13 WTHR - Indianapolis News |Ice on wings: Buffalo crash similar to Roselawn tragedy

Ice on wings: Buffalo crash similar to Roselawn tragedy

West Lafayette - Significant ice buildup on the wings of a passenger plane is now the focus of a crash investigation in which 50 people died. Continental Flight 3407 took off from Newark Thursday night and was just five miles from Buffalo International Airport when it crashed in the town of Clarence Center.

Investigators have recovered the two black boxes that could give them clues to what went wrong. The circumstances that may have led to the crash sound all too familiar to Hoosiers.

The Buffalo crash is a story of fire and ice.

"There are reports the plane went straight down and we've also heard there is a potential for icing in the area. First thing I think of is here we go again. A situation like Roselawn," said Professor Richard Fanjoy, Purdue University.

Sixty-nine people died in Roselawn, Indiana, October 1994, when the Indianapolis to Chicago American Eagle flight went down due to severe icing in flight.

The Purdue aviation expert says any ice on a wing deforms the surface so air doesn't split around it as it should. The plane loses lift and could go down.

"Icing or frost as little as an eighth of an inch can have a severe impact. When you come out in the morning and your car has a layer of frost on it that could be enough to disrupt airflow in a way pilots wouldn't like," said Fanjoy.

If an eighth of an inch is bad, the pilots calling Buffalo Air Traffic Control minutes after the Continental crash tell a disconcerting tale.

Controller: "You got any icing or anything there?"
Pilot: "We've got a quarter of an inch on us from descent."
Pilot: "We've been getting ice since 20 miles south of the airport."
Pilot: "We've been picking up rhyme ice for the last ten minutes."

Rhyme ice is thick and dangerous. Many wings have rubber at the front of the wings called boots. They inflate to break ice off. After the Indiana crash that plane's builder was ordered to increase the size of the boot to keep ice from building behind it. But experts say it can still be a hazard. The Buffalo plane had boots too but, "too much builds up and it's just too much and the boot can't do anything for it," said Fanjoy.