Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
Passengers pay twice to avoid Colgan
Small planes just don't resonate with some passengers. MaryBeth and Cy Christiansan of Queens paid the equivalent of an extra ticket each to skip a Colgan plane and fly on a jet. They indicated that the Colgan crash in Buffalo back in February wasn't far from their minds. So, for a bit of comfort, it was $150 well spent.
A Colgan flight crashed in February, killing all 49 people on the plane and one person on the ground. A recent investigation suggests that the pilot did not meet Colgan's standards and that the copilot may have suffered from fatigue.
Sentiments expressed by the passengers suggest that the size of the plane was the principal concern. The Christiansans changed flights for an aircraft that "didn't have a propeller." Richard Younglbood, who was about to board a Continental flight to Tennessee summed it up: "I don't like any of these jets. I don't trust any of them."
Filed under: North America, United States, Airports
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Alex May 18th 2009 8:59AM
I just flew a Colgan Q400 this weekend and I thought it was a pretty nice flight. It was quiet, and smooth flying. These turboprops can pretty much be considered perfectly safe; the Buffalo crash was the first fatal accident of a Q400 since they've been in service. As for Colgan however, I did notice they cut a couple corners when it came to procedure. For example, the pilots forgot to turn the seatbelt sign back on in the decent, it remained off when we were obviously below 10,000 feet. The flight attendent actually had to enter the flight deck and remind the pilots to turn it back on. This is something I've never seen happen before, and it could've turned into a huge liability for Colgan had we hit some sudden turbulance. All in all you can feel prefectly safe in a Q400 or any modern propeller plane. Maybe I'd choose another airline if I had a choice, but not if it cost an additional $150. Think of it this way, you have a much greater chance of being stuck by lightning than dying in a plane crash. Those are odds I can certainly feel comfortable with.
Evan MacKinnon May 19th 2009 4:34PM
This is rather disappointing from an aviation standpoint -- but I think it's just a case of poor understanding on aircraft. I've always questioned turbo-prop as opposed to jet engines and decided that in the highly unlikely, but least remote of accidents, a jet engine would do far more damage to an aircrafts contents than a turbo-prop if it were to, say... have a miss-alignment of a compressor blade or something. Propellors just don't have those problems. So I think it's safe to say that there really isn't a difference, but it's nice to see these lovely people injecting their cash into a struggling economy!