Landing Called Possible Despite Loss of 1 Engine : Crash: Veteran pilots say American Eagle crew probably could have continued safe descent. One says there may have been cockpit indecision.

Barring unexplained circumstances, the cockpit crew of an ill-fated American Eagle commuter plane probably should have been able to land safely after one of the plane’s two engines failed, veteran pilots said Thursday.

The British-built Jetstream Super 31 apparently was about 1,000 feet above the ground Tuesday evening, descending for a landing at Raleigh-Durham International Airport, when the crew started talking about an engine “flameout,” according to a cockpit recording recovered by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Seconds later, after the crew discussed the possibility of aborting the landing and going around for a second attempt, Flight 3379 crashed belly-down into a wooded area about four miles southwest of the airport, killing 15 of the 20 on board.

The plane is designed to fly and land on one engine, and much of the regular retraining that the cockpit crew of multi-engine planes must undergo--either in flight simulators or in actual aircraft--centers around what to do in the case of engine failure, according to several turboprop pilots who asked not to be identified.

“But it sounds like there may have been some indecision in that cockpit,” one of the pilots said.

“Any discussion about going around after a power failure is chancy,” said another pilot. “There’s absolutely no reason I can see that they would not have continued on in for a landing.”

While descending toward a runway for a landing, as American Eagle Flight 3379 was doing, relatively little power is needed to keep a plane on its intended flight path, aviation sources said.

And although the failure of one engine gives the plane asymmetrical thrust, that problem can be corrected by use of the rudder and by feathering the propeller on the failed engine, either automatically or manually.

When a turboprop engine fails, the whirling propeller provides a sort of resistance, or drag. To reduce this drag, the propeller blades are twisted, or “feathered,” so their edges are parallel to the air flow.

One of the pilots analyzing the crash said the sort of flameout discussed by the cockpit crew is “very unusual” for turboprop engines, which are generally known for their reliability.

On a turboprop plane, a jet engine spins a turbine that is attached to a propeller. A “flameout” is said to occur when the fire in the jet engine goes out.

In the case of Flight 3379, kerosene soaked the crash site, so it is believed that the plane did not run out of fuel.

Sources said the flameout could have occurred because of a defective fuel pump or some other failure in the fuel-delivery system, or--far less likely--because the engine sucked in a large amount of water.

While it was drizzling lightly as the plane approached the airport, “It generally takes heavy, heavy rain” to cause that sort of problem, one source said.

The source said that any attempt to restart the engine as the plane neared the runway “should not have been considered. . . .

“The whole procedure for restart is fairly complex and lengthy,” he said. “There wasn’t enough time.”

The crash site was a subdued scene of tragic devastation on Thursday as the investigation to determine the official cause of the crash continued.

“There were a couple of sheriff’s deputies standing there silently,” said Chris Sullivan, a pool reporter who was one of four members of the news media allowed access to the site.

“There were some (NTSB) investigators working there in white ‘biols’ suits (special clothing to protect against possible contamination from blood-borne pathogens),” Sullivan said. “It was very quiet.”

The three main chunks of wreckage extended in a line beyond the swath cut through a stand of trees as the plane descended.

“The sections were out of order,” Sullivan said. “First the cockpit, then the tail, then the fuselage. There were pine needles stuck in the cracks in the metal . . . There was charring on some of the pine trees, one all the way to the top. Cables (from the plane) were draped around it. . . . Wooden stakes, about 18 inches tall, mark where the bodies were found. . . .

“It was an awesome thing to see. . . . You can judge the terror. . . . It’s hard to see how anyone could have gotten out alive.”