I like how Allec does the simulation through FSX with dialogs, and then going to full detail about why the plane crashed, and how to prevent it. I like it. There are not many channels like this. This channel deserves more than just 200k subs.
I remember that day. I was in the travel business so I heard about it quickly. Plus, my cousin was supposed to work that flight, however had to get a replacement. It’s one I won’t forget.
watershed44 I learned of my cousin through his uncle so never heard a comment from him. We didn’t.t live in the same state and didn’t see each other much after we were adults. He was a FA.
Countess of Groan your name is appropriate. Check your facts honey. You are absolutely wrong about this one. Besides, if the date was not on there I was in the business and had ways of checking these things and I DO remember that incident well.
The mix up started thanks to the pilot leaving the gate without informing, or having permission, from the tower. How irresponsible of him to do that. He also should've known about Continental's 20-minute policy of the deicing protocol yet decided to take off knowing it had been 27 minutes since the airplane had been de-iced. It sucks that other people's lives depend on the common sense of 1 or 2 people!
As awful as these fatal crashes are, it's always interesting to note each and every link in the chain that leads to disaster. Perhaps if just one of those links were removed, the crash might not have happened (much like the Tenerife disaster). Also, I'm a nurse and working on my required continued education and some of them made references to safety in the Aviation Industry. We are trying to follow the same guidelines and safety pathways that many airlines follow. I was pleasantly surprised by that. It would be a good thing too since the US still has over 200,000 people who die from medical errors every year. Thank you for another great video. I sure do appreciate all the excellent work you put into them.
200,000 a year? This is what scares me about the I'm also a nurse studying bullshit. The number is way higher. Just like the CCP the figures are manipulated. Who knows if you're really Amy Ann?
@Amy Ann; @Blue collar Silver dollar; I co-piloted repositions for the first and best iteration of EASTERN AIR LINES, which, too, was owned by Lorenzo; he was no Bob Six, in '87, an expansion was taking place throughout the entire industry, and *everyone* needed pilots, that's how they wound up with a "green F.O.", the lower echelon needed to weed him out. Fifteen hours in "pure" jets isn't enough time to even consider risking livery/revenue flight. RIP To my friend, † Eastern Airlines Captain Karl Idell, born, 1931; his "last flight", was 30 January, 2020. We'll get that corned beef at Wolfie's later...
I lived in the Villages of Homestead, on Flamingo Ct.; PUMPERNIK'S??? Redlands??, that "wooden barn gas station on Alligator Alley, where the bell would ring, in the men's room, and the ducks would run out of a hole in the wall" - and I'd run outside at relieve myself on the tire of that bastards tow truck. I retired in '98, as a BAC Avionics support engineer, I did the MCDU's on the 777; did you crew the 772's at UAL?? I actually met, then became friends with Al Haynes, when he did the speaking tours, I picked him up on his arrival to PHL, oh, hell, we'll have to talk. Thank you!! Ever hop the EAL Friday night L1011 jump seat, KMIA to KPHL?? *I'd rather be Flying, but my ass no longer shoehorn's into the cockpit, and my ex wife would announce over the PA, "medical, what medical??"*
Yeah, basically what created confusion was because of this flight not communicating with ground control to get clearance to taxi to the de icing pad and instead requested clearance to taxi from the de icing pad which confused the controller
Oh how sad that several mess-ups and bad situations caused this major SNAFU in the end! So sorry people died. As a former director in healthcare, I can assure you bad apples used to get bounced around from place to place. So we finally learned to ask the million-dollar question, “Would you re-hire this person again?” The answer told us all we needed to know. RIP folks on this plane. It’s too bad your lives were in the hands of combined inexperience and a certain amount of debauchery. Once again, a story of a sad accident told with expertise and feeling. Thanks. Allec.
I was a pilot for Continental based in DEN, had been flying B727 as CA and was now on the DC 10 based (commuting) in HNL when the crash happened...but Colorado was still my home. I knew the copilot by sight, quiet nice guy. This video is a bit misleading...it puts the entire blame on radio communication as the primary cause. All Continental Captains are responsible (as are any other Captains) but we are "hammered" in training to check the wings (because we can see them from INSIDE the aircraft) and determine positively that there is no ice/snow adhering... we are keenly aware of the time since de-ice and anyone I knew would check those wings by walking back through the aisle and taking a look. It is certainly not the case that because there was radio confusion there was a crash. Many times the aircraft are delayed for whatever reason and take off beyond the hold over times...I am retired now, DEN had fantastic controllers and they did it all right here. It is sloppy to taxi to the de-ice without calling...that is FREAKY...I don't remember in my whole career anyone taxiing a Continental Aircraft without talking to someone...wtf//////??? I hate to say it ...but weak command was the blame from my point of view...not taking a look at those wings was not ok...everytime we de-iced in DEN and that was a LOT...we checked if delayed and it was snowing...I guess getting in a hurry and complacency caught up with this crew.
