The inexperienced captain of Flight 3407, which crashed into a Buffalo home, killing 50 people in February, flirted and discussed relationships with his much younger female co-pilot moments before the fatal plunge, sources close to the investigation said.
What transpired between Capt. Marvin Renslow, 47, and his co-pilot, Rebecca Shaw, 24, in the minutes before the disaster will be topic No. 1 at a public hearing by the National Transportation Safety Board today in Washington, DC. The two chatted back and forth during the final approach into Buffalo Niagara International Airport despite FAA rules that forbid non-flight-related talk below 10,000 feet, sources said.
Their banter was captured on the flight recorder, one source close to the investigation told The Post. Transcripts of their conversation may be released over the three-day hearing. Shaw may have further been too fatigued to aid Renslow, sources said.
She had just taken a red-eye flight to Newark after spending a week skiing and visiting her parents in Seattle, complained about a head cold and said she should have taken a sick day. Renslow, 47, was never properly trained on the Dash 8-Q400 Bombardier’s anti-stall stick-pusher, sources said. The safety feature automatically points the plane’s nose into a dive to allow it to gain speed to prevent a stall if the plane slows down. Pilots should push the stick forward to gain speed if this happens, but Renslow apparently yanked back, causing the crash.
Colgan, the Manassas, Va.-based airline that contracts with Continental, never provided proper training on the stick-pusher or de-icing system, sources said.
Renslow had also failed numerous competency exams, called check rides, throughout his short career as a pilot. He graduated from pilot school in 2005 and had already failed three proficiency tests on general aviation aircraft administered by the FAA. At Colgan, he failed two more accreditation exams on turboprop planes. He bombed in his first bid to qualify as a co-pilot on the Beech 1900 aircraft. Then he failed in his first try for Saab 340 pilot certification.
As I understand it the pilot was qualified in that he passed the mandatory check ride and followed all FAA regs including one that does not require any practical training on the stick-pusher for any pilot. All regs except for the requirement for sterile cockpit conversation below 10,000 ft, that is.
http://tinyurl.com/qwbutg
RBG
Which caused the accident: Banter between the pilot and co-pilot or the pilot not being qualified to fly that plane? Mot a difficult choice.
Unless the banter continued and significantly delayed any response to the situation by either pilot, why is it even an issue? To suggest otherwise is foolish if not dishonnest.
The question of interst is who assigned that pilot to fly that plane?
The last paragraph leaves the clear impression the company and the FAA knew the pilot was having trouble (failing tests). Yet he was flying a plane and not training in a simulator. The result has little or nothing to do with banter or flirting. To suggest otherwise is simply an attempt to shift blame.
This flight went down not far from me. I heard from one of the parents in my kids’ karate dojo that the crash was due to the pilot flirting with the cute young thing in the co-pilot’s chair – and I heard this a month ago. The guy who mentioned this is a private pilot, a lawyer, and a blowhard. I figured he was talking out his arse. Guess not. He also said the pilot made a greenhorn mistake due to paying more attention to his dumbstick than the stallstick.
If the local lawyer in the hood knew about this that long ago…you know the line of lawyers waiting to stick it to Colgan is very, very long. Colgan is so screwed.
i read the transcripts and i didnt hear any flirting. i don’t understand this assessment. i heard some small talk, and some talk about experience in icy conditions…but i didnt hear him offer her a back rub or anything. this is bullshit, and they both died trying to save the plane and passengers…lets have some respect.
From #3
“…is a private pilot, a lawyer, and a blowhard.”
Amazing how often that combination appears.
Am I the only one who thinks the surface area of
the wings are unusually small compared to the rest of the “air frame”?
Obviously it has enough lift to fly, but what about ‘reserve’ lift for when there is several
hundred pounds if ice changing the airfoil shape?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Dash_8_in_planform_arp_rotated_03.jpg
Did the person who wrote this article actually read the transcript? There is nothing in there that can even be remotely considered “flirting”. It’s inane banter, no doubt, but to accuse these two of flirting with each other is irresponsible journalism, to say the least.
#7
is irresponsible journalism, to say the least.
Nobody ever accused McCullough or any of the other hacks here of responsible journalism.
