SEATTLE -- Investigators will look at whether a Maple Valley woman was tired when she co-piloted an airliner that crashed near Buffalo in February, killing 50 people.

The Associated Press reported that Rebecca Shaw had been with her parents the night before in the Seattle area and that she took a red-eye flight to Newark International Airport, where she got on the commuter plane to be co-pilot to Buffalo.

She said she wasn't feeling well, was suffering from a cold and was very congested.

The National Transportation Safety Board is holding a hearing Tuesday in Washington, D.C., that will look at whether Shaw was tired. The hearing also is looking at the training of the pilot, who had failed several tests in aircraft simulators over the course of his career.

A cockpit voice recorder transcript released Tuesday by the National Transportation Safety Board shows that just seconds before the crash, the pilot said "Jesus Christ" and moments later Shaw screamed as Flight 3407 plunged to the ground.

The transcript also showed that only minutes before the Feb. 12 crash, Captain Marvin Renslow and Shaw chatted about her career and shared their fear of flying in icy weather.

As the Dash-8 approached Buffalo on a wintry night, Shaw and Renslow first remarked to each other -- less than seven minutes before the crash -- about how much ice had formed on their wings. At the time they were descending from 6,000 to 4.000 feet.

"It's lots of ice," Shaw said.

"Oh yeah that's the most I've seen, most ice I've seen on the leading edges in a long time, in a while anyway I should say," Renslow replied.

Renslow then remarked that he'd flown about 625 hours in the region before he was hired for this job by Manassas, Va.-based Colgan Air.

Shaw replied, "I really wouldn't mind going through a winter in the Northeast before I have to upgrade to captain. ... I've never seen icing conditions. I've never deiced. 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'dve freaked out. I'dve have like seen this much ice and thought, `Oh my gosh, we were going to crash.' "

"I would've been fine," Renslow replied. "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 lowers the landing gear and adjusts the flaps, but at 10:16.26 p.m. there's a sound similar to movement of the flap handle and Shaw says, "Uhhh."

Less than a second later, there are sounds similar to the stick shaker -- a warning transmitted through the control stick that the aircraft is nearing a stall. These last for 6.7 seconds. Less than a second later, a horn sounds signaling the autopilot disconnecting and that horn continues until the end of the recording.

Three seconds later, there's a click followed by the sound of increased engine power.

At 10:16.34.8, Renslow says, "Jesus Christ."

Shaw says she put the flaps up and asks if she should put the landing gear up. Renslow replies: "Gear up, oh (expletive)."

As noise in the cockpit increases, Renslow adds: "We're down."

There's a thump.

Shaw: "We (sound of scream)."

With that entry at 10:16.52, the transcript ends.

The board also released documents showing that safety investigators were told by one training instructor that Renslow "was slow learning" the Dash 8 at the start but his abilities "picked up at the end." The training instructor said Renslow struggled to learn the Dash 8's flight management system, a critical computer, and had difficulty learning switch positions which were opposite from the throws he had been used to on another aircraft. This instructor described the captain's decision-making abilities as very good.

A check airman who flew with the captain in December said he flew very well and had good skills, and while he was still learning the flight management system, it was a normal progression.

Cogan Air acknowledged Monday that Renslow's training for the Dash 8-Q400 Bombardier didn't include a demonstration or simulation of the stick-pusher system. It noted that the Federal Aviation Administration doesn't require a simulator demonstration of the stick-pusher and added that Renslow "had all the training and experience required to safely operate the Q400."

A stick-pusher automatically kicks in when a plane is about to stall, pointing the aircraft's nose down into a dive so it can pick up enough speed to allow the pilot to guide it to a recovery.

However, when Flight 3407's stick-pusher kicked in on approach to Buffalo Niagara International Airport, Renslow pulled back on the plane's control column, apparently trying to bring the aircraft out of the sudden dive by raising the nose up. Pushing forward to gain speed is the proper procedure.

The activation of a stick pusher can be a jarring experience for any pilot, especially if the pilot has never experienced it before, said William Waldock, an aviation science professor at Embry-Riddle University in Prescott, Ariz. The natural response is to pull back unless you've been trained through repetition to push forward, he said.

Flight 3407 experienced an aerodynamic stall after the control column was pulled back. The plane then rolled over and dropped from the sky, landing on a house about five miles from the airport.

The NTSB recommended two years ago that the FAA study whether pilot training on stick-pushers should be improved. It appears the agency didn't change its guidance on stick-pusher training when it revised its training manual last fall on how to recover from a stall, sources said. FAA spokesman Les Dorr said the agency places its emphasis on teaching pilots on how to avoid getting into a situation where a stall occurs, rather than how to recover from one.