I made the mistake of listening to the audio. They thought the clear icing was manageable and weren’t worried about it, but had some moderate turbulence they weren’t happy about, then entered an area where they were catching some precipitation. I suspect that the precipitation in what was already an ice situation is what very rapidly caused a loss of control. The time interval between “We’re looking for a smoother ride ahead” and “Mayday Mayday We are descending at 10,000 feet per minute” was very brief.
This one included no obvious cuts of silence and did have unrelated transmissions included, and included the radar tracking of the aircraft along with an overlay of weather radar. There was no indication of any editing for brevity, and the first radio call of genuine distress was “We are descending at 10,000 feet per minute” and not something that suggested a more gradual degradation of flight condition outside the mention of precipitation.
It really does appear that the situation went from “Uncomfortable but manageable” to “Already a disaster and getting rapidly worse” in a matter of seconds.
I made the mistake of listening to the audio. They thought the clear icing was manageable and weren’t worried about it, but had some moderate turbulence they weren’t happy about, then entered an area where they were catching some precipitation. I suspect that the precipitation in what was already an ice situation is what very rapidly caused a loss of control. The time interval between “We’re looking for a smoother ride ahead” and “Mayday Mayday We are descending at 10,000 feet per minute” was very brief.
These kinds of recordings typically have periods of silence (or unrelated transmissions) cut. The timing is very misleading.
This one included no obvious cuts of silence and did have unrelated transmissions included, and included the radar tracking of the aircraft along with an overlay of weather radar. There was no indication of any editing for brevity, and the first radio call of genuine distress was “We are descending at 10,000 feet per minute” and not something that suggested a more gradual degradation of flight condition outside the mention of precipitation.
It really does appear that the situation went from “Uncomfortable but manageable” to “Already a disaster and getting rapidly worse” in a matter of seconds.