Have you seen the FAA video from the public hearing?

No, I hadn't seen it. Are you making a particular point? Or is this simply of general interest?

No, I hadn't seen it. Are you making a particular point? Or is this simply of general interest?

If you notice he is pulling during the stall and recovering in the same fashion as you would a tail stall. Unfortunately for them it was a main wing stall and he just exacerbated the problem. As you said yourself the problem occured with the change of flaps and gear and this is normally when a tail stall occurs.

If you notice he is pulling during the stall and recovering in the same fashion as you would a tail stall. Unfortunately for them it was a main wing stall and he just exacerbated the problem. As you said yourself the problem occured with the change of flaps and gear and this is normally when a tail stall occurs.

A deep stall usually can only be recovered by entering a steep dive, and this only if there are thousands of feet available for recovery, and then only if the nose can be put down, which may not be possible.This is probably part of what happened to the accident aircraft since it landed on a house in a relatively level attitude with very little forward motion. The simulation video cuts off before the final seconds so I can't be certain that this was the situation, just that it's quite possible. Another strong possibility is that they entered a flat spin. Again, I don't have the data, only the pattern of the wreckage.

A deep stall usually can only be recovered by entering a steep dive, and this only if there are thousands of feet available for recovery, and then only if the nose can be put down, which may not be possible.This is probably part of what happened to the accident aircraft since it landed on a house in a relatively level attitude with very little forward motion. The simulation video cuts off before the final seconds so I can't be certain that this was the situation, just that it's quite possible. Another strong possibility is that they entered a flat spin. Again, I don't have the data, only the pattern of the wreckage.

A deep stall does not need a steep dive. All you need to do is bring the angle of attack to less then the critical angle of attack. This does not mean a steep dive, almost all aircraft recover before they go below -5 degrees deck angle. A flat spin would be very difficult, this aircraft is really nose heavy. While both my better half and I worked on a Q400 there were many times when we had to move people further aft to make it within the forward cg limits. To enter a flat spin for this aircraft would mean that the aircraft would have to be placed in a very aft CG position and then a high pitch attitude. As much as I know only one of these factors happened and by watching the airspeed he was well away from being in a flat spin.

If you notice he is pulling during the stall and recovering in the same fashion as you would a tail stall. Unfortunately for them it was a main wing stall and he just exacerbated the problem. As you said yourself the problem occured with the change of flaps and gear and this is normally when a tail stall occurs.

No, I doubt he was thinking tail stall or stall or anything at all. The way he handled that airplane is pretty much the same as any student pilot would facing a stall for the first time without having had any instruction. Whether it was a wing stall or a tail stall, what the airplane does to you should have given a normal pilot the proper cues to react instinctively in a proper manner. If there was a tail stall, the plane would have just plane dumb nosed down without any stall warning or shakers or pushers or anything at all. What is the instinctive reaction to a sudden nose down unusual attitude? What were you taught to do when your instructor pulled the hood off your head, said ta-da, and you had to recover from the nose down attitude you found yourself in? You pulled the power back and you pulled back on the stick. Coincidentally, that is same recovery for a tail stall. If you popped the hood and found yourself sitting there with stall horns blaring, what did you do? You pushed the stick and power forward. All he had to do was react instinctively to what the airplane was doing. There was no need to think about whether it was a tail stall or wing stall. If the stall horns are blaring, you push everything forward. And that was what he had. Stall warnings, lots of them. Unfortunately he instinctively reacted like a student pilot who hadn't gotten to the stall lesson yet.

A deep stall does not need a steep dive. All you need to do is bring the angle of attack to less then the critical angle of attack. This does not mean a steep dive, almost all aircraft recover before they go below -5 degrees deck angle. A flat spin would be very difficult, this aircraft is really nose heavy. While both my better half and I worked on a Q400 there were many times when we had to move people further aft to make it within the forward cg limits. To enter a flat spin for this aircraft would mean that the aircraft would have to be placed in a very aft CG position and then a high pitch attitude. As much as I know only one of these factors happened and by watching the airspeed he was well away from being in a flat spin.

