FAA inspector: Colgan test flights bad

WASHINGTON, June 3 (UPI) -- A federal aviation inspector says he saw problems at Colgan Air a year before a flight to upstate New York crashed into a house near Buffalo.

Christopher Monteleon, an aviation industry veteran who has been with the Federal Aviation Administration since 1997, told The New York Times he was in the cockpit for Colgan's test flights of the first Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 the airline received. The Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 is the make of plane involved in the February crash, which killed 50 people, including one on the ground.

Monteleon said he observed Colgan pilots flying the plane at speeds above the manufacturer's specified limit and watched "botched" attempts to land at the airport in Charleston, W. Va.

He said Colgan officials did not want to record problems in the flight logs and that the FAA swept the problems under the rug.

An FAA spokeswoman, Laura Brown, said Monteleon's report on what he had observed was double-checked by a special team of inspectors who failed to find any major regulatory issues.

A spokesman for the airline called Monteleon's story "baseless."