Five years ago at the close of this month a French-built ATR 72 twin-turboprop operated by the agency of Simmons Airlines (American Eagle) plummet into a soggy bean field at Roselawn.

Five years ago at the close of this month a French-built ATR 72 twin-turboprop operated by the agency of Simmons Airlines (American Eagle) plummet into a soggy bean field at Roselawn, Indiana, killing all 68 passengers and horde aboard. The case is individual of the most important in a protracted history of icing accidents. It triggered a thorough redesign of the de-icing profits on the airplane (expanding them to cloak a greater percent of the wing chord), as well as numerous recommendations concerning operating courses in icing conditions. At the same time, war of words surrounds the investigation to this day.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) attributed the October 31 1994 crash to in-flight icing. That wasn't all, allowing The Board attributed inadequate cockpit practices and inadequate oversight on the part of U and French regulatory authorities to the crash. In its bluntnes and space the Board's probable cause stood as a sweeping indictment. According to Stephen Fredrick, an ATR 72 pilot who later wrote a work about the Roselawn crash, titled "Unheeded Warning," the NTSB was beneath considerable pressure to soften the language in its final report.

on the same level before the Safety Board officially pronounced its determination of probable cause, the French were protesting. And, upon Sept. 22 of this year, another declare in the form of a "Petition for Reconsideration of Probable Cause," was submitted according to the French. That document has not now been made public, but it marks the fourth disagreement with the investigation to be filed with the NTSB:

* First response: May 13 1996 The French equivalent of the NTSB the Bureau Enquette - Accidents (BEA), submitted a 307-page make notes taking issue with many of the NTSB's assertions.

* secondary response: Nov. 29, 1996. The French Direction Generale de l'Aviation Civile (DGAC), the equivalent to the U Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), submitted a petition for reconsideration of probable cause. It not awayed similar and equally specific disagreements to the BEA annotations submitted six months before.

* Third response: May 28 1998 The FAA did not fare as far as the DGAC's petition for reconsideration, unless it did submit some 20 pages of detailed remarks which certainly had the appearance of supporting the DGAC initiative.

* Fourth response: September 22 1999 Avions de Transport Regional (ATR), manufacturer of the ATR-72 accident aircraft, submitted its petition requesting reconsideration of the cause.

The chest score is now two official petitions for reconsideration and couple extended comments that could be constru as supporting the official entreatys The near-total disagreement of the four principal parties to the investigation is, to the best recollection of our Contributing Editor Rudy Kapustin, "unprecedented"

To date, the NTSB has not replyed to any of these pleadings. The DGAC petition and the FAA literal sense for example, have gone unanswered for three years. A Safety Board official said a reply is planned and will be issued after the just discovered Year.

Probable Cause

"The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable causes of this accident were the los of repress attributed to a sudden and unexpect aileron hinge consideration reversal that occurred after a ridge of ice accreted beyond the deice make differences because:

1) ATR failed to completely disclose... information concerning previously known forces of freezing precipitation on the stability and bridle characteristics, autopilot and related operational conducts when the ATR 72 was operated in like conditions;

2) the French Directorate General for Civil Aviation's (DGAC's) inadequate oversight of the ATR 42 and 72

3) The DGAC's failure to provide the FAA with timely airworthiness information disentangleed from previous ATR incidents and accidents in icing conditions...

Contributing to the accident were:

1) The FAA's failure to make secure that aircraft icing certification requirements, operational requirements for flight into icing conditions, and FAA published aircraft icing information adequately accounted for the hazards that can originate from flight in freezing rain and other icing conditions... and

2) The FAA's inadequate oversight of the ATR 42 and 72 to render certain continued airworthiness in icing conditions.

Source: NTSB adopted July 9 1996

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