In a deep stall your airspeed rapidly bleeds off to ridiculously low levels because of the high drag associated with the ridiculously high angle of attack. The only way out is to lower the nose forcibly and apply full power. Note that in a deep stall the aircraft attitude may be near-level, but the angle of descent is such that the angle of attack is still ridiculously high, this because of a lack of airspeed.But this remedy might not work. If the horizontal stabilizer is blanked there may not be enough elevator authority to lower the nose. Depending on the aircraft design applying power might help with that -- by increasing airflow over the elevators -- but this is not guaranteed and in fact is unlikely in a twin with its engines on the wings since most of the propwash will be outboard of the elevators.These problems are most severe in T-tail aircraft where the horizontal stabilizer is mounted at the top of the vertical stabilizer. This seems counter-intuitive but if you visualize the airframe moving forward at an extremely high angle of attack you will see that the horizontal stabilizer in effect has been lowered into the slow and turbulent flow coming off the deep-stalled wing. This is what makes recovery so difficult -- no elevator authority.A strongly related phenomenon happens with 727s. If you get on the back side of the power curve on approach you are done for -- not enough altitude to recover by lowering the nose, and not enough thrust available to power out of the situation. Take things far enough and you get a deep stall here too, just like the Trident crash outside London in ... 1968, I believe it was. It was this accident that gave rise to stick pushers, the reasoning being that the nose needed to be lowered at the approach of a stall even in the absence of pilot control input, there being zero chance of recovery at low altitude if the nose isn't lowered immediately. (Nothing to lose, everything to gain.) In other words, on aircraft with T-tails stick pushers are supposed to head off deep stalls -- but if the airframe is iced up, all bets are off.

No, I doubt he was thinking tail stall or stall or anything at all. The way he handled that airplane is pretty much the same as any student pilot would facing a stall for the first time without having had any instruction. Whether it was a wing stall or a tail stall, what the airplane does to you should have given a normal pilot the proper cues to react instinctively in a proper manner. If there was a tail stall, the plane would have just plane dumb nosed down without any stall warning or shakers or pushers or anything at all. What is the instinctive reaction to a sudden nose down unusual attitude? What were you taught to do when your instructor pulled the hood off your head, said ta-da, and you had to recover from the nose down attitude you found yourself in? You pulled the power back and you pulled back on the stick. Coincidentally, that is same recovery for a tail stall. If you popped the hood and found yourself sitting there with stall horns blaring, what did you do? You pushed the stick and power forward. All he had to do was react instinctively to what the airplane was doing. There was no need to think about whether it was a tail stall or wing stall. If the stall horns are blaring, you push everything forward. And that was what he had. Stall warnings, lots of them. Unfortunately he instinctively reacted like a student pilot who hadn't gotten to the stall lesson yet.

True it was a very poor attempt at a stall recovery. I've been reading a lot of pilots though have been thinking the same things I have because of how he reacted. Another thing to consider is, how often do you even get to recover from a tail stall? Pretty much never. It's hard to say what was going through his mind at the time this stall occured.

In a deep stall your airspeed rapidly bleeds off to ridiculously low levels because of the high drag associated with the ridiculously high angle of attack. The only way out is to lower the nose forcibly and apply full power. Note that in a deep stall the aircraft attitude may be near-level, but the angle of descent is such that the angle of attack is still ridiculously high, this because of a lack of airspeed.But this remedy might not work. If the horizontal stabilizer is blanked there may not be enough elevator authority to lower the nose. Depending on the aircraft design applying power might help with that -- by increasing airflow over the elevators -- but this is not guaranteed and in fact is unlikely in a twin with its engines on the wings since most of the propwash will be outboard of the elevators.These problems are most severe in T-tail aircraft where the horizontal stabilizer is mounted at the top of the vertical stabilizer. This seems counter-intuitive but if you visualize the airframe moving forward at an extremely high angle of attack you will see that the horizontal stabilizer in effect has been lowered into the slow and turbulent flow coming off the deep-stalled wing. This is what makes recovery so difficult -- no elevator authority.A strongly related phenomenon happens with 727s. If you get on the back side of the power curve on approach you are done for -- not enough altitude to recover by lowering the nose, and not enough thrust available to power out of the situation. Take things far enough and you get a deep stall here too, just like the Trident crash outside London in ... 1968, I believe it was. It was this accident that gave rise to stick pushers, the reasoning being that the nose needed to be lowered at the approach of a stall even in the absence of pilot control input, there being zero chance of recovery at low altitude if the nose isn't lowered immediately. (Nothing to lose, everything to gain.) In other words, on aircraft with T-tails stick pushers are supposed to head off deep stalls -- but if the airframe is iced up, all bets are off.

