Colgan Air Flight 3407 was a scheduled passenger flight from Newark, New Jersey, to Buffalo, New York, on February 12, 2009. Approaching Buffalo, the Bombardier Q400 entered an aerodynamic stall from which it did not recover and crashed into a house at 6038 Long Street in Clarence Center, New York, at 10:17 pm EST (03:17 UTC), about from the end of the runway, killing all 49 passengers and crew on board and one person inside the house. Note: The predicted stall speed for this aircraft at a flight load of 1.42 Gs would be about 125 kt, which is arrived at by multiplying 105 kt (the predicted stall speed at 1 G) by 1.19164 (the square root of the flight load in Gs).
The National Transportation Safety Board conducted the accident investigation and published a final report on February 2, 2010, that identified the probable cause as the pilots' inappropriate response to stall warnings.
Colgan Air staffed and maintained the aircraft used on the flight that was scheduled, marketed, and sold by Continental Airlines under its Continental Connection brand. Families of the accident victims lobbied the U.S. Congress to enact more stringent regulations for regional carriers and to improve the scrutiny of safe operating procedures and the working conditions of pilots. The Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2010 (Public Law 111–216) required some of these regulation changes.
At the time, it was the deadliest aviation accident involving a Bombardier Q400 and remained so until the crash of US-Bangla Airlines Flight 211 nine years later.
Aircraft and crew
Aircraft The aircraft involved was a Bombardier Q400, MSN 4200, registered as N200WQ, that was manufactured by Bombardier Aviation in April 2008. In its 10 months of service, the aircraft accumulated 1819 airframe hours and 1809 takeoff and landing cycles. It was equipped with two Pratt & Whitney Canada PW150A engines.
Crew Captain Marvin Renslow, 47, of Lutz, Florida, was the pilot in command, and Rebecca Lynne Shaw, 24, of Maple Valley, Washington, served as the first officer. The cabin crew consisted of two flight attendants. Renslow was hired in September 2005 and had accumulated 3,379 total flight hours, with 111 hours as a captain on the Q400. Shaw was hired in January 2008 and had 2,244 hours, 774 of which were in turbine aircraft, including the Q400.
Flight details
Colgan Air Flight 3407 (9L/CJC 3407) was marketed as Continental Connection Flight 3407. It was delayed for two hours and the aircraft departed at 21:18 EST (02:18 UTC), from Newark Liberty International Airport to Buffalo Niagara International Airport.
This was the only fatal accident for a Colgan Air passenger flight in the company's history. One previous repositioning flight, with no passengers, crashed offshore of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in August 2003, killing both of the pilots. The only prior accident involving a Colgan Air passenger flight occurred at LaGuardia Airport, when another plane collided with the Colgan aircraft while taxiing, resulting in minor injuries to a flight attendant.
Two Canadian passengers, one Chinese passenger and one Israeli passenger were on board. The remaining 41 passengers, as well as all crew members, were American.
Accident
Shortly after the flight was cleared for an instrument landing system approach to Runway 23 at Buffalo Niagara International Airport, it disappeared from radar. The weather consisted of light snow and fog with wind of . The deicing system had been activated 11 minutes after takeoff. Shortly before the crash, the pilots discussed significant ice accretion on the aircraft's wings and windshield. Two other aircraft reported icing conditions around the time of the crash.
The last radio transmission from the flight occurred when the first officer acknowledged a routine instruction to change to tower radio frequency while northeast of the radio beacon KLUMP (see diagram). The crash occurred 41 seconds after that last transmission. As ATC approach control was unable to receive any further response from the flight, the assistance of Delta Air Lines Flight 1998 (N942DL; MD-88 flying from ATL) and US Airways Flight 1452 ( N951UW; E190 flying from DCA) was requested, but neither was able to spot the missing plane.All calm moments before plane crashes (February 13, 2009). CBS News. Retrieved February 13, 2009.
Following the clearance for final approach, landing gear and flaps (5°) were extended. The flight data recorder indicated that the airspeed had slowed to . The captain then called for the flaps to be increased to 15°. The airspeed continued to slow to . Six seconds later, the aircraft's stick shaker activated, warning of an impending stall, as the speed continued to slow to . The captain responded by abruptly pulling back on the control column, followed by increasing thrust to 75% power, instead of lowering the nose and applying full power, which was the proper stall-recovery technique. That improper action pitched the nose up even further, increasing the gravitational load and increasing the stall speed. The stick pusher, which applies a nose-down control-column input to decrease the wing's angle of attack after a stall, activated, but the captain overrode the stick pusher and continued pulling back on the control column. The first officer retracted the flaps without consulting the captain, making recovery even more difficult.
