New York Crash Possibly a Flat Spin

Based on the descriptions of the crash site in New York, it appears the Continental Express plane may have been in a flat spin when it hit the ground. More on that in a moment:

Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) -- The crew of Continental Connection Flight 3407 that crashed near Buffalo’s Niagara International Airport three days ago didn’t have time to warn passengers what was about to happen.

“It was just a sudden catastrophic event that took place, and 30 seconds later they hit the ground,” said Steven Chealander, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board at a press briefing yesterday in Amherst, New York.

All 49 passengers and crew and one person on the ground were killed in the first fatal U.S. airline disaster in more than two years.

The Bombardier Inc. Dash 8 Q400, operated under contract by Pinnacle Airlines Corp.’s Colgan Air unit for Continental Airlines Inc., went down around 6 miles (9.7 kilometers) northeast of the airport at about 10 p.m. local time on Feb. 12. The flight originated in Newark, New Jersey.

The NTSB will begin a detailed examination of the “black boxes” recovered from the crash today. The cockpit-voice recorder captures noises and what was said by the pilots. The flight-data recorder tracks airplane movements and manipulation of flight controls.

Initial evidence shows the plane’s de-icing equipment and engines were working and that the so-called stall-warning devices had activated, Chealander said. Such devices warn flight crews that they are about to lose control and crash, he said.

House, Plane Debris

Temperatures were about 33 degrees Fahrenheit (0.6 degrees Celsius) at the airport at 9:54 p.m. with light snow and winds o 17 mph (27 kph) and gusts up to 26 mph, according to the National Weather Service.

Investigators found the plane pointed away from the airport and in a position that rules out a nosedive, Chealander said. Investigators don’t know what caused it to turn around.

From what flying experience I have it sounds to me that the icing and uncontrollability problems the crew experienced may have caused the airplane to go into a flat spin, a nearly unrecoverable condition in which the plane falls out of the sky like a leaf falling from a tree. With only 5,000 feet of airspace in which to recover, the crew didn't have a chance.

Wikipedia defines it this way:

In the past, some airplanes displayed an unrecoverable spin in which the nose was higher, relative to the horizon, than in conventional spins. This is sometimes called a flat spin, although whether a flat spin is indeed unrecoverable depends on aircraft type and loading. The plane spins on its belly along the transverse axis. The empennage will feel very light and loose. Depending on the aircraft, rudder and aileron inputs and changing engine power settings may have little effect.

The airplane basically pancaked onto the ground with almost no forward motion. The debris area is pretty much confined to one house. Had the plane been diving there would have been a much greater spread of debris, and the plane may have come apart to some degree in the air, leaving pieces along the flight path.

It'll take a lot of work to figure out the combination of ice and control inputs that could have created a flat spin, but that sure sounds like the probably cause of the crash.