I just find it ironic that the conversation they were having that presumably distracted them from watching their speed was about a.) not wanting to fly that plane because it was hard and they were used to something else, and b.) not being familiar with icing conditions and never having dealt with them before.
The pilot had all of his experience in the Saab 340, a plane more prone to tail stalls. When he hit a wing stall, he followed the procedure for a tail stall, which happens to be the exact opposite and pretty much secured their fate.
It sounds to me like they were put in a position to fail, and performed accordingly.
The engines were never put to full power. They did spool, but they levers were never full forward in the gates, much less forward of that for emergency power. Its a misconception that has been passed on by the dumb media. Had he done only 2 things, they would have been fine. He had to just let to yoke go forward with the pusher, and slam the throttles forward. Then this would have never happened. They designed the plane that well that it took very little to save itself from this situation.
Tail stalls are very rare in transport catagory aircraft.
His type rating for the Q-400 would include the fact that the AFCS computers track icing and tail control forces. The aircraft knows if it is a tail stall or not, and activates the stick pusher ONLY if its a wing stall. He should have known this, and let the aircraft do what it was designed to do.
There is one big difference from a wing stall and a tail stall, airspeed. If the plane was flying fine, and you let it get to slow, 99.999999 percent of the time its a standard wing stall.
NO ONE!!! is ever trained to use aileron to correct for a low wing in any stall. He should have been dancing all over those pedals with the ailerons neutral. He wasn’t.
By all accounts, and all the experts, no one has yet said that he confused it with a tail stall. Thats just making excuses, he fucked up big time.
How exactly were they put in a position to fail?
I agree about the extremely low pay, bad hours, and so forth, but that doesn’t excuse for a second the fact that the pilot on the controls ignored his simple and primary duty. Fly the plane, and watch the fucking airspeed indicator that is 2 inches from the center of his attitude indicator on the PFD. He was in never never land and not doing his job. He got slow, it stalled, they didn’t fly the plane, an they wadded it up.
I might seem overly passionate about this, because I am. I have spent my entire adult life in aviation. Doing it all over the planet, in ever possible weather situation. I now am a flight instructor not because it pays good, or even because its fun. Because I like teaching people the proper way to fly, and how to not kill themselves. I do it for the military and on the civilian side.
