Plane Answers: "Chit-chat" did NOT doom Colgan flight 3407

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That was a confusing part for me in the transcript. I've never heard Vref abbreviated to just the last two digits before, but it might be a Colgan thing. Could they have been referring to the altimeter bugs, perhaps? I looked up the ILS to 23 at Buffalo and didn't find any 18 or 14 in the missed approach altitudes.

Even if the bugs were set at Vref plus any additives, there were no autothrottles, so the airspeed was entirely dependent on what the flying pilot did with the throttles.

Are you suggesting that they mistakenly put in the wrong Vref? That would likely show up in the wreckage, I would think.

I'm open to ideas though. That's a new one that I hadn't heard before. Thanks for bringing it up, Bob.

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