In its final moments, the aircraft pitched up 31°, then pitched down 25°, then rolled left 46° and snapped back to the right at 105°. Occupants aboard experienced g-forces estimated at nearly 2 g. The crew issued no emergency declaration as they rapidly lost altitude and crashed into a private home at 6038 Long Street, about from the end of the runway, with the nose pointed away from the airport. The aircraft burst into flames as the fuel tanks ruptured on impact, destroying the house of Douglas and Karen Wielinski, and most of the plane. Douglas was killed; his wife Karen and their daughter Jill managed to escape with minor injuries. Very little damage occurred to surrounding homes even though the lots in that area are only 60 ft (18.3 m) wide.Residents survive after plane crashes through home. WBEN (AM) 930 Buffalo. February 13, 2009. As the home was within one block of the Clarence Center firehouse, emergency personnel were able to respond quickly. Two firefighters were injured and 12 nearby houses were evacuated.Karen Wielinski tells her story of survival after Flight 3407 crashed into her home February 13, 2009
Victims
A total of 50 people were killed: 49 passengers and crew and a resident of the house that was struck. Four injuries occurred on the ground, including two other people inside the home at the time of the crash. Among the dead were:
Alison Des Forges, a human-rights investigator and an expert on the Rwandan genocide. Beverly Eckert, who had become co-chairman of the 9/11 Family Steering Committee and a leader of Voices of September 11 after her husband Sean Rooney was killed in the September 11 attacks. Eckert was traveling to Buffalo to celebrate her husband's 58th birthday and award a scholarship in his memory at Canisius High School. Gerry Niewood and Coleman Mellett, jazz musicians who were traveling to a concert to play alongside Chuck Mangione and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. Susan Wehle, the first American female Jewish Renewal cantor.
Reactions Colgan Air provided a telephone number for families and friends on February 13, and a family-assistance center was opened at the Cheektowaga Senior Center in Cheektowaga, New York. The American Red Cross also opened reception centers in Buffalo and Newark where family members could receive support from mental-health and spiritual-care workers. During the afternoon, the United States House of Representatives held a moment of silence for the victims and their families. Buffalo's professional ice hockey team, the Buffalo Sabres, held a moment of silence prior to their scheduled game the next night against the San Jose Sharks. The University at Buffalo, which in the crash lost 11 passengers who were former employees, faculty, or alumni and 12 who were their family members, held a remembrance service on February 17, 2009. A band with the flight number was worn on the school's players' uniforms for the remainder of the basketball season. Buffalo State College's 11th president, Muriel Howard, released a statement regarding the six alumni killed on Flight 3407. Beverly Eckert was a 1975 graduate from Buffalo State. On March 4, 2009, New York governor David Paterson proposed the creation of a scholarship fund to benefit children and financial dependents of the 50 crash victims. The Flight 3407 Memorial Scholarship would cover costs for up to four years of undergraduate study at a SUNY or CUNY school, or a private college or university in New York. A memorial was created at the site of the crash, dedicated to lives lost in this disaster. It includes a landscaped garden. The accident was the basis for a PBS Frontline episode on the regional airline industry. Discussed in the episode were issues relating to regional airline regulation, training requirements, safety and working conditions, as well as the operating principles of regional airlines and the agreements between regional carriers and major airlines. The full transcript of the episode is available here on PBS
Investigation
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) began its inquiry on February 13 with a team of 14 investigators. Both the flight data recorder (FDR) and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) were recovered, and they were transported to Washington, D.C. for analysis.
Stick shaker Data extracted from the FDR revealed that the aircraft experienced severe pitch-and-roll oscillations shortly after the extension of flaps and landing gear, which was followed by the activation of the stick shaker stall-warning system. The aircraft fell and then crashed on a northeast heading opposite of the approach heading to the airport. Occupants experienced estimated accelerations of up to 2 g prior to impact.
Freezing temperatures made access to crash debris difficult. Portable heaters were used to melt ice left in the wake of the firefighting efforts. Human remains were carefully removed and then finally identified over a period of several weeks with the assistance of forensic anthropology students. The cockpit had sustained the greatest impact force, while the main cabin was mostly destroyed by the ensuing fire. Passengers in the rear section were still strapped in their seats.
Autopilot The autopilot was under control until it automatically disconnected when the stall-warning stick shaker activated. The NTSB found no evidence of severe icing conditions that would have required the pilots to fly manually. Colgan recommended that its pilots fly manually in icing conditions and required them to do so in severe icing conditions. In December 2008, the NTSB issued a safety bulletin about the danger of keeping the autopilot engaged during icing conditions. Flying the plane manually was essential to ensure that pilots would be able to detect changes in the handling characteristics of the airplane, which are warning signs of ice accumulation.