Such a sad incident. They pilot and the copilot are not alive so they cant answer to any allegations thrown against them. this gives the FAA and other agencies the full rights to makeup as many stories they want and frame the dead pilots.
Shame!
No frame up here. Cockpit tapes and flight recorder indicate they were pretty cavalier about the situation and the pilot reacted incorrectly but I didn’t hear any flirting in the reports on our local news. This happened just down the road a bit and is being covered pretty heavily.
I think that the NTSB investigators know the cause of these crashes, within hours of finding the flight records, most of the time. But their job is to then delay their report. Until the “right people” can dump their stock in the company(s) most likely to take a hit from the news, and possible law suits to follow.
And this airline company’s choice of pilots, begs certain questions like, Are there so few good pilots available these days, that this was their only choice? Maybe their are way too many flights, for the number of decent pilots to fill. Or was it more an issue of salary? In my opinion, these commuter flight accidents are a strong argument for more commuter railways. A decent, modern, high speed rail system, in the US, could reduce a lot of these unnecessary accidents for such short trips. In many a European country (and Japan), citizens would take the train to cover the same short distance. But the air travel industry has seen to it that Rail gets a raw deal, when it comes to laying tracks vs building airports. New highways they can build too, but not new tracks.
Something is missing. Accepting as true that the cockpit banter was not flirting, I “have to” further assume the pilot was QUALIFIED to fly this plane–although becoming a pilot in 2005 and a command pilot by 2009 seems freakish.
Every pilot knows you add power when you pull up on the stick, unless you are upside down.
How far above minimum wage are these commercial airline pilot jobs going for these days? Old men/young girls—hah, hah.
um ,hello?
obviously, when they report pilot error and then
have to add the ever popular sexual banter/flirting (when apparently, there was none on the tape) -plus background character assasination spin to the story (for which the general American public has been accutly programmed to “relate to” and unconciously
have an “aha” moment)
-there is an alterior motive or a coverup in play.
assign a level 9 Bullshit Meter Reading to the story,
and dig deeper into the history of all elements involved in the crash.
perhaps, one needs to go over the performance history of the plane and the passenger list to see if there is “more to the story than meets the eye”
personally, i think the only time *automated* anti-stall mechanics (or similar “anti” automation) is used, is to gloss over design flaws in the airframe.
as someone noted above, just looking at the plane creates “geometry alarms” in my head. it does indeed
look like (or “feel” like) the wings just do not have
the proper surface area or geometry to produce a “natural, intsinctively flying” aircraft.
at minimum, it looks like it might be a tricky
design to fly. -relative to other aircraft in it’s
class.
something is askew.
-also, might there be a larger force at play
that is yet to be revealed?
given the overall shining safety record allocated to commercial flying, -there have been far too many airliner crashes this year already.
i feel something may be effecting either pilots, aircraft, or both.
barring any “tying up lose ends” Ops that may be causing this anomaly, does anyone know of any increase in natural (or unatural) phenomena that could possibly be influencing the outcome of these
flights?
-things that make you go hmm…
-s
I still love that they tag the pilot for something that he was never trained on even though it was a known issue. Hmmm…I wonder why the Europeans airlines that got these planes dumped all their Dash 8-Q400’s after only a year or two. The rest of Europe either refuses to fly them or certify them for an airline to operate. It sounds a little cliche for me to say they should have seen this coming, but…
He got his pilot’s licence in 2005 and he was 47 and a captain? Second career or something doesn’t add up.
The “pilot” on his 4th job path, flunky, was jibber jabbering to his 24 yo “co-pilot” can could barely utter a cogent English sentenct. That is what happens–YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.
#11
The lack of experience is largely due to pay scale for the commuter airlines. My brother flies for USAIR, making about 150k. He was laid off for 2 years after 9/11 and took a job with a commuter airline for about 32k. NO ONE with experience is going to fly for that kind of money if they can help it. I personally won’t fly commuter airlines. They are an accident waiting to happen.
I was in Dulles airport about 10 years ago waiting for United Express flight. The flight was canceled. I overheard the gate personnel talking… the flight was canceled because neither the pilot nor the co-pilot was actually qualified to fly the plane.
I rented a car and drove home rather than waiting for the next flight of the barely qualified.
Looks like quite a few don’t know what flirting is all about: some guy trying to impress some chick and he finally succeeds…..