Thanks for sharing all of that. In your opinion how is it possible for an experienced pilot (admittedly not as captain) to allow all of these screw ups to take place? How could someone apparently so lax regarding procedures fly for 12,000 + hours without any major incidences taking place, just dumb luck or possibly bad luck on this day?
The video didn’t place the entirety of blame on the controllers. It also stated that the First Officer pitched the plane up too steeply, causing drag which, coupled with ice on the wings, caused the aircraft to stall. It also said that both the captain and the First Officer were inexperienced and that the First Officer in particular had a history of poor performance.
I had a friend who was based in HNL on the DC-10 who commuted from SAN. He also flew 737 for a while. You may have seen him hanging his head out the storm window trying to get the ramp crew to function wearing his train engineer's hat from time to time. Jim Moffet. I rode jump seat on many of his flights. Being on 727, do you remember Fred Ordway? He used to mountain bike with us.
No, this video does not put the "entire blame" on radio communications. Did you actually watch the video while not drunk or asleep? Part of the blame is also put on the first officer rotating twice as fast as it should have been and part on the caption not being prepared for flying a DC-9 in icing conditions. I actually watched it. Also, the video pretty much concurs with the NTSB's final synopsis of the tragedy.
Thanks for the great historic graphics showing the old Stapleton Airport, Allec. I spent a lot of time flying in & out of there in my teens & 20's and your scenes depict it very accurately.
No, “let me take control, and try to get this bird airborne in icy conditions, and let me see if I can get a tail strike to boot”, after exceeding the safety re-deice protocol of 20 minutes, by 7 minutes! 😱😱😬 What happened at the Potomac River on 1/13/82 never came to mind, or the lesson learned was not fully comprehended 😱😱😳😳 Who lets knuckleheads like these guys get in the cockpit?😬😬😬😬
@Marlin M heres something to blow your mind. Quite a few times on commercial jets it's the first officers 1st time flying an actual jet. Part of the line training is a lot of hours with a training captain. Obviously at the time of this screw up they didnt even consider a low time FO paired with a rookie captain.
In two weeks, it will have been exactly thirty-three years since my boss and friend of over seven years, former USMC Marine Max Richter, age forty-five, died aboard Flight #1713. I had worked with him since 1980 in Boise, Idaho, where the jet was headed to on that day. In fact, Max had successfully been attempting to quit smoking that year, and so instead of sitting in the back of the plane where all the smokers sat, on this day, he sat directly over the left wing. None of the people in the back of the plane that day perished in that fiery crash. When I would later clean out his desk, I came across a folder that contained a list of essential items to pack for his hunting trips, as Max was fond of deer and elk hunting, having grown up in Montana. And on a very old, yellowed piece of paper, was a comprehensive list of cold-weather equipment and clothing, safety gear, etc., as Max was without a doubt the most safety-conscious, careful, and also the most observant man I have ever known, before or since. Among some other items that belonged to Max, I still have that list. Anyway, at the top of this ancient, well-used page, written in what was ostensibly a much younger man's handwriting (but it was definitely Max's handwriting), was Item Number One, which Max must have decided was the most important item, and he had it spelled out clearly and listed it as just a single thought and word: EXPERIENCE. - j q t -
I was actually on the plane in the queue behind this plane and checking my watch, as I have flown many hours in small Cessna's so knew the rules about de-icing. I was very very close to standing up on the plane I was on to make a scene so we wouldn't take off. I witnessed the crash from my seat though somewhat obscured by the weather. I then spent the next 9 hours in the airport with grieving people, priests, and police thinking that could have been me. A very sad series of events that day that still makes me think how fragile life really is.....
I was getting on a plane in Colorado and noticed a ton of ice and snow on the wings. The captain and co-pilot were in the cockpit, smiling and saying hello and I was one of those people and said, "You guys are de-icing this, yes?" "Absolutely," came the reply. I apologized for being an armchair pilot but you never know obviously. We did de-ice and took off shortly after. It was pretty cool to watch the de-icing; huge slabs of ice slid off the wings, like a inch thick. And even with that, more ice came off when they lowered the flaps and slats for takeoff. It's really amazing how fast ice contaminates the wing.
