Regional Jet 700 ER/LR (CRJ700)
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Distraction; Human-Machine Interface
Deviation - Altitude Excursion From Assigned Altitude; Deviation - Speed All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Other / Unknown; Inflight Event / Encounter Loss Of Aircraft Control
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Flight Crew Regained Aircraft Control; Flight Crew Took Evasive Action
Human Factors; Procedure
On our climb to altitude ATC requested best rate for conflicting traffic so I had the plane climbing at a high vertical speed. During that time my lunch plate spilled onto the floor and against my better judgment I leaned down to clean it up. At the same time the pilot monitoring was dealing with a paper jam in the printer so both our eyes were off the instruments for a brief period of time. The airspeed bled off quickly and the autopilot clicked off as the shaker alerted us to our slow speed; I did the recovery procedure with a change in pitch to 5-10 degrees down and max power and we descended 4000 feet to recover. We told ATC immediately we needed lower as we started down and right away we were cleared 4000 feet lower. There was no traffic conflict and while in hindsight I would have declared an emergency our hands were full with getting the plane to a safe airspeed and altitude again. After the rush of getting the airspeed back and since we were already cleared lower it didn't seem to make sense to declare an emergency after the fact; which is the only reason we didn't do it. ATC didn't seem concerned with our sudden descent and no phone number was given. I've flown this aircraft type for 13 years without an event like this ever occurring so it was eye opening to see how fast it happened. Obviously lack of attention to the instruments was the contributing factor and as PIC I was responsible and feel terrible about it. Looking ahead I will never allow anything to take my eyes off the instruments during s climb because this is a vulnerable phase of flight for this to occur. I do want to point out that I've done this exact recovery in sim the last two times I've been back for recurrent and I was grateful to have had that training because we did get the plane under control very quickly. Most importantly; I was glad to know ahead of time that you have to accept the altitude loss and get the angle of attack pitched down because that is what I did instead of trying to power out of it. The training definitely kept a bad situation from getting worse and I am very grateful for it. I would strongly recommend that this recovery procedure stay in the maneuvers syllabus for our check rides.
Autopilot kicked off at about FL348. Our assigned altitude was FL350. So I am thinking what on earth. Why is that kicking off and captain grabs and starts hand flying and we get the shaker. And then I see our airspeed is 180 knots and I understand now. Captain follows recovery procedure and tells me to request FL310 due to ride. I do that and ask if he wants to declare an emergency. He said no and ATC gives us FL310. We descend the 4000 feet and recovery is complete. We continue flight.Root cause most likely when ATC requested we accelerate our climb through flight level 280 and increased the climb angle. He was eating his sandwich and accidentally spilled his chips on floor and trying to pick those up and I had a printer jam as the Jeppesen manual had shifted over the printer. So both focused on a distraction. Don't do anything until you are at cruise.
CRJ700 flight crew reports being asked by ATC for their best rate to FL350; then being distracted by minor tasks that allow the aircraft to slow to 180 knots and sticker activation. A text book recovery is performed.