Yes I know the elementary aspects of aerodynamics. The problem is his airspeed was really fast for being in a flat spin or a deep stall. I believe the lowest it got to was 80 kias and once the stall broke harder then it originally had the airspeed rapidly increased. The rapid increase of airspeed is not a characteristic of a deep stall.The problem with the 727's was that it was a highly swept wing, had a perfect t-tail for being blanked out and it had old engines which took awhile to spool up to full power again. The higher the sweep on the wing the further out to the wingtip the stall first originates. Because of this there is a lack of buffet and that is the reason for the stick shaker to simulate the stall is impending. Once you got below the stick shaker activation and power was still down, if I remember correctly, the spool up time was around 30 seconds to get full power again.The Q400 is quite a bit different then the 727 is. The 90 foot wing span is nearly straight, the engines are mounted on the wings which give them quite a bit of propeller induced airflow to help with lift and they spool up much, much faster making it fairly easy to power out of a stall. I am not sure of Colgan's procedures but this is how they might have been taught to recover from a fully developed stall.

True it was a very poor attempt at a stall recovery. I've been reading a lot of pilots though have been thinking the same things I have because of how he reacted. Another thing to consider is, how often do you even get to recover from a tail stall? Pretty much never. It's hard to say what was going through his mind at the time this stall occured.

I know many pilots want to think that he was trying to recover from a tail stall. Because it is very hard to accept that one of "us" could be that incompetent. You do realize that Renslow had initial failures in almost every checkride as he obtained his ratings, right? That he had also failed several checkrides at Colgan as well, right? And these failures weren't just for one little thing or that, the pink slips had things on them such as "redo entire flight portion" or "redo takeoffs, go-arounds, and landings." I know you hate to say something bad about somebody who is dead, that you feel like you are throwing a fellow pilot under the bus, but you know what, just because somebody is dead, does not mean they did not screw up. Instead of focusing on this red herring of tail stalls, focus on what really happened here. Then maybe you can see how this industry made this crash inevitable. Maybe some good can come out of this if we accept what really caused this, and address the problems those causes bring to light.No one ever has practiced a recovery from a "tail stall" since you need actual contamination on a tail surface. So why would Renslow attempt a tail stall recovery, for the first time in his life, out there on the line, under conditions of complete surprise? Seriously, do you think that Renslow, with that history, with that airline, was that with it, to think about something that complex, at that moment when the whole dark world went tumbling? As I already explained, you don't even need to consciously think "tail stall" to do a tail stall recovery at the appropriate time. If you've ever flight instructed, it should be obvious to you that the way he moved those controls that night, was behavior much like a student who was seeing a stall for the very first time and was feeling so overwhelmed that he had basically frozen up and forgotten everything you discussed with him back at the fbo.

I know many pilots want to think that he was trying to recover from a tail stall. Because it is very hard to accept that one of "us" could be that incompetent. You do realize that Renslow had initial failures in almost every checkride as he obtained his ratings, right? That he had also failed several checkrides at Colgan as well, right? And these failures weren't just for one little thing or that, the pink slips had things on them such as "redo entire flight portion" or "redo takeoffs, go-arounds, and landings." I know you hate to say something bad about somebody who is dead, that you feel like you are throwing a fellow pilot under the bus, but you know what, just because somebody is dead, does not mean they did not screw up. Instead of focusing on this red herring of tail stalls, focus on what really happened here. Then maybe you can see how this industry made this crash inevitable. Maybe some good can come out of this if we accept what really caused this, and address the problems those causes bring to light.No one ever has practiced a recovery from a "tail stall" since you need actual contamination on a tail surface. So why would Renslow attempt a tail stall recovery, for the first time in his life, out there on the line, under conditions of complete surprise? Seriously, do you think that Renslow, with that history, with that airline, was that with it, to think about something that complex, at that moment when the whole dark world went tumbling? As I already explained, you don't even need to consciously think "tail stall" to do a tail stall recovery at the appropriate time. If you've ever flight instructed, it should be obvious to you that the way he moved those controls that night, was behavior much like a student who was seeing a stall for the very first time and was feeling so overwhelmed that he had basically frozen up and forgotten everything you discussed with him back at the fbo.

