Investigators Say Plane Fell Flat on House Below

[Are_grits_groceries]

WILLIAMSVILLE, N.Y. — The National Transportation Safety Board said Saturday the plane that crashed on Thursday night, killing 50, plummeted flat onto a house in suburban Buffalo seconds after two automatic systems told the pilot that it was not moving fast enough to stay in the air, and that it was facing away from Buffalo Niagara International Airport, where it was to land.
<snip>
“What we found was all four corners of the airplane — we have found the cockpit, the tail section, both wings and engines — and they are where they should be if an airplane is laying flat,” Mr. Chealander said. “It is not oriented as a nose-down accident would take place.”

He also said the way the plane was laying on the ground was “oriented in the opposite direction” of where it was landing.

Interactive graphic: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/02/13/nyregion/Buffalo-Crash.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/us/16web-crash.html?hp

It was a horrible tragedy. However, if the plane hadn't just dropped, the damage on the ground could have been much worse. I've never read about anything like this before.

[dkf]

1. I don't get what happened...

Why would a plane not be going fast enough? Is it pilot error?

[LakeSamish706]

3. They had a former NTSB expert on CNN last night and he was talking about icing....

He claimed that this plane apparently had severe icing and literally dropped out of the sky from stall speed due to the icing conditions that occured when they lowered there landing gear.... Sorry, I don't recall his name.

[undeterred]

6. John Nance was talking on another channel

and thats what he said too. The ice makes it impossible to control the wings and lift the plane. Those poor people must have had a terrifying moment.

[LakeSamish706]

8. No kidding, knowing that you are about to die and nothing can save you....

That would be very horrifying indeed.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. They said there was ice on the wings, and on the windshield...

The plane may have stalled due to excess weight. They were trying to de-ice, and it didn't work.

Horrifying.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. The most likely possibility seems to be ice.

If there is too much ice on the wings and tail the airplane will stall. To say that it wasn't going fast enough is not exactly accurate; it was probably going fast enough for an airplane that didn't have ice on it. But if there is ice, the stall speed will increase considerably and the airplane will basically stop flying because the ice prevents the wings from generating lift, exspecially after flap extension (which can impair the airflow over the horizontal stabilizer). It could have been that the anti-icing systems were not working properly and the pilots didn't know how much ice they were carrying. In some rare cases ice can accumulate too fast for the de-icing boots to remove it.

[LakeSamish706]

7. This type of airplane has rubber boots over the wings that inflate to break...

up the ice that forms. The deicing is started by a switch in the cockpit and expands the rubber boots to break the ice buildup off of the leading edge of the wings...

[Codeine]

9. Ice on the wings

ruins the aerodynamics of the airfoil shape. No lift means the plane stops being a plane and becomes a rock.

[Name removed]

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[malaise]

2. I can't imagine those last 30 seconds of life

That's the real tragedy - knowing you're about to die and not being able to do a damn thing.

[stray cat]

10. Thats what I think about as well - really tragic and horrifying

[Are_grits_groceries]

11. This was worse: Japan Airlines Flight 123 on 5/12/1985

The flight took off from Runway C-15-L<4> at Tokyo International Airport (commonly referred to as Haneda Airport) in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan at 6:12 p.m., 12 minutes behind schedule.<5> About 12 minutes after takeoff, as the aircraft reached cruising altitude over Sagami Bay, the rear pressure bulkhead failed. The resulting explosive decompression tore the vertical stabilizer from the aircraft and severed all four of the aircraft's hydraulic systems. A photograph taken from the ground some time later confirmed that the vertical stabilizer was missing.
<snip>
With the loss of control and non-functional control surfaces, the aircraft began to oscillate up and down in what is known as a phugoid cycle, a flight mode typical of accidents that disable an aircraft's controls. After descending to 13,500 feet (4100 m), the pilots reported that the aircraft was uncontrollable. It flew over the Izu Peninsula, headed for the Pacific Ocean, then turned back toward the shore and descended to below 7,000 feet (2100 m) before the pilots managed to return to a climb. The aircraft reached an altitude of 13,000 feet (4000 m) before entering a wild descent into the mountains and disappearing from radar at 6:56 p.m. and 6,800 feet (2100 m). During the oscillations that preceded the crash, the pilots managed a small measure of control by using engine thrust. The final moments of the plane occurred when it hit a mountain as a result of this loss of control, flipped, and landed on its back.

Thirty-two minutes elapsed from the time of the accident to the time of the crash, long enough for some passengers to write farewells to their families.<8>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_123

They had 32 minutes of hell. I cannot imagine the 30 seconds in NY much less this amount of time.

[liberalpragmatist]

13. Yikes!

32 minutes of that?!

Another scary one had to be TWA Flight 800 - following the explosion, the front section tore off, but the rear section accelerated and shot way up before stalling and then crashing - nearly everyone on board was alive before it hit the water. That had to be just as scary.