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Author Topic: Lear35 in an icing stall on approach to Buffalo 3/22/06  (Read 35704 times)

Offline dan9125

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Lear35 in an icing stall on approach to Buffalo 3/22/06
« on: March 22, 2006, 11:27:30 AM »
Check out today 3/22/06 from 9:30am to 10:00am, A Lear35 coming from Toronto to Buffalo got iced up and had to climb out of the clouds. Pilot sounded a little stressed but recovered and landed in Rochester. Listen about 10 minutes into the clip.

  Dan

 Kbuf feed



Offline dan9125

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Offline dan9125

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learjet 35 link
« Reply #2 on: March 22, 2006, 04:05:26 PM »
Well i tried to make it a "link" but i didnt happen. Can someone help me on this one?
  Thanks

Offline KSYR-pjr

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Re: Lear35 in an icing stall on approach to Buffalo 3/22/06
« Reply #3 on: March 22, 2006, 04:08:01 PM »
Quote from: dan9125
Check out today 3/22/06 from 9:30am to 10:00am, A Lear35 coming from Toronto to Buffalo got iced up and had to climb out of the clouds. Pilot sounded a little stressed but recovered and landed in Rochester. Listen about 10 minutes into the clip.


Hey, Dan, thanks for the heads-up.  I am downloading the archive now.  

Being that the archives are only limited to seven days or so before they are rolled off, are you aware of the free software that allows you to edit any of the MP3 clips in the archives and save it as a separate file?  

The free utility is called Audacity and can be found here:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Many people who find something interesting will grab the archive clip, edit it with Audacity (trim out the non-related ATC communications, trim out the silence, etc), the save the edited file and post it to this forum here.

Offline KSYR-pjr

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Lear35 in an icing stall on approach to Buffalo 3/22/06
« Reply #4 on: March 22, 2006, 04:29:54 PM »
Dan, I am working on the clip now.  I should have an editted version posted here shortly.  Great catch!  There are some tense moments in this clip.  Too bad we don't have Rochester, NY, online here yet!

Offline dan9125

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Lear 35
« Reply #5 on: March 22, 2006, 04:41:37 PM »
I said the same thing about Rochester, i listened to him on 123.700mhz (Roch approach) untill he was out of range. I tracked him a Flightaware as well. Maybe someone in the Rochester area will read this and donate some ears in that area.
  Thanks for the link to the audio editing utility, i will check that out right away!
Im still not sure how to post a URL and make it work like a  link on this sight.

  Dan (KBUF)

Offline KSYR-pjr

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Lear35 in an icing stall on approach to Buffalo 3/22/06
« Reply #6 on: March 22, 2006, 04:44:50 PM »
OK, here's the editted clip.  

Thanks to Dan of the Buffalo Feed for catching this today on his feed.

Offline gfw123

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thanks.
« Reply #7 on: March 22, 2006, 04:53:09 PM »
Nice clip, thanks for putting it together. Would have liked to here the tower feed where they landed.

--greg.

Offline dan9125

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Edited version
« Reply #8 on: March 22, 2006, 05:35:22 PM »
Peter,
  Much better with all the air gaps edited out....Thanks!

 Dan

Offline Cessna172

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Lear35 in an icing stall on approach to Buffalo 3/22/06
« Reply #9 on: March 23, 2006, 12:41:05 AM »
Very nice clip! Thanks for taking the time to make it happen!

Both the pilot and the controller handled the situation very well, in my opinion. Thanks again.

Cessna172
Home Airport: West Houston Airport (KIWS)
www.westhoustonairport.com

Offline KSYR-pjr

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Lear35 in an icing stall on approach to Buffalo 3/22/06
« Reply #10 on: March 23, 2006, 08:22:15 AM »
Here are some miscellaneous ramblings about this incident after having flown into Buffalo every week for the past month or so, including last night:

Buffalo's main runway, 5/23, has been closed since two weeks ago and will be for the next six months.  This leaves only runway 14/32 to serve this moderately busy class C airport.  

Arriving from the east or south, an IFR aircraft is only able to descend to 4,000 ft until a few miles outside the initial approach fix for either of the common ILS approaches.  However, flying in from the west or north, an IFR aircraft is able to drop to 2,500 feet.  Many times, the difference between these two altitudes is the difference between being in the clouds for a period of time and being below the clouds (being in icing or below it).  On this day, IFR aircraft were being vectored to the east for the turn onto the ILS 32.  This means that BUF approach could only bring arriving aircraft down to 4,000 until closer to the initial approach fix.  

AIRMETs (alerts for lower intensity, but significant weather events) for icing in clouds and precipitation exist just about every day between October and April for airspace downwind of the Great Lakes of the US.  Yesterday was no exception as there was an icing AIRMET over the entire area.  

Later last evening a SIGMET (alerts of potentially hazardous weather for all aircraft) for severe icing over the London, Ontario (west of Buffalo by about 60 nm), area was finally released as a result of numerous pilot reports of severe icing in that region.

All day yesterday the reports of icing in the clouds from Buffalo, NY, over to Michigan ranged from light accumulation all the way up to severe.  My speculation, however, is that aircraft reporting light icing yesterday in this area were only reporting the icing they picked up as they quickly dropped through the approximately 3,000 foot layer.  

