ATR 72 Crash in Brazil

I don’t mean to bring this thread back to reality, but there are a lot of families tonight who care less about how well a light triple climbs, or the trivial tribulations of our refined breed…might we return to the actual topic? Or at least necropost this in 4-6 months when we have some sort of report…ive been fighting my urge to comment, as my light/commuter twin was different, granted perhaps one of the more recent here; but if i will advocate to a return to the OP

Flying these types through significant ice can be a challenge. What you see/feel is a lie…always assume the tail is worse than you know (+10 to all speed. PERIOD), pop the damn boots…none of that “bridging is myth” or “bridging is real, MEN land with ice horns” bullcrap…sure, youll get that crappy etch o sketch of ice, but better that than not. My rule of thumb was 3/8 an inch, pop, and ANYTIME i was in potential ice, on initial D id blow boots, even if clear. Escape maneuver if you cant turn back, cant get out and are iced?: an old freight dog, who flew better than any man I know taught me, as i gave his recurrent type of all things, (of course no ‘real’ reference other than his 15k+ hours in similar type) the “dolphin”…you start packing ice more than you can shed at cruises or normal decent, declare emergency (and/or request a block), then cram power, climb gentle until you see speed bleed from a safe margin, than dive to the MSA AS FAST AS YOU CAN….speed helps shed, hit bottom alt then bounce back up….rinse repeat. Yes, the accident capt might have been a bit green …yes, its not our specific corner of the world; but flying turboprops in ice is a long lost art…and chances are in SA they only have “book knowledge”, not decades of tribal to teach them what the PUBs leave out.

Sorry, rant over.
 
Boots2Wings said:
I don’t mean to bring this thread back to reality, but there are a lot of families tonight who care less about how well a light triple climbs, or the trivial tribulations of our refined breed…might we return to the actual topic? Or at least necropost this in 4-6 months when we have some sort of report…ive been fighting my urge to comment, as my light/commuter twin was different, granted perhaps one of the more recent here; but if i will advocate to a return to the OP

Flying these types through significant ice can be a challenge. What you see/feel is a lie…always assume the tail is worse than you know (+10 to all speed. PERIOD), pop the damn boots…none of that “bridging is myth” or “bridging is real, MEN land with ice horns” bullcrap…sure, youll get that crappy etch o sketch of ice, but better that than not. My rule of thumb was 3/8 an inch, pop, and ANYTIME i was in potential ice, on initial D id blow boots, even if clear. Escape maneuver if you cant turn back, cant get out and are iced?: an old freight dog, who flew better than any man I know taught me, as i gave his recurrent type of all things, (of course no ‘real’ reference other than his 15k+ hours in similar type) the “dolphin”…you start packing ice more than you can shed at cruises or normal decent, declare emergency (and/or request a block), then cram power, climb gentle until you see speed bleed from a safe margin, than dive to the MSA AS FAST AS YOU CAN….speed helps shed, hit bottom alt then bounce back up….rinse repeat. Yes, the accident capt might have been a bit green …yes, its not our specific corner of the world; but flying turboprops in ice is a long lost art…and chances are in SA they only have “book knowledge”, not decades of tribal to teach them what the PUBs leave out.

Sorry, rant over.
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[Mod note: Just so happens I have enough time while drinking my coffee this morning, and I was enjoying the aircraft performance off-topic discussion, so I moved those posts to a new thread. I left the wake turbulence / separation posts here…]
 
Boots2Wings said:
…the “dolphin”…you start packing ice more than you can shed at cruises or normal decent, declare emergency (and/or request a block), then cram power, climb gentle until you see speed bleed from a safe margin, than dive to the MSA AS FAST AS YOU CAN….speed helps shed, hit bottom alt then bounce back up….rinse repeat. …
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Wut?
 
Wardogg said:
Wut?
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Name needed revision, but technique worked well. A common issue newer guys would get find themselves in is at cruise, lets say FL200, was theyd pack ice on and bleed speed from a cruise of about 200-210, until theyd get to min icing speed with max power, say 160kias, At that point all you can do is drift down. But if your msa is 16, thats not alot of room. So early on, if you cant turn back, get out of it, or what have you , as you notice speed decay in excess of what you think you can prevent from reaching min icing, set mct, request a block from 24-16 and then gently climb up until you near min icing (+ margin), then decend at speed towards the msa, shed what you can, then repeat. Also allows you test other altitude to see if theres less icing around…drawn out, the flight path looks like a porpoising movement *shrug*. Also, should go without saying, no AP usage in this type of icing.
 
Boots2Wings said:
Name needed revision, but technique worked well. A common issue newer guys would get find themselves in is at cruise, lets say FL200, was theyd pack ice on and bleed speed from a cruise of about 200-210, until theyd get to min icing speed with max power, say 160kias, At that point all you can do is drift down. But if your msa is 16, thats not alot of room. So early on, if you cant turn back, get out of it, or what have you , as you notice speed decay in excess of what you think you can prevent from reaching min icing, set mct, request a block from 24-16 and then gently climb up until you near min icing (+ margin), then decend at speed towards the msa, shed what you can, then repeat. Also allows you test other altitude to see if theres less icing around…drawn out, the flight path looks like a porpoising movement *shrug*. Also, should go without saying, no AP usage in this type of icing.
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Yeah, no.

