NY crash plane on autopilot
Pastor Dale Morgan
NY crash plane on autopilot*
By staff writers
February 16, 2009 07:55am
THE commuter plane that crashed into a home near Buffalo was on
autopilot when it went down in icy weather, indicating the pilot may
have violated federal safety recommendations and the airline's own
policy for such conditions.
Steve Chealander, a National Transportation Safety Board member, told
The Associated Press (AP) the company that operated the flight
recommends pilots fly manually in icy conditions.
Pilots are required to do so in severe ice.
"You may be able in a manual mode to sense something sooner than the
autopilot can sense it," Mr Chealander told AP, explaining why the NTSB
also recommends pilots disengage the autopilot in icy conditions.
The preliminary investigation indicates the autopilot was still on when
the plane crashed, he said.
That has not been confirmed by information from the plane's flight data
recorder.
The pilots of Continental Flight 3407 discussed "significant" ice
build-up on their wings and windshield just before crashing on Friday in
a suburban neighbourhood near the Buffalo airport. Fifty people were killed.
The flight was run by Colgan Air, which operates a fleet of 51 regional
turboprops for Continental Connection, United Express and US Airways
Express, AP reported.