Expert: Pilots in N.Y. crash responded improperly to alert
WASHINGTON -- The pilots on the commuter plane that crashed last February near Buffalo were oblivious to the emergency that triggered the crash, an expert in human behavior told investigators Thursday.
Key Dismukes, a NASA researcher, said the pilots not only failed to recognize that they were rapidly losing speed, but they did not respond correctly when a warning device attempted to alert them to the problem.
"In this case, I don't see any evidence that (the flight's captain) ever recognized the situation he was in," Dismukes told the National Transportation Safety Board during a hearing into the crash.
The Feb. 12 accident on Continental Connection Flight 3407 killed 50 people. The flight was being operated by regional carrier Colgan Air.
Dismukes, who has written several books on how pilots make mistakes, offered some of the first explanations of what could have been on the minds of Capt. Marvin Renslow and copilot Rebecca Shaw in the critical moments that their plane went out of control.
He said Renslow and Shaw exhibited classic symptoms of how humans err in critical situations when they are startled, inadequately trained to handle emergencies or so tired that they cannot perform routine tasks.
Their conversation shortly before the accident about the icy conditions they were flying in — a violation of federal rules prohibiting extraneous conversation below 10,000 feet — was a distraction that may have led them to lose focus, he said.
Another possible factor, he said, is that the airline industry's training for how to recognize "aerodynamic stalls" — when a plane gets too slow and the wings can no longer keep a plane aloft — are inadequate.
Pilots are trained repeatedly on stalls in simulators, but they know that the stall is about to occur. What's missing is training for the element of surprise, Dismukes said.
Being startled by an emergency such as a stall, particularly when visibility is poor and when pilots are fatigued, often prompts the wrong response, he said. Both pilots did not get a full night's sleep before the crash, according to NTSB records.