I agree with you about the training, but it goes beyond this one pilot. The whole issue of training and hiring standards for the feeders needs to be reworked. Now ...This wasn't just a simple stall. This was a violent stall because of the airframe icing, and because of the autopilot disconnect, the autopilot having masked the desperate condition of the airframe -- or so it seems to me.By the way, if it didn't end up as a deep stall, why did the aircraft pancake onto the house with very little forward motion?

Hello,http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/08/07/ny.crash.probe/index.html

Regards.Gus.

I agree with you about the training, but it goes beyond this one pilot. The whole issue of training and hiring standards for the feeders needs to be reworked. Now ...This wasn't just a simple stall. This was a violent stall because of the airframe icing, and because of the autopilot disconnect, the autopilot having masked the desperate condition of the airframe -- or so it seems to me.By the way, if it didn't end up as a deep stall, why did the aircraft pancake onto the house with very little forward motion?

Exactly, the root cause of this accident had absolutely nothing to do with ice and everything to do with the cost cuttings, the industry business practices and the general aviation training practices. Colgan has always had a reputation of being an unscrupulous company. Unfortunately, when numbers on a spreadsheet are all that airlines consider now, companies like Colgan get more business and expand since they look real good to the accountants. Colgan's cheap wages, cheap training and productive work rules allow them to bid for business at much lower prices than other regionals. Therefore they get to expand. That expansion spreads the poor quality farther into the airline world. This puts pressure on other, more established, more traditional, regional providers who have spent more money on wages and training to provide high quality services to cut their costs as well in order to stay in business. The result is a downward spiral in quality and safety across the industry.Perhaps this accident will spur Congress to mandate better hiring standards, better training, and better work rules. If that does happen, then it may help the quality and safety of the airlines since it could level the playing field and take pressure to cut costs off of the better regionals by forcing the bottom feeders up to a more comparable cost structure.Watch the animation that shows exactly how the yoke and pedals moved. He made his own deep stall. When the plane stalled, the yoke went straight back into his gut and never left there. He tried to roll out of every bank. His push of the throttles forward was meager. It was a textbook demonstration of how to keep a plane stalled and out of control all the way into the ground. Yes, the autopilot disconnected out of the desperate condition...of being stalled. When a pusher goes, autopilots are supposed to disconnect. Not because of ice or any special stall conditions, but from the mere fact that you are stalling. That is what they are designed to do. That he was sitting in that left seat is an indictment both of Colgan and of GA flight training. Colgan, obviously for being an unscrupulous company merely interested in warm bodies to fill scheduling for their unbridled expansion. The expansion they were going through, and the fact that when other airlines were hiring, not many wanted to apply there, forced them to make the only requirement for hiring being the ability to fog a mirror. But why GA training? Because in the GA system, the student is treated as the customer. Unlike an airline ab-initio or a military training program, where the student is treated as an applicant, and the organization, treated as the customer. Those students who perform poorly, are told you don't belong and we don't need your services. In the GA world, only when a student goes for the checkride does he become the applicant. And as can be seen from Renslow's record, he was told on each checkride that he did not belong. Unfortunately, he never got the message from the pink slips and nobody at any flight school ever told him to think of another career. But instead, each school, including Gulfstream airlines, saw him as a customer who had money, and not a potential airline captain someday with unsuspecting women and children riding in the back of a plane with him at the controls. If anybody saw that potential and was aware of his flying aptitude, it would have been criminal to not try and stop him from continuing down that path.

