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Buffalo Plane Crash Pilot Reportedly Unprepared
By
Jen Chung
Published May 11, 2009
Modified May 11, 2009
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By
Jen Chung
Published May 11, 2009
Modified May 11, 2009
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According to the Wall Street Journal's sources, "The captain of a commuter plane that crashed Feb. 12 near Buffalo, N.Y., had flunked numerous flight tests during his career and was never adequately taught how to respond to the emergency that led to the airplane's fatal descent." The 49 passengers and crew members aboard Continental Airlines Flight 3407, which took off from Newark and was headed to Buffalo, were killed, as was a man on the ground. The plane was a Bombardier Q400; the WSJ adds, "Capt. Marvin Renslow had never been properly trained by the company to respond to a warning system designed to prevent the plane from going into a stall...As the speed slowed to a dangerous level, setting off the stall-prevention system, he did the opposite of the proper procedure, which led to the crash, these people said." The NTSB will be holding three days of hearings about the crash in D.C., starting tomorrow; the NY Times reports that while the FAA requires "sterile" (meaning no irrelevant conversation) cockpits below 10,000 feet, "According to one investigator familiar with the contents of the cockpit voice recorder from the plane, the pilots’ 'heads weren’t in the game.'"
Tagged
buffalo
Continental 3407
faa
ntsb
pilot error
plane crash
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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