What should have been a routine Newark-to-Buffalo flight ended in tragedy as the Bombardier Dash 8-Q400 crashed into a house, killing all 49 people on board and a man on the ground as it approached Buffalo, New York, on February 12, 2009. National Transportation Safety Board hearings revealed numerous mistakes made by inexperienced, fatigued pilots and an aircraft that should have been better equipped. Clifford Law Offices represented a number of families who lost loved ones and catalyzed major changes to aviation law.
The captain had commuted from Florida to Newark to fly the plane. The co-pilot commuted by jump-seating on two different cargo planes overnight from Seattle, Washington, flying across the country, as National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials believed, with little to no sleep. Colgan Air facilities in Newark, New Jersey, did not provide sleeping accommodations, and staying overnight at a hotel was just too costly for the 24-year-old co-pilot, who made about $20,000 a year.
The NTSB hearings also revealed that the captain had only 110.7 hours of experience in the Dash 8 aircraft. Once in flight on that fateful February evening, the inexperience of the copilot on the Newark-to-Buffalo flight became apparent, despite the weather being typical for the Northeast at that time of year. The recovered cockpit voice recorder revealed some of her last words in a transcript provided by the NTSB: “I’ve never seen icing conditions. I’ve never de-iced. I’ve never seen any. I’ve never experienced any of that.”
They, along with 47 others on the aircraft, were killed when the Bombardier Dash 8-Q400 pitched up, rolled rapidly from one side to the other, then entered a steep descending turn and crashed into a house where a father was fatally injured, bringing the total number of lives lost to 50.
Three months later, the NTSB held three days of public hearings on the worst aviation crash in the history of western New York. Twenty witnesses testified at the NTSB headquarters in Washington, D.C. Excruciating facts emerged for the families who lost loved ones in the crash as a nation mourned their deaths. The mistakes, oversights, careless and reckless actions, and poorly designed and implemented systems were recounted about the crash at Clarence Center, New York.
As family members sat in the audience, the hearings revealed the story of a tragedy that could have been avoided and brought to light the sad realities of the regional commuter airline industry: inexperienced, poorly trained and fatigued pilots; startlingly low pay, and lack of sleeping arrangements and/or hotel accommodations for commuting pilots that contributed to
crew members habitually jump-seating on overnight cross-country commutes to get to their bases for duty; lack of monitoring by the airlines to enforce duty time and rest regulations; violations of the sterile cockpit rule when undivided attention was required during an approach to land in icing conditions; lack of enforcing industry-standard safety programs. The list goes on and on.
Although Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials had studied many of these issues over many years, they did not act. The airlines did not act. The “one level of safety” the FAA claimed to have established between regional and major air carriers was clearly not there. Colgan Air, its management, its airplanes, and its pilots appear to be on a low-budget, entry-level operation compared to Continental Airlines, the major airline whose livery was painted on the side of the Colgan plane.
At the end of the hearings, the families who had attended packed up and returned home in tears, vowing to find out what really happened on that plane and make the necessary changes to make flying safer. Although they knew that it couldn’t help their loved ones, they did so in the spirit of helping others so that the loss of their treasured family members’ lives would not be in vain.
Clifford Law Offices obtained an undisclosed settlement in five lawsuits representing families who lost loved ones in the crash. Although nothing can reverse the loss experienced by these families or even bring closure in such a horrific event, perhaps they can take some solace in that their collective efforts to voice their concerns has resulted in changes to aviation laws adjusted for the safety of all passengers and crews regarding pilot fatigue, stall training, pilot monitoring, and other safety procedures.