Crash of Colgan Flight 3407 Mystifies Investigators

This is odd-- sounds like the plane spiraled down on its belly:

AMHERST, N.Y. — The commuter plane that crashed near Buffalo on Thursday night slammed to the ground flat on its belly, with almost no forward momentum and facing opposite its intended route, seconds after two automatic warnings to the pilots that the plane was not moving fast enough to stay aloft, the National Transportation Safety Board said on Saturday.

The description indicates that the plane, a Bombardier Dash 8 Q400, suffered an aerodynamic stall, meaning the flow of air over the wings was either disrupted or too slow to sustain flight, but the reason why remains a mystery.

Icing, which the crew of the plane reported shortly before the crash, is one possible reason, but Steven Chealander, the safety board member assigned to the investigation and a retired airline captain, said the aircraft had a sophisticated ice protection system. (snip)

According to investigators, the last minute of flight, as described so far, unfolded this way: As the plane flew about 1,600 feet above the ground, southwest toward a runway at the Buffalo airport, the crew lowered the landing gear. Twenty seconds later, one of the two pilots set a lever to extend the flaps, movable metal panels on the back of each wing, to 15 degrees, a standard step before landing.

Immediately, the airplane’s nose began to pitch radically up and down, and soon after, the airplane rolled left and right. A stick shaker, a device that warns that the plane is flying so slowly that its wings are about to stall, losing lift, gave its warning by shaking the yoke in the pilots’ hands. Then the stick pusher came on, a system that literally takes matters out of the pilots’ hands by pushing the yoke forward, to push the nose down and increase airspeed to avoid stall.

The crew increased engine power, but never regained control: the plane hit the house, having spun around to face northeast, although it had been flying southwest. It happened so fast that the flaps never made it to 15 degrees.

And the plane was moving so slowly that it hit only a single house in the densely settled neighborhood. A garage behind the house remained intact.

The cockpit voice recorder, which investigators will examine more thoroughly on Sunday, recorded the captain and the first officer noting ice on the windshield and the leading edge of the wing. The crews of other planes also noted icing conditions. But there is nothing yet to indicate that conditions were unusual for a February night in the Buffalo area.

There are some other interesting details in the article, but the key point is that the crash makes little sense. I imagine either they will: 1) blame it all on ice, or 2) invent some new theory to explain what happened. And foul play will never be suggested by the officials.

Good round up of official explanations here.

Another reason they had for taking down the plane:

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A leading human rights official known for her expertise on the Rwandan genocide was traveling on the Newark-to-Buffalo flight that crashed into a house, killing all 49 people aboard the plane and one person on the ground.

Alison Des Forges died in the crash of Flight 3407 outside Buffalo, New York, on Thursday night.

Alison Des Forges, senior adviser for Human Rights Watch's Africa Division for almost two decades, was on Flight 3407, the group said Friday.

"Alison's loss is a devastating blow not only to Human Rights Watch but also to the people of Rwanda and the Great Lakes region," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of the humanitarian organization, said in a statement.

Des Forges, who lived in Buffalo, spent four years in Rwandadocumenting the 1994 genocide and had testified about that atrocity and the current situation in central Africa before U.N. and congressional panels, the group said.

Human Rights Watch, which is based in New York, said she was "best known for her award-winning account of the genocide, 'Leave None to Tell the Story.' "

"She was truly wonderful, the epitome of the human rights activist -- principled, dispassionate, committed to the truth and to using that truth to protect ordinary people.

"She was among the first to highlight the ethnic tensions that led to the genocide, and when it happened and the world stood by and watched, Alison did everything humanly possible to save people. Then she wrote the definitive account. There was no one who knew more and did more to document the genocide and to help bring the perpetrators to justice."

The group notes Des Forges' even-handedness in the Rwandan conflict. She insisted that the Rwandan Patriotic Front, the group that toppled the "genocidal regime," be held to account for its killings during and after the slaughter. She was banned from Rwanda last year after Human Rights Watch highlighted problems with its legal system.

"She never forgot about the crimes committed by the Rwandan government's forces, and that was unpopular, especially in the United States and in Britain," said Roth. "She was really a thorn in everyone's side, and that's a testament to her integrity and sense of principle and commitment to the truth."

She most recently was working on a report about killings in eastern Congo.

I would bet she had some explosive findings in that report on the recent Congo slaughter...