Failure in Engineering of the Crashed Flight 3407 Aircraft
Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: On February 12, 2009 Colgan Air Flight 3407 flying from Newark, NJ to Buffalo, NY entered an aerodynamic stall and crashed into a house in Clarence Center, NY at 10:17pm [1, 2]. This article reviews the failure in engineering of that aircraft including its low power to weight ratio, and its inadequacy with respect to the deicing system of wings in bad weather condition. Also the article discusses the inherently flawed propeller driven aircrafts such as the one used for flight 3407 versus aircrafts with jet engines, the intermittent deicing system of propellers, as well as other factors centered on that fatal crash. Theory of flight is briefly reviewed along with how ice buildup on wings can dramatically increase the drag and reduce the lift of airplane. All underlying causes of the accident are summarized along with suggestions for avoiding this type of accident in future.
Authors: Kevin Carr, Robert A. Jonson, Sean Murray, Gurinder Singh, Mark Stiegler, Maxwell H. Turner, Christopher K. Walker, Satbir Wraich, Dariush Zadeh
Language: English
Subfield: Aerospace Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2461837900