Comair Flight 3272

{{Infobox aircraft occurrence

| image = Comair Flight 3272 crashsite 3.jpg

| alt =

| caption = Accident site

| occurrence_type = Accident

| date = {{start date|1997|01|09}}

| summary = Atmospheric icing leading to loss of control

| site = Raisinville Township, near Dundee, Michigan, U.S.

| coordinates = {{coord|41|57|48.08|N|83|33|8.39|W|type:event|display=inline,title}}

| plane1_image = Embraer EMB-120RT Brasilia, Comair AN0214402.jpg

| plane1_caption = A Comair Embraer EMB-120, similar to the one involved

| aircraft_type = Embraer 120 RT Brasilia

| aircraft_name =

| operator = {{nowrap|Comair (as Delta Connection)}}

| callsign = COMAIR 3272

| Occupants = 29

| tail_number = N265CA

| origin = Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport

| stopover =

| stopover0 =

| last_stopover =

| destination = Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport

| passengers = 26

| crew = 3

| fatalities = 29

| injuries =

| missing =

| survivors = 0

}}

Comair Flight 3272 was a Comair flight from Cincinnati to Detroit on Thursday, January 9, 1997. While on approach for landing, the Embraer EMB 120 Brasilia aircraft crashed nose-down {{convert|18|mi}} southwest of Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport at 15:54 EST, killing all 29 people on board.{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=7r4aAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6DoEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1516%2C1240355|title=Plane crashes in 'ball of fire'; 29 killed|date=January 10, 1997|work=Milwaukee Journal Sentinel|agency=Knight-Ridder News Service, The New York Times, Associated Press|page=1A}}{{Dead link|date=December 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=nMBeAAAAIBAJ&sjid=dDEMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2361%2C2208753|title=Plane crashes in big fireball near Detroit|last=Hughes|first=John|date=January 10, 1997|work=Lewiston Morning Tribune|agency=Associated Press|location=(Idaho)|page=1A}}{{cite web|url=https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR9804_body.pdf|title=In-Flight Icing Encounter and Uncontrolled Collision with Terrain, COMAIR Flight 3272, Embraer EMB-129RT, N265CA, Monroe, Michigan, January 9, 1997|date=November 4, 1997|website=|publisher=National Transportation Safety Board|id=NTSB/AAR-98/04|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161115075112/http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR9804_body.pdf |archive-date=November 15, 2016 |access-date=June 18, 2019}}{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=AxYxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=fgMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5734%2C3844308|title=29 die in Ida plane crash|last=Wilkinson|first=Mike|date=January 10, 1997|work=Toledo Blade|location=Ohio|page=1}}{{cite news|url=http://www.enquirer.com/comair3272/loc_crashcomair0119.html|title=In crisis, Comair stayed on course|date=January 19, 1997|newspaper=The Cincinnati Enquirer|access-date=October 21, 2009|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130122042554/http://www.enquirer.com/comair3272/loc_crashcomair0119.html|archive-date=2013-01-22}}

The cause of the crash was determined to be inadequate and out of date flight crew procedures for icing conditions. Some of these originated with the Federal Aviation Administration's failure to specify suitable minimum airspeeds for icing conditions, while some were Comair procedure manual defects, including superseded instructions on the use of de-icing boots that did not follow the aircraft manufacturer's instructions.

Aircraft

The aircraft involved was an Embraer 120 RT Brasilia, MSN 120257, registered as N265CA, that was manufactured by Embraer in 1991. The aircraft logged 12,751 airframe hours and 12,735 takeoff and landing cycles and was equipped with two Pratt & Whitney Canada PW118 turboprops.{{Cite web |title=Accident Embraer EMB-120RT Brasilia N265CA, Thursday 9 January 1997 |url=https://asn.flightsafety.org/asndb/324287 |access-date=2024-08-05 |website=asn.flightsafety.org}}{{Cite web |title=In-Flight Icing Encounter and Uncontrolled Collision with Terrain |url=https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR9804_body.pdf |access-date=August 5, 2024 |website=www.ntsb.gov}}{{Rp|pages=23-24}}

Passengers and crew

There were 26 passengers and three crew members on this flight. The captain was Dann Carlsen, age 42, who was the pilot monitoring (PM). Carlsen had 5,329 flight hours, including 1,097 hours on the EMB-120. The first officer was Kenneth Reece, age 29, who was the pilot flying (PF) on Flight 3272. Reece had 2,582 flight hours, with 1,494 of them on the EMB-120.{{Rp|6–8}}One of the passengers, Maureen DeMarco, was travelling to the funeral of her brother, Brian Scully, who had been killed the previous month on the crash of Airborne Express Flight 827.