Exactly, the root cause of this accident had absolutely nothing to do with ice and everything to do with the cost cuttings, the industry business practices and the general aviation training practices. Colgan has always had a reputation of being an unscrupulous company. Unfortunately, when numbers on a spreadsheet are all that airlines consider now, companies like Colgan get more business and expand since they look real good to the accountants. Colgan's cheap wages, cheap training and productive work rules allow them to bid for business at much lower prices than other regionals. Therefore they get to expand. That expansion spreads the poor quality farther into the airline world. This puts pressure on other, more established, more traditional, regional providers who have spent more money on wages and training to provide high quality services to cut their costs as well in order to stay in business. The result is a downward spiral in quality and safety across the industry.Perhaps this accident will spur Congress to mandate better hiring standards, better training, and better work rules. If that does happen, then it may help the quality and safety of the airlines since it could level the playing field and take pressure to cut costs off of the better regionals by forcing the bottom feeders up to a more comparable cost structure.Watch the animation that shows exactly how the yoke and pedals moved. He made his own deep stall. When the plane stalled, the yoke went straight back into his gut and never left there. He tried to roll out of every bank. His push of the throttles forward was meager. It was a textbook demonstration of how to keep a plane stalled and out of control all the way into the ground. Yes, the autopilot disconnected out of the desperate condition...of being stalled. When a pusher goes, autopilots are supposed to disconnect. Not because of ice or any special stall conditions, but from the mere fact that you are stalling. That is what they are designed to do. That he was sitting in that left seat is an indictment both of Colgan and of GA flight training. Colgan, obviously for being an unscrupulous company merely interested in warm bodies to fill scheduling for their unbridled expansion. The expansion they were going through, and the fact that when other airlines were hiring, not many wanted to apply there, forced them to make the only requirement for hiring being the ability to fog a mirror. But why GA training? Because in the GA system, the student is treated as the customer. Unlike an airline ab-initio or a military training program, where the student is treated as an applicant, and the organization, treated as the customer. Those students who perform poorly, are told you don't belong and we don't need your services. In the GA world, only when a student goes for the checkride does he become the applicant. And as can be seen from Renslow's record, he was told on each checkride that he did not belong. Unfortunately, he never got the message from the pink slips and nobody at any flight school ever told him to think of another career. But instead, each school, including Gulfstream airlines, saw him as a customer who had money, and not a potential airline captain someday with unsuspecting women and children riding in the back of a plane with him at the controls. If anybody saw that potential and was aware of his flying aptitude, it would have been criminal to not try and stop him from continuing down that path.

Right on.

I know many pilots want to think that he was trying to recover from a tail stall. Because it is very hard to accept that one of "us" could be that incompetent. You do realize that Renslow had initial failures in almost every checkride as he obtained his ratings, right? That he had also failed several checkrides at Colgan as well, right? And these failures weren't just for one little thing or that, the pink slips had things on them such as "redo entire flight portion" or "redo takeoffs, go-arounds, and landings." I know you hate to say something bad about somebody who is dead, that you feel like you are throwing a fellow pilot under the bus, but you know what, just because somebody is dead, does not mean they did not screw up. Instead of focusing on this red herring of tail stalls, focus on what really happened here. Then maybe you can see how this industry made this crash inevitable. Maybe some good can come out of this if we accept what really caused this, and address the problems those causes bring to light.No one ever has practiced a recovery from a "tail stall" since you need actual contamination on a tail surface. So why would Renslow attempt a tail stall recovery, for the first time in his life, out there on the line, under conditions of complete surprise? Seriously, do you think that Renslow, with that history, with that airline, was that with it, to think about something that complex, at that moment when the whole dark world went tumbling? As I already explained, you don't even need to consciously think "tail stall" to do a tail stall recovery at the appropriate time. If you've ever flight instructed, it should be obvious to you that the way he moved those controls that night, was behavior much like a student who was seeing a stall for the very first time and was feeling so overwhelmed that he had basically frozen up and forgotten everything you discussed with him back at the fbo.

Yeah I know all about those failed checkrides. That is the whole reason that gulfstream got beat up pretty bad after this crash as well.All of my private students I've had were able to successfully recover from stalls. So I have no experience with them attempting this 'reverse recovery method' Renslow was attempting :) I guess my time will come when a student will try this recovery method.

Yeah I know all about those failed checkrides. That is the whole reason that gulfstream got beat up pretty bad after this crash as well.All of my private students I've had were able to successfully recover from stalls. So I have no experience with them attempting this 'reverse recovery method' Renslow was attempting :) I guess my time will come when a student will try this recovery method.

You're still giving Renslow waaay too much credit. That poor guy wasn't attempting any sort of stall recovery. He wasn't trying to recover from a wing stall or a tail stall. All he was doing was pulling back to try and pitch the nose up. That's why they all died.