National Air Cargo B744 at Bagram on Apr 29th 2013, lost height shortly after takeoff

[xspeedy]

Cargo shift aft?

[3WE]

" But I've been pushing forward the whole time ... "

RIP

Fixed.

[Foxtrot]

If it's indeed deemed to be a cargo shift, it reminds me of that DC 8 at MIA quite a while back.

I couldn't watch the latter half of that video, it's all too obvious what happens.
R.I.P.

[Gabriel]

That's a fucking disturbing view. I don't know if I would had been able to say any word. I could be too shocked to bring my jaw back up.

For a moment I thought "gust load not removed" or "elevator bad rigging" (things that are known to have caused this sort of accidents in the past), but I don't think that those failure modes are applicable to a 747. Or are they?

[snydersnapshots]

That's a fucking disturbing view. I don't know if I would had been able to say any word. I could be too shocked to bring my jaw back up.

For a moment I thought "gust load not removed" or "elevator bad rigging" (things that are known to have caused this sort of accidents in the past), but I don't think that those failure modes are applicable to a 747. Or are they?

I doubt that they would have done maintenance to the elevator rigging in Bagram, and every Boeing I've flown has used hydraulic pressure as a gust lock (they may have some physical locks they use during heavy maintenance, but I've never seen one used on the line). So with reference to mechanical issues, I'm leaning toward the "it flew in, it'll fly out" philosophy in this instance. My guess is load shift...

As far as the guy driving with the video is concerned, my hat is off to him. That thing looked like it was headed straight for the road until it rolled off. Maybe he was waiting to see where it was going before he made a decision which way he was going.

[snydersnapshots]

while i've admitted to not reading the article, perhaps the OP used the wrong language in his title: "lost height????"

yeah, it lost height alright...

Sounds like the typical British understatement to me. Kind of like the captain of the 747 that flew through the Indonesian ash cloud saying "golly gosh-darn, we've lost the lot!" as his last engine flamed out.

Over here in the former rebellious colonies, we would just say the airplane crashed...

[Gabriel]

So with reference to mechanical issues, I'm leaning toward the "it flew in, it'll fly out" philosophy in this instance.

Very bad philosophy indeed. That a bad thing in an airplane didn't caused it to crash in one given flight doesn't meant that it won't in the next flight.

It didn't work for that famous turboprop accident that stalled immediately after take-off due to a misrigged elevator.

It had flown in that condition a few times before the crash, but with the CG not so aft as in the accident fly.

So it flew in and out a few times, but it flew out one time less than it flew in.

Or take the MD-80 with the jammed stabilizer. It had no problems flying in.

[TheRealAncientMarine]

i feel like a dweeb. i hadn't read the article and thought it had just dropped in altitude. had no idea it crashed.

now, tell me this, even if the guy driving what may be a humvee and was shooting the video is a soldier/marine/whatever, how could he not have said holy shit! or something? anything?

Maybe he wasn't American?
Per

[snydersnapshots]

Very bad philosophy indeed. That a bad thing in an airplane didn't caused it to crash in one given flight doesn't meant that it won't in the next flight.

It didn't work for that famous turboprop accident that stalled immediately after take-off due to a misrigged elevator.

It had flown in that condition a few times before the crash, but with the CG not so aft as in the accident fly.

So it flew in and out a few times, but it flew out one time less than it flew in.

Or take the MD-80 with the jammed stabilizer. It had no problems flying in.

Gabriel--your point is noted. In fact the Alaska MD-80 hit way too close to home. I remember being on a layover in SFO and turning on the TV to see the shots of the wreckage; I had several friends at the time who flew the MD-80 for them.

I agree that there HAVE been cases where airplanes have flown in and crashed after. In fact, I think you could add the Colorado Springs 737 and Lockheed Electra accidents at Buffalo, TX and Tell City, IN to that list, (though I realize neither Electra accident was caused by flight control issues).

I was speculating that, statistically speaking (and no, I'm not going to come up with any specific numbers), the chances of the accident being caused by a load shift (given the type of load they were carrying, the environment in which they were operating, etc.) are greater than the chances of a catastrophic control failure. Could I be wrong? Sure. Would I speculate in this manner if I was a legitimate party to the official accident investigation? Of course not. I'm as anxious as everyone else for answers, but realistically, they won't be available for several months...

[obmot]

more info?

There is some possible intersting info here, including some diagrams - it looks like the 744 barely made it past the end of the airstrip. Also a report that the crew radioed a stall due to possible load shift, which is sure easy to believe based on the video and witness accounts.

http://avherald.com/h?article=46183bb4

[RickG]

I'm not trying to be a smarta_s here. My comment is sincere- Perhaps they should consider installing ejection seats in these 747 cargo haulers.

That way, at least the Captain and F.O. would have an option, depending on circumstances. They would most likely need to wear proper attire, at least during take off and landing, ie. helmets with visors, boots, flight suit, etc. They could then remove said items once at altitude for the cruise portion of the flight.