Very good Allec. I've never heard about this accident. Very sad and preventable. Continental was a good airline. Their founder had a great relationship with Delta founder, C.E. Woolman. They both thought alike and discussed merging many times, but never did.
That’s why it crashed . Confused pilots and tower re: de- ice and who’s on first . Just like in real life . These boys were confused. Bad radio . Hence :: it makes us confused in following it . Get it ?
Am I the only one who thinks laws should be passed compelling airlines to disclose the reasons poorly performing pilots are dismissed when contacted by another airline considering hiring those pilots? Also, the dismissing airline should be protected from lawsuits.
Well, sometimes labor laws are tricky at times, on one hand you need to protect the employer, but in essence what have happened now with the labor laws is that the person who is less powerful(in a monetary sense) should be more protected and cared by law, and sometimes it is reasonable because maybe the company has very demanding and even impossible expectations for their crew, but this would mean that they would have a high turnover rate, but instead, in automatic, the law favors the employee who is more weak and powerless to the "imperialistic bastard airline company"
I think new hires should be flying the plane while experienced captains watch them closely during a 6-month probation period. If the new hire is underperforming, the captains will find out quickly and get rid of them - or at least alert the company that the hire needs more training. Some companies probably do something similiar already. No need to change any laws that weaken the position of employees and set a precedent that companies in other fields will abuse to weaken the position of their employees.
13:15 I was the Chief Pilot at the airline that fired Lee Breucher. I was also a training Check Airman and had been asked to train Lee as a Captain. He had been flying our turboprop aircraft as a First Officer (copilot). During several hours of training it became clear to me that Lee’s sense of spatial and situational awareness was poor. I knew Lee personally and liked him as a person. It pained me to tell him that I could not qualify him as a Captain. I heard several months after he left the airline I worked for that he had been hired at Continental. THEY NEVER CONTACTED me or anyone at my airline to inquire about Lee’s performance. It WAS NOT our lack of reporting to Continental. This was a truly tragic and avoidable accident for so many reasons.
Most accidents happen with good performing pilots....(the worlds biggest disaster, Tenerife 747 runway collision; was caused by a KLM captain who was the highest ranking 747 captain within the airline....)
OK, now I feel old officially. I was working in Continental dispatch the day this happened. It was so bad I even forgot there were survivors. Other than our DC-10 fire at LAX one time, this was our only incident in many years. This was post Lorenzo takeover by TexasAir, thus the DC-9-10's we inherited. Our other DC-9's were all -30 series [mostly 32 with -9B power] which had leading edge slats. I had also forgotten about the 27 minute wait and we just attributed it to the wing not having the leading edge devices for added lift. I have a question though. Did they really fail to raise the gear after attaining a positive rate? That prolly would have been the difference maker as well. Lorenzo created a lot of problems that made it extremely difficult to make ends meet in the operation, and I'm sure crew scheduling was one of them. The DoJ barred him for life against any equity or executive role in any airline in the end. I quit after the second of his planned bankruptcies.
Genda Minoru, I may have worked your load planning for some of your flights. I was in Load planning with Continental in Denver. Do you recall Dispatcher at KIAH, name of Knippell?
Hey then you were trained by the chain smoking Pat Luthy. What a woman she was hu? Knipple sounds familiar - it's been a long time. How did you like keeping track of all Lorenzo'a acquisitions? What was it 5 different MD-80 configs, People's Express 747, Eastern A-300. What a menagerie that was. I liked it when we only had DC-10-10 and DC-10-30 and 727 and DC-9 and our own MD-80s were just coming on line.
Genda Minoru, I started out working for PE, then they acquired Frontier, which later, was all acquired by CO! Multiple names within a short span.In Denver, during the summer, I hated when we were issued a 727-9, that came from the east going to LAX! The temperature, would kill the load planning! And then that DC--10, DEN to LHR, bad news, when the Den temp was high. Had one ETD 1930, Had to wait until 2300 for the temp to drop, so it could depart! Yes, the good all days! I now reside in Spain, retired from ATC, just staying safe and healthy indoors.
The communication and ground control guidance was an absolute debacle. To think I flew into and out of this airport only two years later. Glad I didn’t remember this. Allec, the crash simulation is absolutely perfect! Awesome job!
