Flight 3407

Thoughts and prayers with those aboard, and loved ones on the ground :(

I'm about 40 miles from the crash, and the weather really isn't that bad... except that there's definitely been icing conditions around 3000'. Funny to hear that there's only "trace" icing present (not really dangerous for short periods of time), it's hard to imagine what else likely factored in, given that winds were relatively light with no storms, manageable visibility, and witnesses heard the engines before impact. The aircraft seemed to basically nosedive straight in... typical of a failed stall recovery. The crew would have reported a problem to ATC if some system or structural failure was apparent.

Trouble is, I bet freezing rain was present given a quick look at weather data (and rime icing was reported in the area). Freezing rain can be BAD NEWS BEARS pretty quickly if you're stuck in it. Forgive me but I'm always quick to speculate with aviation related news, and all I can think of is a tail stall occurred due to icing on turn to final for RWY 23, and the location they crashed was around where they would be configuring final flaps and reducing airspeed. Could definitely cause a tail stall if the anti-ice system failed or they hadn't followed procedure, and airspeed was too low. Low, slow, and configured for approach doesn't leave much room to recover if something goes wrong. In addition, witnesses say the approach was pretty loud.... they probably pushed the throttles to full trying to recover.

Obviously I can't say for certain, and given how dangerous a tail stall and recovery is at low altitude.... just saying that's my first guess.

Either way, hard to internalize what's just happened. If I had gotten an interview with Colgan last spring, that could have even be me in the right seat. The Q400 is an amazing plane, a newer version of the Dash-8 I was supposed to be flying for Piedmont by now, but something went terribly wrong here :( Really hope it wasn't a relatively young FO like myself at the controls, regardless of how well we're trained... experience is honestly pretty important, as was evident in the Miracle on the Hudson... I hope we didn't just see the other side of that coin.

Keep them all in your prayers. gnite.