E.Z.Flyer,
I'm sorry, because I always get a little bit annoyed when people on these forums get into a discussion about it being a "professional" pilots rumour network.
I apologise if you once held a licence for single engine piston, but are now a bombardier flight test engineer, but otherwise...
At the top of each pilots PFD (that means primary flight display) and is a huge great big screen in front of them, there is an area called the FMA (flight modes annunciator) which tells them what the aeroplane systems are doing or about to do.
On every EFIS aircraft I have flown (6 types with as many different operators) it has been company SOP that one or other of the pilots calls what they see on this screen as it changes, and the other confirms it. That includes the Q400 but not with Colgan apparently, or if it was SOP they ignored it for the whole flight.
If you read through the 10quadrillion posts hear you will find out that they didn't need to see it wasn't a tailplane stall, because aircraft with non reversable powered flight controls are not prone to this indication of a tailplane stall. It was not a tailplane stall. Bombardier say it wasn't. Transport Canada say it wasn't, The NTSB say it wasn't.
Whatever happened, they didn't need a warning to tell them it was a tailplane stall because it doesn't happen in a Q400.