Total snafu. Two crews failed to notify the tower of their intentions, and the tower (and ground control) never double-checked anything when they should have sensed something was wrong. And those 2 pilots of the accident plane sounded like real plungers. Sheesh. Nice vid, Allec... :)
It's noted that both pilots were inexperienced for these conditions, with the F/O having a record of poor performance. One needs to look at this condition. During the 1980s the CEO of Continental Airlines was Frank Lorenzo, who was known to pay far below the going industry norms for his pilots. Result: He gets people that nobody else would hire. This did not improve until Lorenzo got the heave-ho and new management made changes.
Jon Rabben you have no idea what your talking about!!! Old Frontier (the original) New York Air, People Express and the Old Continental guys (not the 83 hire scabs) were all great guys and mostly military! You have to remember the 80’s and 90’s there were a glut of highly skilled and professional!
Miscommunication and "disunderstanding" on both airplanes parts. As well at the ATC guy. As often seems to happen in these. This shows why you must be thorough and CLEAR in your communications with ATC.
I believe there is MUCH improved Ground radar & communication today at airports in general. There's a lot of 'runway crashes / colissions' back in the 70's-90's I think air traffic had increased faster than the Tech to keep it all sorted out. One of the many aspects that make our air travel safer due to lessons learned from the lives lost back then ! RIP to the 25 victims & crew !
There was a note on the video that Denver did not have equipment that monitored ground movement of aircraft. To me, the question is why would you move on the ground without receiving clearance? Terrible behavior. They didn't even ask for clearance. They share in the responsibility for this crash because they created the confusion. They were also not on the right frequency when the tower tried to contact them.
I was working Load Planning for Continental, that day, but this flight was not on my roster. Another colleague had it. I cannot recall exactly, if the deicing area was controlled by ATC, or the ramp control. After pushing back the aircraft went to deicing, then I presume, contacted ATC, and advised them of their location at deicing. If anyone that worked there at that time could provide the correct info, I would be appreciate it.
Where does that crash and roll at the end come from? Is it from Flight Simulator or something else? Is that something new? I haven't seen that in many of your videos but maybe because I've watched a lot of the older ones and haven't seen much of the newer.
So many things went wrong, however you would have thought that somebody would have asked the co-pilot about the number of flight hours completed on this aircraft, right?
True - that ultimately led to confusion that produced the excessive delay in conditions that caused ice to build up on the wings and made the plane unflightworthy.
@@flagmichael - No, it didn't make it unflightworthy! Were you sniffing glue or watching the video? If it had not been over-rotated at six degrees per second instead of the the standard 3 degrees per second for a DC-9 series 10, then it could have made it okay. BTW, this video does not mention the rate of rotation, I got that info from somewhere else. It does mention it was rotated too fast but that was it. But the final blow was the first officer pulling back on the yoke too quickly. It for sure could have made it off the runway. Read the NTSB report.
@@mikemortensen4973 If they had gotten airborne you still had a plane in a snowstorm with iced over wings in the hands of two inexperienced people. They probably would have just crashed in a different location.
So many factors here. Pilots inexperienced, radio miscomunication, airport with no aircraft ground control system...and the weather. I think airport's lack of such system was determinal.
Looking at this channel as well as episodes on the Flight Channel, having played dozens & dozens of stories, I have the impression that the most common cause of these disasters seems to be because of incompetence on the flight deck. Either that or negligence on the part of the airline operator - or both! Am I right about this ...?
In freezing precip, the wing may or may not fly at V2 (or even V2+20 knots), especially if it's a 'hard wing' (no leading edge high-lift devices) like this one was. If one must start a takeoff in those conditions in ANY aircraft it would be better to rotate the machine at the deduced speed, but only slowly and gradually to a couple or three degrees. Then let the airplane come off the ground on its own when it's ready to fly. Your balanced field is blown all to hell, but your overall safety factor just increased exponentially...
The issue was initially created by the aircraft going to the de-icing pad without clearance. All went downhill from there. For the idiots amongst you - the aircraft does not position itself - the flight crew do that.
No. The root causes are the accident aircraft pilots' incompetencies. Each pilot was incompetent in different ways, and their incompetencies very much combined in a perfect fashion to insure the accident would occur.
@@markmaki4460 That was the root cause but it would not have surfaced without the precondition of the failure to get clearance to the pad. Everything grew from that to make the pilots' competencies critical... and could have progressed to any of dozens of hazardous situations that would exceed human control. Everything is a technicality until something goes wrong.
