Dash-8 Q400 Crash: Profile of a Doomed Plane

• air travel
• safety
• NTSB
• Bombardier
• plane crashes

Scandinavian Airlines in 2007 decided not to fly the Dash-8 Q400 after three of their 27 fleet crashed that year because of faulty landing gear.(Photo by JOHAN NILSSON/AFP/Getty Images)

When New York State police confirmed that all 49 passengers aboard Continental Connection flight 3407 died in this morning's crash, it broke an unprecedented streak of fatality-free aviation in the U.S. It has been two years since a fatality has been reported on board a U.S. flight.

The airplane was a Dash-8 Q400, barely a year old. (For FAA records on this airplane, click here.) Continental Connection, operated by Manassas, Va.-based Colgan Air, bought the airplane in 2008 and recently announced plans to buy more.

The airplane, a twin-engine turbo prop airplane used for short trips (about 500 miles or less), has a decent safety record. However, Scandinavian Airlines in 2007 decided not to fly the airplanes after three of their 27 fleet crashed that year because of faulty landing gear. Today's crash occurred during an approach to land. Because the airplane was still in the air, the landing gear is not a likely cause.

Turboprops most common use is for small, short-hop commuter routes. One disadvantage is that they are more vulnerable from ice buildup. Given that fact, and the weather conditions and reports that other airline pilots flying in and out of Buffalo reported ice buildup on their airplanes, the National Transportation Safety Board will be looking at ice as a primary suspect. (Here is a 2004 NTSB advisory on ice buildup during takeoffs.) "A very light coating of snow or ice, light enough to be hardly visible, will have a tremendous effect on reducing the performance of a modern airplane," the NTSB noted in an advisory on ice.

Ice can stall an engine, muck up control surfaces on wings and even small amounts can decrease the lift a wing produces. Airplanes have ways to combat ice, such as inflating bladders or, in the case of the Dash-8 Q400, there are rubber bladders that a pilot inflates to crack ice forming on the wings. The vibration of the rushing wind against the rubber peels the ice away.

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