[toddst]

. . . NTSB aerospace engineers released a detailed report that stated the plane had slowed to 76 knots, or 87 miles per hour, seconds before the crash. The plane's flight manual calls for a minimum airspeed in icing conditions of 140 knots.

This tells me the plane had more ice than the pilots were aware of. Likely they didn't react quickly enough to the decline in airspeed which dropped them below minimum speed and altitude.

Planes with ice are hard to control, especially at low speed. This is not pilot error that justifies filing suit, IMO. After all, the pilots died as a result of what happened. They weren't going to knowingly put themselves at risk.

[5by5]

I'm thinking that the pilots were aware of their dangerous load of ice. They were "low and slow: because of the ice and couldn't do anything about it.

As the plane loads up, the pilots have to increase power to maintain altitude and airspeed. When all the power is in, they must start increasing the angle of attack and accept the decrease in airspeed. At some point they can no longer increase angle of attack without decreasing speed below the point of stalling and they must then accept an inevitable loss of altitude. That's the chain of events that put them low and slow on the approach and in the trees.

The mistake was taking off into marginal conditions. Given the uneven distribution of severe icing, they also had some bad luck. I see it as more of a decision making mistake than a single error in piloting skills. That's also what invites the lawyers in.

Since it seems that all the witnesses to the last conversation on the ground (if there even was one), are dead, so we can really only speculate about the dynamics between the flight crew and the passengers.

RIP