@@flagmichaelNot getting the clearance to go to the deicing pad. Magnified a marginal copilot and a captain that should have never let him handle the takeoff. The question I have is if the safety margin between deicing and being allowed to fly and not allowed to fly is short. You would think they would have thought they would have moved the deicing pad closer to the runway. That they would not allow a plane to taxi to the deicing pad unless they had a specific takeoff time. As soon as they left the deicing pad they would takeoff.
In an industry I used to work in, the HR managers of competing companies had an informal agreement with each other that they would speak to each other candidly and off the record to help keep each other from hiring bad apples. Too bad the airlines didn't have this going on.
I’m no pilot but shouldn’t there be a setable sound alarm when 20 minutes expires? Also shouldn’t an alarm go off when the optimal take off angle is exceeded, thus preventing a stall?
My flight to Baltimore took off about an hour before.Same Airline and also a DC 9. Weird thing is the pilot never got on the audio system the entire flight. My parents were distraught because we had rushed to the airport and got me on a different flight with the storm hitting town.
Continental, PanAm and Eastern airlines were the shit back in the day. The were the big time US commercial carriers back then. They all suffered such tragic ends
This was certainly a disaster waiting to happen. Those poor passengers had no chance! Irresponsible conduct all round. Excellent reporting Allec. Stay safe everyone from a locked down 👋🇿🇦
So the airline, and controllers had no fault here? The controller had problems more than once identifying aircraft, and the airline did a shoddy job setting up and matching up their pilots. How could Continental not known the status of the first officer? Or the Captain. Yeah, the pilots made a couple errors, however the airline, and the controllers hung them out to dry over thier way bigger mistakes. I pray airports have a better de-icing routine than they used to have. I've seen too many of these scenarios where planes were left on the runway too long, and iced back up. Poor passengers...they didn't stand a chance. If I saw piles of ice and snow on the wings of a plane I was on, I would be screaming for them to stop!! They could have me arrested...and I'd live...
Well, there was a chance to lift off safely even with the ice as it was mentioned on the video, still the one flying the plane did a very sloppy job of controlling it, which led to a stall, and at the end, the crash, but in this case there would be a lot more things that could have gone terribly wrong on the ground, even a triple plane crash on the ground
I remember this crash and reading about it. One of the passengers was jammed against another passengers so tightly, and being upside down, she had trouble breathing, and later died. What a horrific situation to be in.
ALL of these mistakes are what we're taught from day one of private pilot training. All BASIC stuff. Once airborne, you don't aim for the sun. And the captain was so incompetent, he shouldn't have been allowed in an ultralight. It's amazing how two assholes can manage to meet up in one cockpit, and kill 26 innocent people. They broke just about every rule there is in a situation like this....
whats the sound pack that you use for the jets. I don't have fs2004 but I would like to convert the sound pack from this DC9 (unless its payware because then that's pirating) to work with fsx.
In addition to all the other factors mentioned here, the fact that this model of the DC-9 didn't have any L/E devices (slats and/or flaps) made it much more susceptible to the adverse effects of any ice contamination on the "hard" leading edges of the wings. This would also be a factor in the subsequent crashes of Air Ontario 1383 in Dryden Ontario, and USAir 405 at LGA, both of which were Fokkers without any L/E devices. I attended the NTSB hearings on this Denver accident, and the "hard wing" aspect was a "gotcha" on this particular aircraft type was a subject that didn't get much attention in the training process compared with the other DC-9/MD-80 types in the airline's fleet at the time.
In fairness, he may have worked there before learning to fly at all. But yes, it is not a sign of somebody who was born to pilot jet passenger aircraft.
It’s called seniority. You don’t get promoted until your seniority can hold the position and then you have to train for that seat and position. Then paired with a training captain.
Me. Beech 18. Danville, IL 1977. Emery Air Freight. Blowing snow. 18 positioned crossways to wind for 2 or 3 hours. I checked the left, upwind wing for snow & ice...very little. I didn't check the downwind wind. Took off. Full left rudder & ailerons couldn't compensate. Reduced power of left engine to 50% & barely got my stupid ass out of there. Didn't even consider a return to field. Flew to Champaign on everything left with reduced power, some accumulation had blown off enroute, landed okay. Ice was under the snow. Big Lesson Learned. Watch your ass. Think. Don't be lazy!
