It is always chilling when tragedies happen where you were or friends are or family are, as you know. Nod used to ride that very flight ... Buffalo has a lot of extremely wet cold. The plane was equipped with wing de-icing equipment and it was in use, but they did not realize it was not really doing the job until the last second, and they had already lost control.

I remember flying into that airport in a wind onto ice and saying, oh these COLD WIENIES! whe they were circling and nervous about attempting to land.

Having flown (heh, as a passenger) into Green Bay, WI in the winter had made me sure I knew what it was all about. However, it gets MUCH colder in GB, and the air loses a lot of humidity as a result.