Accident

Flight 3272 took off from Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport at 14:53. Less than an hour later, the pilots began the approach to Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. The air traffic controller instructed the pilots to descend to {{convert|4000|ft|-1}} and turn right on a heading of 180 degrees.

File:Comair Flight 3272 CVR recording.mp3

About 45 seconds later, the pilots were instructed to turn left onto a heading of 090 degrees to intercept the localizer. During the turn, Captain Carlsen made the statement "Yeah, looks like your low speed indicator," and asked First Officer Reece for increased power to the engines. Almost immediately, the aircraft abruptly stalled. It violently rolled 145 degrees to the left, to the right, and back to the left again. The pilots lost control, and Flight 3272 crashed into a rural field in Raisinville Township in {{nowrap|Monroe County,}} killing all 29 aboard.{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=I58wAAAAIBAJ&sjid=CUwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3195%2C604746|title=Investigators seek clues in plane crash|last=Hyde|first=Justin|date=January 10, 1997|work=Ludington Daily News|agency=Associated Press|location=(Michigan)|page=1}}

File:Comair Flight 3272 crashsite 2.jpg

File:Comair Flight 3272 crashsite.jpg

Aftermath

The National Transportation Safety Board very quickly noticed similarities between this accident and American Eagle Flight 4184. The NTSB determined that the probable cause was inadequate standards for icing operations while in flight, specifically the failure of the Federal Aviation Administration to establish adequate minimum airspeeds for icing conditions, leading to a loss of control when the airplane accumulated a thin, rough accretion of ice on its lifting surfaces.

A contributing factor was the crew's decision to operate in icing conditions while near the lower end of the flight envelope while the flaps were retracted. Comair had not established unambiguous minimum airspeed values for flap configurations and for flight in icing conditions. They also, against recommendation of the plane's manufacturer, failed to activate the deicing boots on the wings. This was because the Comair Flight manual recommendation was in contravention of the manufacturers due to a concern over "ice bridging", a concern held over from older planes that was no longer valid on newer generation planes like the Embraer 120.

As the plane crash site is on private property, a memorial was built at the Roselawn Memorial Park in La Salle, Michigan, where unidentified remains of those killed in the crash are buried.{{Cite news|url=https://www.monroenews.com/news/20170418/comair-pilots-visit-crash-site|title=Comair pilots visit crash site|last=Kisonas|first=Ray|date=2017-04-18|work=Monroe News|access-date=2019-11-06|location=Monroe, Michigan}}

Dramatization

The investigation into the crash was covered in "Deadly Myth", a 2017 episode of Mayday, a Canadian television series about air crashes.{{cite web|url=http://www.tvcountdown.com/s/mayday/e/S17E02|title=Deadly Myth (Comair Flight 3272) - S17E02 - Mayday |website=tvcountdown.com|access-date=8 October 2018}}

References

External links

{{ASN accident|id=19970109-0}}
[https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR9804_body.pdf NTSB Aircraft Accident Safety Report]
[https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR9804_C.pdf Appendix C]
[https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR9804_D.pdf Appendix D]
[https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR9804_E.pdf Appendix E]
[https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR9804_F.pdf Appendix F]
[https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR9804_G.pdf Appendix G]
[https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR9804_H.pdf Appendix H]
[https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR9804_I.pdf Appendix I]
[https://data.ntsb.gov/Docket?ProjectID=11023 NTSB investigation docket]
[https://archive.today/20130122050028/http://www.enquirer.com/comair3272/loc_crashbios.html Strangers united in death] - The Cincinnati Enquirer (Listing of passengers on the flights) - Newspapers.com clippings: [https://www.newspapers.com/clip/129004179/ page 1], [https://www.newspapers.com/clip/129004236/ page 2], [https://www.newspapers.com/clip/129004254/ page 3]