Toobdrvr said:
Sounds like a “don’t be there in the first place”-type situation…

“The superior pilot uses superior judgement to avoid situations which require superior skill”. Or something like that.
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This.

20 years in a big fat turboprop aircraft stuck in the mid to lower 20s that seemed to accumulated ice just for the fun of it and that “procedure” sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Granted we had heated wings and tail but still….
 
Boots2Wings said:
Name needed revision, but technique worked well. A common issue newer guys would get find themselves in is at cruise, lets say FL200, was theyd pack ice on and bleed speed from a cruise of about 200-210, until theyd get to min icing speed with max power, say 160kias, At that point all you can do is drift down. But if your msa is 16, thats not alot of room. So early on, if you cant turn back, get out of it, or what have you , as you notice speed decay in excess of what you think you can prevent from reaching min icing, set mct, request a block from 24-16 and then gently climb up until you near min icing (+ margin), then decend at speed towards the msa, shed what you can, then repeat. Also allows you test other altitude to see if theres less icing around…drawn out, the flight path looks like a porpoising movement *shrug*. Also, should go without saying, no AP usage in this type of icing.
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It's worth noting that transport turboprop cruise altitudes are way more susceptible to icing than jet cruising levels, and that the worst icing/most rapid accumulation I've ever encountered rather hilariously happened in the summertime at those altitudes, too.
 
Inverted said:
I hate to take the conversation and thread down this direction but I am going to do it anyway. I think the accident history is largely due to the airplane being fine when everything is good, but less forgiving when there might be an issue or situation that exposes a lack of training, lack of experience, lack of CRM, etc.

We have seen several ATR crashes where the wrong engine was feathered, props were brought back instead of flaps, etc. It makes me wonder if the ATR and similar are just less forgiving to bad piloting than other airplanes. 737 comes to mind over the Airbus. Airbus you can kick the autopilot on at 100 feet and autoland it at the destination. The 737 is much more manual and hands-on and I think that really does trip up airlines and countries that lack the training and experience that other countries have.
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The most insane ATR crash was PIA approaching Islamabad. The amount of failures they experienced, from initial reduction, to prop speed runaway, to reverse (beta?) inflight. In the end, there was no way to maintain level flight. Their only option was a continuous descend to trade altitude for airspeed and an off-airport landing, or maybe a closed military field.
 
Autothrust Blue said:
It's worth noting that transport turboprop cruise altitudes are way more susceptible to icing than jet cruising levels, and that the worst icing/most rapid accumulation I've ever encountered rather hilariously happened in the summertime at those altitudes, too.
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Worst And fastest-forming ice I've ever flown out of very quickly I encountered at 17000 feet in August.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
The most insane ATR crash was PIA approaching Islamabad. The amount of failures they experienced, from initial reduction, to prop speed runaway, to reverse (beta?) inflight. In the end, there was no way to maintain level flight. Their only option was a continuous descend to trade altitude for airspeed and an off-airport landing, or maybe a closed military field.
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My thanks to PIA for ignoring a P&W service directive regarding turbine blade life limits.

Oh and PIA didn't trust their own techops people to overhaul the overspeed governors neither. Yikes.
 
Wow, reading that…seems there was a complete lack of “monitoring”, as both were on radios/talking to pax/no one was minding the shop.

That was a tough read.
 
I didn't understand why they kept turning that anti-ice system on and off, over some fault? But what I mainly kept thinking as I was reading is why they didn't make any effort to quickly get out of the ice.
 
BobDDuck said:
I've posted about it before, but I got rolled about 90 degrees in a CRJ taking off behind a 330 in PHL. And this was before RECAT so you got even more space back then.

Even now in a heavy, I still drag my feet a bit taxiing into position and putting up the power if we've been cleared to go right behind another big plane.
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Crj behind 330 is still 5 miles with recat/cwt. That one didn’t change. But behind a 76 it’s only 3.5 now instead of 5.

I get a lot of “what are we following?” when behind a 737-900. Something about them produces an inordinate amount of wake.
 
Maximilian_Jenius said:
500 hour pilot question. Don't taze me. But aren't you supposed to take off before or after a heavy jet t/o point, to avoid that? I know that you said that you were heavy, but could you have ran the numbers to takeoff at a higher thrust output, to take off before their rotation and fly above the 767's wake?
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Sorry I just saw your quote.

Take off numbers get run for a runway / weight / winds / clutter.!beyond that it doesn’t really give us leeway to rotate late / etc.
 
BobDDuck said:
I've posted about it before, but I got rolled about 90 degrees in a CRJ taking off behind a 330 in PHL. And this was before RECAT so you got even more space back then.

Even now in a heavy, I still drag my feet a bit taxiing into position and putting up the power if we've been cleared to go right behind another big plane.
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I hit some good wake behind a 321 departing out of CLT a few times. I got to where I would delay my turn a little. Especially if I was in the 200.
 
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