After working at airport weather offices for four years I have a natural inclination to follow stories of airline crashes a little more closely than others.
The story of the plane crashing in Buffalo has been disturbing. As the article explains those turboprops are a magnet for ice and there's not much a pilot can do about it. The jets have a way to heat up the wing but to retrofit the props would cost $500,000/plane.
All of this reminds me of how we human observers were replaced by machines. The machines, called ASOS, did a good job 99% of the time. They accurately recorded air temperature, wind speed, air pressure, etc.
The one time they consistently failed was with freezing rain. I worked a freezing rain storm in Norfolk that was the worse storm of my life. Power lines and trees were down everywhere. Omaha made national news because it looked like a war zone from all the damage.
Not once did ASOS detect freezing rain.
Basically, ASOS works great except for the time when it is needed most.
Imagine someone selling you a car that worked the same way: "It's a great car. There will come a time when you are doing 70 on the freeway and your brakes will fail... but don't worry, if you are lucky nothing bad will happen."
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