WASHINGTON — Capt. Marvin D. Renslow began the last hour of his life by engaging the autopilot on Continental Connection Flight 3407.

At 9:22 p. m. on Feb. 12, as his Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 rose in the skies above New Jersey on its way to Buffalo, Renslow said: “Autopilot’s engaged.”

“Alright,“ replied his co-pilot, Rebecca L. Shaw.

“It’s probably a good thing,“ Renslow replied.

Three months to the day later, Renslow’s words, and Shaw’s — from the moment he switched on the autopilot to the moment his twin-engine turboprop plane plummeted into a house in Clarence Center, killing 50 people — were spelled out in harrowing detail Tuesday in a transcript of the doomed flight’s cockpit voice recorder.

Those words show both pilots highlighting their lack of experience. Renslow complained about the plane he was flying, and Shaw said she had never before flown on an icy night. |

“I’ve never seen icing conditions,“ Shaw said. “I’ve never de-iced. I’ve never seen any. I’ve never experienced any of that. I don’t want to have to experience that and make those kinds of calls. You know I’d ’ve freaked out. I’d have like seen this much ice and thought oh my gosh we were going to crash. “

The transcript, released on the first of three days of testimony in National Transportation Safety Board hearings on the crash of the commuter plane, also reveals Renslow and Shaw breaking federal regulations by talking about extraneous matters as the flight descended toward Buffalo.

In addition, the transcript shows Renslow and Shaw panicking once the plane lost control.

While engaging in that idle banter in the last minutes of the flight, Renslow and Shaw stopped checking the plane’s instruments and failed to realize that the plane was flying so slowly that it could stall, said John E. “Jeb” Barrett, director of flight standards for Colgan Air, the Continental subcontractor that operated the flight.

But Flight 3407’s troubles apparently began far earlier than those last few minutes.

Renslow might have been joking when he said that “it’s probably a good thing” that the plane was on autopilot.

But in reality, it should not have been a joke.

The safety board recommends that pilots turn off the autopilot and fly manually when icing could be an issue, and the Federal Aviation Administration recommends that pilots turn off the autopilot at least once every five minutes during icing conditions.

While federal officials said icing apparently did not cause the crash, Renslow reported ice on the wings and windshield of the plane. Yet he left the autopilot on until it automatically disengaged seconds before the crash.

Earlier in the flight, as the plane cruised forward at its highest altitude, Renslow mused about how he preferred the Saab turboprop that he had flown until just two months earlier. Encouraging Shaw to become a pilot on the smaller Saab plane, Renslow called it “a neat airplane to fly” and added: “It’s not like this.”

The Saab, he said, is easier to fly than the Q400.

“It’s like mom’s SUV or minivan,” he said. “You know, the soccer van — uh, you don’t have to fly with your hands and your feet. You just fly with your hands.”

A moment later, in an apparent reference to flying the Q400, Renslow said: “You know what? Yeah, I tell you I’m getting a lot more used to it. Uh, I’m not saying I like it any better, but I am getting used to it.”

Renslow flew the Saab turboprop all over Texas, and he preferred the open skies of the Lone Star State to what he encountered up north in the larger Q400 turboprop.

“Down in Houston yyou’re more spread out,” Renslow said at 10:03 p. m., just 13 minutes before the plane crashed. “Uh, the flying is a whole lot nicer down there. The controllers are a whole lot nicer. In Florida the same.”

Apparently referring to flying in the Northeast, Renslow then said: “It’s just all the pressure of all the the congestion and the the volume and weather and anything and everything.”

At 10:06, the plane descended below 10,000 feet, the level at which pilots, under federal regulations, are supposed to talk about nothing but the flight they’re flying.

Four minutes later, Renslow complained of the ice that was forming on the plane’s windshield and wings.

“That’s the most I’ve seen — most ice I’ve seen on the leading edges in a long time,” Renslow said.

A minute later, Renslow noted that he was hired by Colgan Air, which operated the flight, with just 625 hours of flying experience.

“That’s not much for, uh, back when you got hired,” Shaw said.

A moment later, Shaw complained of her own inexperience, saying that she had “never seen icing conditions” and that she didn’t want to experience them because it would make her think “oh my gosh we were going to crash.”

In response, Renslow said: “I would’ve been fine. I would have survived it. There wasn’t, we never had to make decisions that I wouldn’t have been able to make, but now I’m more comfortable.”

The crew then lowered the plane’s flaps and landing gear, and the plane quickly encountered trouble.

The plane’s “stick shaker,” a stall-warning device, activated at 10:16 p. m. for nearly seven seconds.

A horn then sounds to signal that the autopilot was disconnecting.

At that point, the safety board said, Renslow inappropriately pulled back on the plane’s yoke, pushing its nose upward. That altered the airflow over the wings and sent the plane tumbling.

While the safety board showed a dramatic animated re-creation of the plane losing control, the flight voice recorder is spotty from that moment on.

After a sound of the engine power increasing, Renslow said: “Jesus Christ.” At that point, the stick shaker activated again and Shaw said she put the flaps up. Renslow grunted and made a partly inaudible utterance that sounded like “ther bear.”

Shaw then asked: “Should the gear up?” “Gear up oh [expletive],” Renslow replied. Noise increased in the background, and Renslow said: “We’re down.”

There’s a thump, and Shaw says “we” and then screams—and at that point the recording abruptly ends.

Capt. Paul A. Rice, first vice president of the Airline Pilots Association, defended the crew, saying that most of the discussion Renslow and Shaw shared was about the flight at hand.

“I think they were proactively discussing their experience,” Rice said.

But safety board members were not so generous in their comments.

Safety Board member Debbie Hersman said she was particularly struck by Shaw’s comments on icing.

“That really made me kind of pause, when I read that,” Hersman said. “She seems concerned about the time that they’re going to get exposed to icing conditions.”

Mark V. Rosenker, acting chairman of the safety board, told reporters that Renslow and Shaw violated regulations banning extraneous conversation once a plane descends below 10,000 feet.

“Clearly there were violations of the ‘sterile cockpit’ rules,” which ban such conversations, Rosenker said. “Critical phases of flight need clear and direct focus. Without that, there is a risk of mistakes.”