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Crash Inquiry Focus Shifts To Training

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The Associated Press

Published: February 18, 2009

CLARENCE, N.Y. - The pilot at the controls of a turboprop plane that pitched like a kite before crashing into a house last week had spent only 110 hours flying that model, and investigators said Tuesday they would look into the quality and quantity of his training.

Investigators say Marvin Renslow, 47, of Lutz, the pilot of Continental Connection Flight 3407, violated no rules, but apparently ignored federal recommendations not to fly on autopilot as ice was building on his plane.

Investigators are still trying to determine whether Renslow did all that he could to prevent potentially disastrous ice buildup or shake it from the plane. Experts pointed out Tuesday that he had flown thousands of hours in a similar plane, which would have prepared him for icing on his aircraft.

The actions and lives of Renslow and the first officer, Rebecca Lynne Shaw, 24, of Seattle, are under scrutiny as the National Transportation Safety Board tries to piece together how a routine flight went fatally wrong in its last 26 seconds.

The NTSB will look into the type of training they received, how they performed, how many hours they flew in the seven days before the crash, how much rest they had and what they did in the 72 hours before the accident, said board member Steve Chealander. That includes a routine question of whether they drank any alcohol or took drugs.

Another NTSB investigator left in Buffalo will focus on any role the wintry weather had. Others stayed in Buffalo to interview pilots who had recently flown with Renslow and Shaw; many fly regularly into the area.

With no obvious answer to the crash, the NTSB was preparing for a yearlong study of everything related to the plane and its cockpit crew to find out what combination of factors could eventually be blamed for the disaster.

The Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 was about six miles from Buffalo Niagara International Airport Thursday night when it lost its ability to fly, pitched sharply up and down and side to side before smashing into a home and bursting into flames, killing all 49 people aboard and a man in the house.

All but 20 percent of the plane had been removed by Tuesday, NTSB chief investigator Lorenda Ward said. Crews finished gathering human remains Tuesday afternoon, said Scott Zimmerman of the Erie County Health Department.

No evidence of a malfunction of the plane has emerged, Ward said.

The Colgan Air crew took a cautious approach to the flight, engaging deicing equipment 11 minutes after departing Newark, N.J., and leaving it on until the plane crashed, Chealander said.

Renslow had begun flying the Dash 8 in December, accumulating 110 hours since then; Shaw had 774 hours in the plane model. Chealander stressed that pilots must train rigorously every time they switch plane types and that the relative lack of hours would not be considered significant.

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