Very Sad & Surreal

[Guest FourAces]

This is difficult to watch but at the same time it is so surreal.

[Guest hitoallusa]

Oh my no survivors? It's so unfortunate. Rest in peace. They say there was a load shift and it might have stalled the plane. Would our Captain explain what it means?

[Guest FourAces]

Oh my no survivors? It's so unfortunate. Rest in peace. They say there was a load shift and it might have stalled the plane. Would our Captain explain what it means?

Yep most of the experts have said a possible load shift and that would place the plane out of balance. If I understand correctly the pilots intentionally dipped the right wing to try to get the nose down so they could level off and start climbing again. You can see a last second effort to level off right before it hits the ground.

My brother who is also a pilot said basically it looked like the same thing but people shouldn't speculate till the black boxes are found which will give them much more detail both voice and instrument activity.

I'm sure RA1 can explain much better though what it looks like to him.

[JKane]

It was a cargo plane, so luckily not many souls aboard.

It had large pallets of cargo, during takeoff they broke free and rolled to the back of the plane, throwing the center of gravity way off, uncorrectably bringing the nose up and causing the stall.

The pilots still managed to get it pretty level, but didn't quite have enough altitude and with a 747 full of fuel the fireball was almost inevitable.

Every job at an airport can be important, this isn't the first heavy brought down by incompetent ramp work.

[AdamSmith]

incompetent ramp work.

Possibly. I did though see some press speculation that it could have been a hardware failure in the form of an attach point tearing loose.

[RA1]

Of course I have been following the news about this but did not realize this thread was about the 747 crash until just now. It is correct to not make too many assumptions until the FDR and CVR are read and interpreted (the so called black boxes which are really orange). Some things are known. One, it is common for civilian (and military) aircraft to use max effort take-offs when departing hostile territory. That provides the most vertical distance between the ground and the aircraft. However, it also provides the minimum airspeed above the stall, so if any thing goes wrong there is less margin for recovery. Two, indeed a large vehicle may have broken loose and caused a radical shift in the balance of the aircraft. Low and slow are of course the worst times for this to happen. However, blame should not be pointed towards the ground crew for any such. It is the ultimate responsibility of the captain to make sure the aircraft is ready for flight. He or she should have a loadmaster or flight engineer on board who should be an expert on loading the aircraft properly. At the very least he or she should supervise the loading and securing of any and all cargo.

Virtually any aircraft that stalls and "smacks" the ground will burn unless it has already exhausted its' fuel. There really isn't that much difference between 40,000 gallons of JetA on fire or 78,000 gallons, at least concerning the observed fire ball. There is a weight difference which would affect all the performance parameters of the aircraft. But, why use a long range aircraft for a short range mission? One would not, therefore lots of fuel on board.

My cousin who was a flight engineer/load master in the Air National Guard was on a flight to get a fire engine at another AF base. The truck weight was about 10,000 pounds and he loaded it properly. It was not a big load for the cargo aircraft being used. They also did not need much fuel as the flight to home base was only about 1 hour. However the aircraft ran down the runway and would not fly when the calculation for the flight said it would. There was not enough runway left to stop so they continued, hoping to get enough speed in the remaining runway to get airborne. They did but just barely. What went wrong? The fire engine was full of water and its' weight went from 10,000 pounds to 60,000 pounds. Silly mistake but it happens. He is still alive and retired.

Best regards,

RA1

[Guest hitoallusa]

I find a guy who can fly a big plane very sexy.. It's unfortunate 7 people died in the accident. I send my condolences to their loved ones.