Report Blames FAA for 1997 Plane Crash

The nation’s top safety officials leveled another blast at the Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday, blaming it for last year’s fatal crash of a Comair commuter plane during a snowstorm near Detroit.

The report focused on procedures for aircraft in icing conditions.

“The probable cause of this accident was the FAA’s failure to establish adequate aircraft certification standards for flight in icing conditions, the FAA’s failure to ensure that an approved procedure for the accident plane’s de-ice system operation was implemented by U.S. carriers and the FAA’s failure to require the establishment of adequate minimum airspeeds for icing conditions,” the National Transportation Safety Board said.

Contributing to the accident were the pilots’ decision to fly at dangerously slow speeds in known icing conditions and Comair’s failure to set minimum airspeeds for flying in such conditions, the NTSB said.

Responding to the safety board, FAA spokesman Les Dorr said his agency “already is taking actions that address some of the board’s concerns about increasing the safety of aircraft in icing conditions.

“We look forward to working with the board on these issues. Safety is our top priority.”

Top Comair officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Comair’s Flight 3272, flying as the Delta Connection, rolled unsteadily and then crashed nose first into a cornfield in Raisinville Township as the plane approached Detroit during a snowstorm on Jan. 9, 1997. All 29 aboard the twin-engine Embraer 120 turboprop were killed.

The NTSB suggested from the outset that ice may have brought the plane down.

Accumulating ice can overburden an aircraft and disrupt the smooth flow of air over the wings and flight control surfaces. At worst, ice can precipitate a stall, a condition in which the wings no longer provide adequate lift and the plane noses over into an uncontrolled dive.

Sounds taped by Flight 3272’s cockpit voice recorder and flight information compiled by the plane’s flight data recorder show just that scenario as the plane descended for a landing at Detroit’s Metropolitan Airport.

In Thursday’s report, the NTSB said the gradual buildup of all-but-invisible ice on the plane’s wings may have been imperceptible to the flight crew.

“Because the pilots of Comair Flight 3272 were operating the airplane with the autopilot engaged during a series of descents, right and left turns, power adjustments and airspeed reductions, they may not have perceived the airplane’s gradually deteriorating performance,” the NTSB said.

“The current operating procedures--recommending that pilots wait until ice accumulates to an observable thickness [before activating de-icing equipment]--results in an unnecessary exposure to a significant risk,” the NTSB said.

The FAA, which is responsible for drawing up and enforcing the regulations governing the U.S. aviation industry, has been a frequent target of the NTSB in recent years.

A year ago, in its final report on the 1996 Valujet Airlines crash in the Florida Everglades that killed 110 people, the safety board blamed the FAA, Valujet and a maintenance contractor for the accident, but it singled out the FAA for its most stinging criticism.

In that accident, a cargo-hold fire spread rapidly throughout the plane shortly after takeoff from Miami International Airport.

“Had the FAA required fire/smoke-detection and/or fire-extinguishment systems in [the DC-9’s] cargo compartment, as the safety board recommended in 1988, Valujet Flight 592 would likely not have crashed,” the NTSB said in its August 1997 report.

The board said the FAA’s failure to monitor Valujet’s contract maintenance program and the agency’s failure to address the potential hazards posed by certain types of cargo contributed to that accident.