At the end of the recording it was obvious that the controller was concerned that she was headed right back into more freezing rain with his offer that the freezing level was at 4000 and offering her 3000 as a safer altitude.
I agree that I would be landing to evaluate my continue flight into known icing, because even if the aircraft was certified for known ice I don't think she was, and recovering from loss of control at 3000 is a lot tougher than from 10000.
Lastly she had no idea whether or not the aircraft had been damaged in her free-fall.
[...]
Caravans are certified for flight into known icing. No airplane is certified for flight into severe icing, e.g. Supercooled Large Drops (SLD), OTOH.
Unless she was pulling significant G's or had gone red-line on the airspeed (I would think both would be unlikely), I wouldn't be too concerned about airframe damage. Maybe broken antenna(s) or static wick(s).
But yeah, after that level of anxiety, I think it would have been a good idea to get on the ground and regroup. Maybe fly 10 - 20 minutes to calm down and feel in control again, though.
What we do know from the transcript:
She was flying at 10,000 feet in IMC and below freezing.
Autopilot on, boots off, pitot heat off.
She loses control.
After the descent to 6,500 she says that she turned them on, logically to do that they must have been off prior to losing control as mentioned above.
No guess work required about the circumstances.
She handled it a lot better than AF 447.
A number of years ago (I don't know if it was before or after this recording), the recommendation came out from the FAA, NTSB, or NASA (I don't remember who) to turn
off the autopilot in icing conditions so you could better sense the condition of the aircraft. Additionally, the pitot heat should have been on if in IMC anywhere near the freezing level.
Just some hypothesis here, but if the autopilot suddenly shut itself off in SLD after having run the trim all the way nose up and the pitot tube was frozen over and she hadn't popped the boots, I could see a pretty sudden loss of control. Unfortunately, add panic to the situation, and it's a doozy to handle (and no one listening to that audio will honestly say there was no panic!)
If this was a ferry flight via Bangor, what was the destination? Based on what I heard, this pilot didn't seems capable of doing a trans-Atlantic flight, so I hope it wasn't across the pond. That would also seem to be inconsistent with SAC Arrow's claim of hearing "screaming passengers in the background" (though I didn't hear that, myself).
In any event, I hope the controller got an Archie for his handling of the situation! I'd lay odds on his being a pilot himself.
As to the airliner asking if it was a woman in the Caravan, I'm pretty sure that the question was intended to positively identify the aircraft, not any sort of a sexist remark. At least I certainly hope so!
Those pilots in the MU-2 had the advantage of a two-pilot crew, which makes it
much easier! But even acknowledging that advantage, they handled their situation much more effectively. They knew what they wanted from ATC and they asked for it. They maintained composure and focus.
In both situations, ATC was doing their darndest to be helpful in assuring a successful flight.
Which pilot would I be in an emergency situation? I won't know until/unless I'm in the situation. Just ask Henning! I was listening to an interview recently with a pilot who'd had an inflight emergency and crashed, and he said he was much more comfortable flying now because he
knew how he'd react in a crisis situation. (We
all know how we
want to react!)
