Unheeded Warning: The Inside Story of American Eagle Flight 4184

This book is from 1996. You'd probably need to find it in a library. With the crash of Continental Flight 3407 in the news this book offers a very good analysis of the tragic crash of another turboprop due to icing that bears similarities to 3407.

American Eagle Flight 4184 was a regional airline flight that crashed after flying into known icing conditions on Halloween, October 31, 1994. Control was lost and all aboard were killed.

The aircraft, N401AM, was an ATR 72-212 operated by Simmons Airlines on behalf of American Eagle (a subsidiary of the AMR Corporation). The flight was en route from Indianapolis International Airport, Indiana to O'Hare International Airport, Chicago, Illinois. Bad weather in Chicago caused delays, prompting air traffic control to hold Flight 4184 over the nearby LUCIT intersection at 10,000 ft (3,000 m)

While holding, the plane encountered freezing rain — a dangerous icing condition where supercooled droplets rapidly cause intense ice buildup. Soon after, they were cleared to descend to 8,000 ft (2,400 m) During this descent the aircraft experienced an uncommanded roll excursion, which disengaged the autopilot. Flight recorder data showed that it subsequently went through at least one full roll, and the crew was unable to regain control of the rapidly descending aircraft. Less than two minutes later, contact was lost as the plane impacted a soybean field near Roselawn, Indiana, killing all 64 passengers and 4 crew on board. The disintegration of the plane indicated an extreme velocity, and data recovered from the flight data recorder verified that the plane was traveling 375 knots (695 km/h) indicated airspeed at impact.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) stated that the probable cause of this crash was the flight into known icing conditions, with the aircraft being operated outside its "icing certification envelope". While the ATR's deicing boots were able to remove ice along the leading edge, it rapidly re-formed behind the boots as runback ice, where it could not be removed. This separated the airflow from the wing's surface and made the aileron control inadequate or non-existent. The ATR family of aircraft has had a history of known and reported control problems in icing conditions. For that reason, the NTSB also mentioned as contributing factors the "inadequate response" on part of the manufacturer and the French DGAC and United States' Federal Aviation Administration aviation authorities to these reports.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Eagle_Flight_4184

Has had a lot of previous icing problems that this crash had them fix,
i dont know of any with the Dash8-200-400 in recent times
but the dash 8Q has had landing gear trouble in the past months, but that is a different
subject

i flew the dash8 on my simulator, it is an easy plane to fly, but hard in some respects...

:hi: