Reply #16: They had just extended landing gear at 170 knots, speed dropped 20 knots, plane stalled

[leveymg]

Already at 15 degree flaps. Wings were iced. Altitude 2100 feet. The only way to end the stall was to pick up airspeed, promptly but not too suddenly.

She was entirely correct to retract flaps, but the bozo at the stick yanked back the yoke and firewalled the throttles, instead of putting it into a gentle nose-down dive followed by a steady power increase once the controls responded. What he did made the nose suddenly pitch way up, airspeed dropped to less than 100, and the plane rolled right - he steered hard left. It spun - no surprise about that.

Actually the plane didn't go completely inverted, recovered flight and stopped rolling at about 700 feet, started flying straight but in a steep dive at about 110 knots. Looked like they might have had a chance to save it there, but that's where the flight-recreation video at WSJ.com ends. See if you can find it and watch.