Hello all; I've been reading this forum for around 20 years, and felt the need to join today when I saw this thread. I know, I know, "new member doesn't know what they're talking about" but...
Much like Astro14's thread about the F-14, I have experience in this airplane. I flew the Q400 - at Colgan, for over 4 years and 2500 hours. I have more than 1000 landings in the airplane and flew throughout the Northeast US and Canada. Becky (the First Officer) was in my new hire class. I spoke with the entire crew in the crew room that day, and flew the first flight out of Buffalo the following morning; so I was there.
Sorry about your experiences with poor dispatch reliability, Astro. While I was based in Norfolk (in the time it was open) you may have been on my early morning flight more than once. There were only 2 instances in 3-1/2 years that my aircraft required a cancellation or return to the gate. Some were teething pains, some were maintenance related (I'll address some of that in a minute), and some were due to the quirks of the aircraft which, once figured out, were no more.
Snagglefoot commented maybe US maintenance doesn't know how to maintain them - which is somewhat true. The Q400 is not the same as earlier model Dash-8s, which could be maintained like a Boeing - that is, to oversimplify - you have a good aircraft, fly it till something breaks and fix it, then it's solid for a good long while.
The Q400 is different. VERY different. The type rating for earlier Dash-8s does not transfer to the Q. We can start at 9 computers that all talk to each other, and a requirement for a laptop to be plugged in to recalibrate those computers at least every 16 hours of operating time. This is information straight from the factory rep that I spoke with, at length, more than once, when the aircraft was being rolled out. Colgan management did not initially know about (or ignored?) this requirement, and therefore the computers would get out of sync and require down time. There was also a fuel valve above each engine in the wing, that regularly failed at around 2200-2300 hours. Every OTHER operator in the world flying the Q400 replaced that valve prior to 2000 hours, but Colgan allowed it to fail before replacing it. [insert discussion here about how many of the managers at Colgan operated their department to maximize their bonus, rather than running the airline efficiently. Oh the stories I could tell]. That's just 2 issues.
Astro's right, most of the crashes were due to landing gear failure, and as correctly mentioned it was a bad parts supplier/manufacturing issue. By the time Colgan got theirs, the gear issue had been found and solved and there were no gear collapses at Colgan.
Sensitivity to icing was mentioned. Flying in the Northeast, I flew with approximately 1" of ice on the airframe more than once or twice, and the aircraft (with properly functioning anti-ice equipment, which the accident aircraft did have) flew without issues, with the exception of adding several knots to the landing speed.
To the accident.
Fatigue was the major factor in this. Colgan had recently closed all the satellite bases and consolidated to Newark. The FO was living in Norfolk while that base was open, and decided to move home to Washington State ... about 2 weeks prior to the accident. In speaking with her the day of the accident, she had gone skiing, commuted all night on FedEx, and their entire day except the Buffaolo flight had been cancelled due to the snow storm in the New York area. She also had what seemed to me to be a bad cold, which could be clearly heard later on the CVR. Marvin had (responsibly) commuted in the night before, but then spent the night in the crew room. Media reports say this was against company policy ... however that policy was actually initiated after the accident. At that time, Colgan was "in the process" of setting up the quiet rooms required by regulation, so they were not yet available to the crew that day. Unrested, unable to sleep, hanging out all day in the noisy crew room = tired.
Respectfully, there was nothing involving icing here; I flew in about 4 hours prior to the accident airplane under bad conditions and zero issues. It was all pilot error and failure to break the stall. Marvin (the Captain) fought the stick pusher all the way to the ground. At the stall, he also increased power only to about half of maximum. I firmly believe that the startle reflex and fatigue caused him to react incorrectly. The aircraft went from about 190 knots down to 84 knots, and from 2 degrees nose up to almost 30 degrees nose up, and no one said or did anything. This was a major failure in paying attention, which was most certainly fatigue.
Following the accident, our next simulator session included getting loaded up with maximum icing and recreating the accident. Power was brought to idle and the instructor told us that when the airplane stalled, to simply "come all the way up on the power and touch nothing else". We did this, and the plane in the same configuration held altitude, autopilot off, with maximum ice, all by itself. So if Marvin had come all the way up on the power and not fought the stick pusher, the accident would not have occurred.
Most definitely not trying to stir the pot or start an argument; I've tried to present the facts as I know them and am happy to answer any questions, if I can, to clarify anything in my narrative that needs it.
K2
