Even as the wreckage of Col-gan Flight 3407 cooled in a Buffalo, N.Y., neighborhood in mid-February, the debate over flying turboprops into known icing was reigniting. Whether icing was the cause isn't known, and actually isn't relevant to the fact that this accident reminded everyone in the industry of an unresolved safety question: Are turboprops equipped with pneumatic boot de-icing systems really capable of handling all the icing they might be expected to encounter? And if they aren't, how can pilots be trained to safely recover an airplane that's been iced up beyond the equipment's capability or, worse, survive an icing encounter in an airplane with no ice protection?
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