What new information regarding the deadly crash of flight 3407 is available from NTSB accident reports?
Who’s flying the plane? The National Transportation Safety Board’s hearings into the crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407 that killed 50 people near Buffalo in February has revealed some highly disturbing details. Flying fatigued and facing unfamiliar conditions, the pilot and co-pilot apparently did not realize the plane’s air speed was too low. When a warning system vibrated the control column, the captain pulled the plane’s nose up when he should have pushed it down. This caused the twin-engine turboprop to plunge to the ground, landing on a house. Forty-nine people on the plane perished, as did a man in the house. In addition to disconcerting information about this particular crash, the NTSB hearing has illuminated other troubling concerns about the crews’ experience, training, working conditions and pay. These are critical issues, considering that major air carriers subcontract thousands of flights a day to smaller carriers. With rare exceptions, these flights operate safel
The lack of experience, fatigue and low pay of the Buffalo-bound prop jet pilots involved in the worst U.S. plane crash in seven years created a “recipe for an accident,” the government said Wednesday. The National Transportation Safety Board grilled airline officials in all-day testimony about whether Pilot Marvin Renslow and First Officer Rebecca Shaw should have been in the cockpit of Continental Connection Flight 3407 at all. The NTSB hearings into what caused the plane to dive into a house on an icy February night moments before landing will wrap up Thursday. All 49 on board were killed in the fiery crash, along with a man inside the home. Click here for crash photos. Day two of the NTSB’s three-day public probe into the accident focused primarily on the hiring and employment practices for pilots by Colgan Air, which was operating the doomed flight. Renslow and Shaw made several fundamental mistakes on their approach into Buffalo that appear to have contributed to the crash, testi
