49 dead in plane crash.  Sad day.

I heard this morning that one of the passengers was a widow of a man who died on one of the 9-11 planes. She was visiting his family. Very sad..

Horrific for sure.  Sounds like witnesses on the ground heard the plane "sputter" before its crash.  NTSB will be on scene this morning to determine the cause of the crash.

I heard this morning that one of the passengers was a widow of a man who died on one of the 9-11 planes. She was visiting his family. Very sad..

It should be a cosmic law that nothing additional can happen to those families of the victims of 9-11.  My heart goes out to all the families, but how much can one family take!!!

I heard this morning that one of the passengers was a widow of a man who died on one of the 9-11 planes. She was visiting his family. Very sad..

It should be a cosmic law that nothing additional can happen to those families of the victims of 9-11. My heart goes out to all the families, but how much can one family take!!!

I read that too, and I agree with you on that cosmic law.

Horrific for sure. Sounds like witnesses on the ground heard the plane "sputter" before its crash. NTSB will be on scene this morning to determine the cause of the crash.

There is no such thing as a sputter on a turboprop/jet engine.

It almost had to be sudden and my guess has always been ice build up on the wings/props and they crashed at the marker (5 miles from the airport) which means they just put the landing gear down. The airplane had so much ice when the gear was extended it could not fly with the increased drag and it rolled over on a wing and nosed in.

I will bet you a Rapala X-Rap this will be the cause.

Kevin (bc57)

Is the ice build up something you can get a visual on from the cockpit?

Is it something you can feel in the responsiveness (or lack of) at the controls?

Rest in peace all but lets try to remember the odds, many, many, many more people pass away in car accidents than plane crashes,...flying is one of the SAFER ways to travel.

Rest in peace all, prayers sent

Kevin (bc57)

Is the ice build up something you can get a visual on from the cockpit?

Is it something you can feel in the responsiveness (or lack of) at the controls?

Rest in peace all but lets try to remember the odds, many, many, many more people pass away in car accidents than plane crashes,...flying is one of the SAFER ways to travel.

Rest in peace all, prayers sent

Hi Russ,

Sorry I did not get back to you sooner but was in Hawaii and just landed in Sydney Australia.

It is easy to visually see the ice buildup as it will appear on the winshield wipers indicating ice in other places. There are lights that shine on the wings for the pilots to visually look for ice, the plane will feel very slugish, the airspeed will drop off, and most airplanes (and I suspect this one) has an instrument that will detect ice and turn on a light on the panel indicating ice. Some airplanes (probably NOT this one) will automatically turn on the deice/anti-ice equipment. On this model I would think the crew would simply turn on 3 switches for ice protection.

The winshield heat should have been on already,

(1) The propellers have a switch to turn on electrically heated panels, (2) The engines have a switch to open valves allowing heated air into the front to keep ice from forming,

(3) The wings,  horizontal and vertical tail fins have di-ice equipment on the leading edges that is turned on with a switch and will cycle automatically. Think of a bicycle inner tube glued lengthwise to the leading edge of the wing and tail. When the ice builds up, flip the switch, the "inner tube" called boots inflate causing the ice to break allowing the wind to blow the ice away.

The problem is if the crew inflates the boots without enough ice on the airplane the boots will, for lack of a better word, stretch the ice instead of breaking it. If this occurs then the boots become ineffective allowing ice to build up until the wings become so inefficient the wings don't make much lift and things become VERY difficult. Most airplanes can be flown with large loads of ice but you better be on your A game.

Most always one wing will lose more lift faster causing the airplane to roll then the nose will drop drastically. With a load of ice, at night, in the clouds, at only 3000 feet, there is NOT enough time to recover.

This is a sad day for so many families and these accidents hit very close to home.

If there is any comfort at least the occupants passed instantly and their fear was VERY short lived. What a tragedy!

Thanks for the mini education, great reply.