According to reports from pilots when discussing the Colgan Air crash in Buffalo, many major airlines might be in for a similar result should their pilots face an icing stall similar to the one that grounded CO Flight 3407. Simulator training for dealing with icing is not regularly held.
Icing stall training is not part of the regularly-held simulator training. Newspaper stories have focused on the poor pay, long commutes and fatigue of regional pilots. They have reported on the pilots having extraneous conversations during landing operations. However, it was a stall and the inappropriate actions of the captain of flight 3407 that doomed the aircraft — conditions for which he as a pilot probably never faced, even in a simulator.
In fact, inflight icing training seems to be rare. Here’s the description of one specialized NASA course on the subject:
Under the guidance of experienced instructors, course attendees practice flight control techniques associated with loss of stability and control effectiveness. A structured one hour training session is provided to all full course attendees.
The full course fee is $1,629.00, limited to 16 attendees, which includes a binder and CD containing all lecture materials and a DVD of each attendee’s training session in the ICEFTD. The reduced course fee for the Tuesday and Wednesday lectures is $699.00.
This training is above and beyond the normal pilot training. Obviously, it is not inexpensive.
Though safety experts have been calling for simulator training for inflight icing conditions, such training does not seem currently to be in place at regional commuter airlines or the major airlines.
The Icing Branch at NASA Glenn Research Center performs research activities related to the development of methods for evaluating and simulating the growth of ice on aircraft surfaces, the effects that ice may have on the behavior of aircraft in flight, and the behavior of ice protection & detection systems
The American flying public is in danger whenever passenger aircraft are flying an approach during snow and icing conditions. Few pilots are experienced at the counter-intuitive actions necessary to arrest an icing stall. The natural response is to pull the nose up to gain altitude, when the proper response is to push the nose down to gain speed and then ascend.
A CBS report noted that the FAA didn’t have directives requiring simulator stall training.
Cogan Air acknowledged Monday that Renslow’s training for the Dash 8-Q400 Bombardier didn’t include a demonstration or simulation of the stick-pusher system. It noted that the Federal Aviation Administration doesn’t require a simulator demonstration of the stick-pusher and added that Renslow “had all the training and experience required to safely operate the Q400.”
A stick-pusher automatically kicks in when a plane is about to stall, pointing the aircraft’s nose down into a dive so it can pick up enough speed to allow the pilot to guide it to a recovery.
However, when Flight 3407′s stick-pusher kicked in on approach to Buffalo Niagara International Airport, Renslow pulled back on the plane’s control column, apparently trying to bring the aircraft out of the sudden dive by raising the nose up. Pushing forward to gain speed is the proper procedure.
The activation of a stick pusher can be a jarring experience for any pilot, especially if the pilot has never experienced it before, said William Waldock, an aviation science professor at Embry-Riddle University in Prescott, Ariz. The natural response is to pull back unless you’ve been trained through repetition to push forward, he said.
As in all things governmental, studies have been underway to determine whether inflight icing stall training is adequate. The NTSB recommended two years ago that the FAA study whether pilot training on stick-pushers should be improved. But there was no change in training requirements when the FAA revised its training manual last fall on stall recovery.
Many experts, government regulators and outside observers seem to think that it is inexcusable to put pilots in the captain’s seat without inflight training or simulator training to deal with stalls and the resulting “stick-pusher” requirements. However, there is no FAA rule to that effect.
Yes, the pilots on the ill-fated CO 3407 may have been fatigued, they may have been underpaid and they may have been talking about something other than the landing, but the cause of the crash was lack of hands-on training that most of our commercial pilots do not have and that the airlines and the FAA do not provide simulator time or programs to experience.
