Deadly ice that forms suddenly on commuter planes like the one that crashed in New York state is a recognized threat to air passengers, but the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not adopted recommendations made more than a decade ago intended to prevent ice-related disasters involving such aircraft.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) identified last year as one of its “most wanted” priorities changes to how US pilots would be instructed to operate anti-icing equipment on planes like Continental Connection Flight 3407, which fell out of the sky late on Thursday near Buffalo, New York, near the Canadian border. The formal safety recommendations trace to similar crashes in 1994 and 1997 in Indiana and Michigan.
“Those of us who have been involved with this process get very frustrated with the inability to get meaningful decisions out of the FAA,” said former NTSB board member John Goglia, a panel member when it investigated the 1994 crash. “They are going to think about it, they are going to put a study group together, they are going to do all these things that always equate to little or no action.”
Officials stopped short of saying ice caused Thursday night’s crash, but they said the crew who perished had noticed significant ice buildup on the wings and windshield just before the plane began pitching and rolling violently.
“Icing is certainly going to be one of the prime suspects because of where it happens and what the conditions were at the time,” said Eric Doten, a former FAA senior adviser and retired chancellor of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida.
“This will probably generate more concern about icing,” he said.
Still, fatal icing accidents have been steadily declining since 1982. Before Thursday, the last major icing airliner accident was in 2001.
Slower-moving turboprop planes are more vulnerable to icing problems than larger commercial airliners, which use heat from their engines to prevent ice buildup on wings. Turboprops use pneumatic “boot” deicers that inflate and deflate to break up ice after it forms.
Among four major ice-related recommendations by the NTSB in 1996 was a proposal to instruct pilots to use their pneumatic deicing systems early, instead of waiting for ice to form. Originally, pilots waited to use their pneumatic deicers until they saw ice form on the wings or on another part of the plane such as the windshield.
The FAA has looked into the recommendations, but has not adopted them.
The Canadian government adopted the suggested changes in 1999. The pilot manual for the Dash 8 — the type involved in the crash on Thursday — also recommends turning on anti-icing equipment immediately, said the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, which investigated a May 2005 flight in which a Dash 8 plane suddenly plunged 1,280m before its pilot regained control after 40 terrifying seconds.
“The [safety] board has been extremely concerned about the loss of control that can occur in icing conditions,” former NTSB chairman Jim Hall said. “Unfortunately, it is again a case of the FAA failing to follow through on the NTSB recommendations in a timely fashion.”
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
EYEING A SOLUTION: In unusually critical remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump said he was ‘destroying Russia by not making a deal’ US President Donald Trump on Wednesday stepped up the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal with Ukraine, threatening tougher economic measures if Moscow does not agree to end the war. Trump’s warning in a social media post came as the Republican seeks a quick solution to a grinding conflict that he had promised to end before even starting his second term. “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
RSS