In reality, icing accumulation should be reported as a function of time to accumulate, not total accumulation (in other words, if a 1/2 inch is picked up in less than 3 minutes, this would be considered severe).  Pilots also tend to under-report icing, for various other reasons.

With all that said, it leaves little doubt that this aircraft had picked up some severe ice.  What I am curious about is why the anti-icing equipment on this aircraft was unable to prevent the ice from forming in the first place.  Does anyone know what the Lear35 has in the way of anti-icing equipment?  Standard boots, heated leading edges, or a combination of both?  

Perhaps it was malfunctioning equipment or perhaps it was a failure of the  pilots to use the equipment in a timely fashion, I suppose.

One more point:  Interesting that no one (pilots or ATC on behalf of the aircraft)  in this situation declared an emergency.    If an IFR aircraft suddenly experiences an uncommanded climb well above its assigned altitude, I would have though that the pilots or ATC would have declared an emergency.   There is no doubt that an emergency did exist for those few minutes.  

Those are my ramblings.

Offline KSYR-pjr

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Re: Lear 35
« Reply #11 on: March 23, 2006, 08:34:17 AM »
Quote from: dan9125
I tracked him a Flightaware as well.


Hey, Dan, what was the whole tail ID of the Lear?  I tried to look up the FlightAware track as well, but N8JP doesn't return anything.

EDIT:  Using Landings.com, I was able to locate the tail ID:   N288JP.

Here's the FLightAware track:

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N288JP

Offline dan9125

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lear 35
« Reply #12 on: March 23, 2006, 09:43:36 AM »
Try N288JP , I think its owned by Prior aviation. I'm guessing the pilot was too busy trying to get controll of the plane to declare an emergency!


 Dan
(KBUF)

 ps Keep those ramblings coming, very interesting.

Offline KSYR-pjr

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Re: lear 35
« Reply #13 on: March 23, 2006, 10:02:01 AM »
Quote from: dan9125
Try N288JP , I think its owned by Prior aviation.


Yes, indeed it is.  Currently I am hangaring my aircraft at Prior when in Buffalo so without jeopardizing my hangar lease, I am going to delicately   ask about this.  It really is very educational to those of us less experienced.

Quote from: dan9125
I'm guessing the pilot was too busy trying to get controll of the plane to declare an emergency!


Perhaps,  and by no means am I second-guessing their actions, but I am thinking about a fatal crash down in Florida a few weeks ago whereby a single engine, IFR aircraft experienced an engine problem on takeoff over the ocean.  

The pilot, instead of declaring an emergency, stated that he needed vectors to the closest shoreline.  The controller then went back and forth with him and the pilot changed his explanation of the problem, which may have resulted in some confusion on the controller's part.  In the end, the aircraft ditched in the water and all aboard were killed.

Declaring an emergency opens up the door to all kinds of help, but many articles I have read point out that too many pilots avoid using the E word in fear of some type of FAA action (which rarely if ever actually occurs).

Offline dan9125

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prior
« Reply #14 on: March 23, 2006, 12:27:00 PM »
Keep me updated, i would love to hear the pilots version of what happened.
  dan

Offline KSYR-pjr

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Re: prior
« Reply #15 on: March 23, 2006, 09:42:09 PM »
Quote from: dan9125
Keep me updated, i would love to hear the pilots version of what happened.


Coincidentally, when I arrived at Prior this afternoon, N288JP was parked next to my aircraft that the lineman had just pulled out.  I really need to carry a small digital camera with me at all times.

Here are some pictures of the aircraft from the Prior Aviation website, though:

http://www.prioraviation.com/images/LR_35A_pics.pdf

The leading edges of this Lear are heated.  No one at Prior would offer any comments on this incident other than to ask me how I knew about it.  However, I did hear unoffically that the anti-ice system had most likely failed.    I also got the impression from the unoffical banter that the pilots were very close to an accident.

Offline dan9125

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lear 35 picture
« Reply #16 on: March 24, 2006, 09:23:16 AM »
check this link------->


 http://www.myaviation.net/search/photo_search.php?id=00258594


 so they were wondering how you knew??

Offline KSYR-pjr

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Re: lear 35 picture
« Reply #17 on: March 24, 2006, 09:28:28 AM »
Quote from: dan9125
check this link------->


Much cleaner picture.  Hey, that website looks just like Airliners.net!  Is it a blatant copy or is it a child of Airliners.net?

EDIT:   Ah, here it is right on their home page:

"This is a new aviation photo gallery developed from the Airliners.net website.

We will host all photos submitted from aviation photographers for free. Photographers will be able to edit photo information and delete photos themselves.

The difference from other sites is that we are not rejecting photos. It's up to the photographers themselves to decide which photos they want to publish."



Quote from: dan9125
so they were wondering how you knew??


Yes.  I was asking the counter personnel there about the incident and they wouldn't bite, other than to say, "How did you know about this?"

LiveATC.net, baby...  :)

Offline dan9125

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my aviation
« Reply #18 on: March 24, 2006, 04:06:08 PM »
They even were nice enough to accept one of my shots!

http://myaviation.net/?pid=00551110

Offline turicus

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Re: Lear35 in an icing stall on approach to Buffalo 3/22/06
« Reply #19 on: June 03, 2006, 05:18:29 AM »
Also, ATC can declare an emergency for you if they deem it necessary, and just give you the priority services.  "Emergency" wasn't verbalized in this case, but the controller probably treated it as such.