Originally Posted by rabski
The flight before got airborne, as did the one after eh? Simple maths therefore suggests a one in three chance of not making it.
Not particularly good odds are they?
Really, there is enough experience and worse, enough buried dead, to make the point perfectly clear. The regulations stipulate it. The SOPs stipulate it. Common sense stipulates it.
I’m not sure how many more times I’ll have to say this to get the point across ... the accident airplane DID NOT crash because of the accumulation of snow fall experienced between the gate and the takeoff. The aircraft crashed because it was deiced with hot water – that process specifically deposited water on the entire aircraft – fuselage, wings, engine inlets, everything. Where upon that water promptly froze – deforming the wings, and producing the effect that the B-737 had been known for doing – producing the same effect that almost crashed the B-737 departing from Oslo, Norway on that same day – producing an unexpected and uncontrollable pitch-up – to a point that was not recoverable – regardless of what control application was applied by the flight crew. This was not a “one-in-three” chance of snow fall exposure resulting in an accident - the reason that the airplane preceding the accident airplane and the airplane following the accident airplane did NOT crash is that they were merely exposed to the same snow fall experienced by the accident airplane – NEITHER of them were deiced with WATER – as WAS the accident airplane.