Continental plane crash in Buffalo...

[CreamE30]

Jeeeze I hate seeing this. Since when do planes start falling out of the sky like this? An F/A-18 crashes in San Diego, what was it a 747 that crashed in the Hudson, and now this? Well the Hudson crash was really unavoidable it was the duck that got sucked into the engine more than anything else.

[E30Eric]

The engine can handle one duck, but I understood it was a whole flock of Canadian geese, much bigger than ducks. Bird strike tests are quite BA though. We have a big cannon that shoots chickens (not alive) at every leading edge of the plane.

[Maluco]

Jeeeze I hate seeing this. Since when do planes start falling out of the sky like this? An F/A-18 crashes in San Diego, what was it a 747 that crashed in the Hudson, and now this? Well the Hudson crash was really unavoidable it was the duck that got sucked into the engine more than anything else.

747!!!? people would have died if it were a 747. depending on configuration, seating can reach upwards to over 500.



Airbus A320. seats about 150

[TDE30]

Tragic, I hope the media discovers who/what was responsible but I really hope they give the families time to heal without providing too much coverage of the incident.

[CreamE30]

ah ok ok I was lazy and didn't want to look it up I remember now. I also didn't know it was a flock of geese that hit the engine, I thought it was because the engine sucked in the duck during take off and failed, and since it was right in the middle of take off it didn't have enough to glide on one engine to a nearby airport

[soccer21]

That crash happend 5-6 miles from my apartment...I was at the hospital on call that night and the ER told surgery to "be ready." I've already done my trauma rotation so my chief and I were ready..but after we heard the news that there were no survivors we just left the ER. I think 2 people came in from the crash, but they were minor bumps..nothing major.

Its a shame that happend.

[Super Sedan]

Sad day indeed. The 22 year old girl who escaped the house that was hit goes to my school.

They have stated that icing on the wings was a major factor in this crash.

[Hallen]

The fact that it only hit one house basically says the plane was vertical when it hit. It was going pretty much straight down.

The first thing I thought of when I heard the reports and the weather conditions is icing. Icing and boomers are the two scariest things about flying. Boomers are a little less scary since you have instrumentation that can help guide you around them for the most part. In other words, you can "see" boomers.

Icing is another story. It is extremely difficult to forecast and predict. You can't see it coming. It can go from no big deal to screaming disaster in a matter of minutes with no warning.

I was flying back and forth between Astoria and Medford one day doing multiple trips with a full plane. We were picking up trace icing the for most of the trip. It was no big deal and the onboard systems were doing a good job of shedding the ice.

On the last trip while we were over Eugene, the trace icing changed to extreme icing in a matter of minutes. The wings started picking up ice so fast the boots couldn't clear it off. The leading edge of the wing and a good solid inch of ice on it very quickly. The heated props where shedding ice and slamming it into the side of the airplane. It makes a very loud sound and is pretty scary for the pax.

The airplane slowed down to almost stall speed even though we had applied max continuous power to the engines. This all happened in less than 5 minutes. We couldn't land in Eugene because it was completely socked in with fog, 0-0. I was just starting to make a turn for the glide path into Salem and starting to nose the aircraft down to maintain above stall speed when we broke out of the clouds. We were in full sunshine and since we were out of the clouds, we were not picking up any more ice. The sun warmed the aircraft up and we started shedding ice in big chunks.

We were able to continue the flight and finish the job. I don't know if we could have made it all the way back to Salem to land that heavy airplane or not. It was our only option at that point. I am glad we didn't have to find out.

So, my guess is the pilots of that flight ran into something similar. The only thing you can do is recognize the problems and try to exit the conditions as fast as possible. That airplane they were flying is pretty powerful, but nothing can keep flying for long if you are coated in ice. My guess is they started a turn and stalled. Airplanes like that don't like to go into a full stall and it might have flipped over on its back. They were low enough where the pilots, no matter how good, didn't have time to recover.