We got to the de-ice pad all the time without telling ATC, that’s been commonplace since the 60s. This is an absolutely catastrophic failure of ATC to recognize the normal happenstance of obviousness.
Well, i guess if they could have requested clearance to taxi to the de-icing pad, this wouldnt happen i guess...It is a miracle that any on the ground accident didnt happen with so much traffic waiting to de-ice...
In my view, it seems that 1713 began the chain of wrong actions by heading to de-ice without asking the Tower for clearance to do so. It was just one thing after another in this cluster... what an unnecessary tragedy!
I've watched a lot of these videos, but this one is among the most disturbing. The captain was just promoted? Did he even know about the 20-minute deicing max? And the bad FO not being vetted properly due to fear of lawsuits? Those poor people who died and were injured -- i hope their relatives sued the pants off of Continental. First degree criminal negligence.
I hope also they got the tower controllers re trained to do their job of controlling the aircraft taxiing and placements right? Plus why don't the de-icing crews tell the tower that they just de-iced what plane on the de-icing pad area each time? It seems like even if the tower for what ever reason could not contact the plane due to the radio being still on ground setting, Why O'why did the de-icing crew not tell the tower what plane they just had to de-ice and where it was waiting? Really without the later on airport ground radar for seeing where every one is in the airports taxi and runways.. You think the support crews would still have to talk to the tower and say Yes we just had xxxx numbered aircraft here for de-icing which one is next? As I was taught if you don't know something is so? Check it is so, don't just assume it is!
This is one of the worst preventable disasters in Aviation. So many things independent from each other would have not caused this....but this day every single piece to the puzzle fit into place and this was the result......its just unbelievable seeing the facts how anyone could have missed it.....but they did. ANY employee who is FIRED from a job and is hired by hiding it...should be a crime. This FO had no business being fired from multiple pilot jobs and get hired because it all hidden they have been previously terminated.......no one would have hired this tool having known full well he has been fired in the past for shitty performance.
I guess they didn't have Type IV in 1987....27 mins is nothing with a good type IV fluid. The takeoff order confusion should've been handled in 1-2 min. I'm guessing the lack of LED's on the 9's wing made the contaminant's effect more pronounced. Bottom line: if in doubt, go back for another squirt.
So many failures here. Could a better pilot have managed the snow build up? If they had taken off, How would the flight have gone overall with 2 inexperienced pilots? Would it all have been avoided if the tower hadn't mixed them up?
(a better pilot would have contacted ground control for taxi clearance; after deicing they would have monitored the "holdover time" for the deicing solution - if the time was exceeded they would have requested a return to the deicing ramp before taking off). These guys were weak, should never have been paired, and if either one of them had come for an interview with my team, they would have gotten a "thanks but no thanks" letter as we didn't operate a full-time training & baby-sitting program.
why would the pilots take off knowing snow and ice were accumulating after sitting for almost 30 min after de-ice. they killed themselves and 25 others. DUH...
TinyTim - Yes, that's basically how it works. There are various solutions used depending on the weather, but the important distinction is between a solution used to _remove_ ice from the aircraft (which was used for this flight) and one used to _prevent_ ice forming on the wings (which wasn't used). The deicing removed the ice, but nothing was done to prevent it building up again.
@@Tevildo At that time there was no ant-icing solution to put on the wings. I think that came out relatively shortly after this crash. I can't say for sure but I think it was the result of this crash and the Air Florida crash. Today if there is snow or ice on the wing it will be deiced and then an anti-ice solution will be applied to the wing. The anti-ice solution is a gel and actually absorbs the moisture that is falling. As the airplane is on the takeoff roll the gel is blown off by the air going over the wing. Depending on the air temperature, intensity and type of precipitation the aircraft can be on the ground between 45 minutes an two hours. That's referred to as the "holdover time." If that is exceeded the aircraft needs to be deiced again. It has made winter operations much safer. About three weeks after this crash I was the first officer on a MD 80 going from Chicago to Atlanta. There was moderately heavy snow falling. When we were number 2 for takeoff the captain told me to go back and look at the wings. I came back and told him that we had hard packed snow on the wings. We went back to the gate and got deiced.
@@pixurguy4915 Anti-icing was available in Europe, but not in the USA at this point. (These were the days of "polished frost" and informal visual inspection, after all). See para 1.17.4.1 of the official report.
There you have it. Two incompetent so called pilots with the lives of the passengers in their hands. Continental should have paid thru the nose. You never know who is flying the plane. That is what scares me along with poor maintenance.
