and it was starting to get bad when we got in around 2200. Glad to hear they got out ok, now it's time to wait on the NTSB report.