Last week's crash of Colgan Air Flight 3407 brought the reality of aircraft icing back to the forefront of the aviation safety discussion. The Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 was on approach to Buffalo Thursday night in wintry conditions when the aircraft experienced a sudden loss of control leading to a crash about five miles away from the airport.Early indications have pointed to icing buildup as a potential cause for the loss of control. NASA has done extensive research on aircraft icing including exploring the impact on small turboprop aircraft:
"With the increasing take off and landing cycles of turboprop aircraft each year, these aircraft are statistically more exposed to potential icing conditions for a greater percentage of flight time than aircraft flying longer and higher altitude routes."The video explores, in a highly controlled flight test environment, the kind of techniques used to safely fly an aircraft that is facing tailplane icing.
Quite chillingly, the narrator discusses the results of testing:
There are three paths that can lead to tail stall conditions if the horizontal stabilizer is contaminated with ice. These are:Adding:
- Increasing flaps
- Increasing speed
- Increasing power
"If you are flying on autopilot, you would almost certainly miss these symptoms because you would not get any tactile feedback from the controls."Unfortunately, the video is not embeddable here due to the permissions, though I highly recommend viewing it directly through Google Video. Special thanks to Nick Oakley for letting me know about this video.
Photo Courtesy of Bombardier
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