Saturday, February 14, 2009

Tailplane Icing

Although the cause of the Continental Flight 3407 in Buffalo the other night is unknown, there's been discussion that tailplane icing is involved. This is a great video from NASA that explains the effects of tailplane icing.

The whole video can be found on Google Video

Or it can be found on youtube in 3 parts:

Part 1:



Part 2:



Part 3:




This is not meant as speculation - we must wait for the final NTSB report to determine what really happened. Regardless, this is a very informative video for all pilots.

My thoughts are with all those affected by the accident.

3 comments:

Davis L. Bigelow said...

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Anonymous said...

Is this turning into a dead blog??? That would stink.

Packaging Supplier said...

This is a good question. Icing can occur in temperatures well above 0 C. It depends on the presence of super cooled water droplets in the air that can quickly cool the skin to below freezing and start sticking on.