As I said, ejection seats could at least be an option to them. Things that may cause them to opt out of using the ejection seats in an emergency might be things like: If they feel that they want to be heroes in so far as wanting to stay with the plane in hopes of guiding it away from buildings or people on the ground, (such as I believe may have been the case with the UPS 747 that crashed in Dubai) or perhaps if there are other humans riding on the plane that have no ejection seats, and therefore the flight crew would feel guilty about leaving them behind? I don't know, I just don't know. Seems to me that providing an ejection seat option wouldn't be a bad idea. ...just throwing a sort of "food for thought" idea out there.

Rick G.

[Gabriel]

I'm not trying to be a smarta_s here. My comment is sincere- Perhaps they should consider installing ejection seats in these 747 cargo haulers.

That way, at least the Captain and F.O. would have an option, depending on circumstances. They would most likely need to wear proper attire, at least during take off and landing, ie. helmets with visors, boots, flight suit, etc. They could then remove said items once at altitude for the cruise portion of the flight.

As I said, ejection seats could at least be an option to them. Things that may cause them to opt out of using the ejection seats in an emergency might be things like: If they feel that they want to be heroes in so far as wanting to stay with the plane in hopes of guiding it away from buildings or people on the ground, (such as I believe may have been the case with the UPS 747 that crashed in Dubai) or perhaps if there are other humans riding on the plane that have no ejection seats, and therefore the flight crew would feel guilty about leaving them behind? I don't know, I just don't know. Seems to me that providing an ejection seat option wouldn't be a bad idea. ...just throwing a sort of "food for thought" idea out there.

Rick G.

I don't understand.

Why not install ejection seats in airliners too?

I mean, it's not like the accident rate of the cargo segment of transport category is worse than the passenger segment.

Of course, it depends on the operator. But if you compare top to top, operators like FedEx and DHL have an excellent safety record.

[snydersnapshots]

I'm not trying to be a smarta_s here. My comment is sincere- Perhaps they should consider installing ejection seats in these 747 cargo haulers.

That way, at least the Captain and F.O. would have an option, depending on circumstances. They would most likely need to wear proper attire, at least during take off and landing, ie. helmets with visors, boots, flight suit, etc. They could then remove said items once at altitude for the cruise portion of the flight.

As I said, ejection seats could at least be an option to them. Things that may cause them to opt out of using the ejection seats in an emergency might be things like: If they feel that they want to be heroes in so far as wanting to stay with the plane in hopes of guiding it away from buildings or people on the ground, (such as I believe may have been the case with the UPS 747 that crashed in Dubai) or perhaps if there are other humans riding on the plane that have no ejection seats, and therefore the flight crew would feel guilty about leaving them behind? I don't know, I just don't know. Seems to me that providing an ejection seat option wouldn't be a bad idea. ...just throwing a sort of "food for thought" idea out there.

Rick G.

Rick--I'm not going to give you a smart@$$ answer like some others on here might. You have a very valid point but unfortunately putting ejection seats on isn't a workable solution for a number of different reasons.

1) First and foremost is the cost involved. The airlines, particularly cargo operators like the one involved (arguably the ones who would need them the most) are not going to want to fork out either the up-front cost of the installation, the cost in the fuel required to carry them (negligible on a per-leg basis, but over the course of a year it adds up), or the decrease in payload available due to the increased weight of the seats.

Then there is the cost of maintaining them. The seats will require periodic inspections and the pyrotechnics will have a service life after which it would have to be replaced. This would require special training for the mechanics involved, special storage facilities for the explosive charges, and special disposal procedures (which probably rival in complexity those required for disposing of a compact fluorescent light bulb!)

The cost of training the crews to use the seats. The military spends a period of several days covering such things as parachute landing falls, simulated parachute drops with the associated emergency procedures, and one or more parasail rides where the student is towed aloft and cut loose to ride the parachute down and land it.

For overwater use, each seat would probably be required to carry a life raft and survival kit. Again, additional costs for acquisition, weight, training, and maintenance.

2) The FAA (and, I assume, the foreign equivalents) would probably NEVER sign off on an installation where only a portion of the occupants have the opportunity to get out of the airplane (that philosophy was tried on a British ship in 1912. You may recall the story...). Many of the cargo carriers have a certain number of airline-type seats for additional crew members or escorts related to specific loads of cargo being carried. The feds aren't going to take the chance of having two pilots pull the handles and leaving the rest of the occupants ride the airplane into the ground. Including ejection seats for ALL occupants would be a nightmare because anyone occupying those seats would have to be trained in their use, and training the person escorting a load of cargo on one or two legs is not a workable solution.

3) Lawyers. The airlines and feds will not sign off on the installation for liability reasons as well. Imagine the litigation involved if there were only two seats available for the 7 on the airplane. In this scenario, everyone would have presumably been trained by virtue of the fact that they were all cockpit jumpseat qualified (pilots, mechanics, or loadmaster). If only two seats were available, the survivors of those killed would sue the FAA, the carrier, and probably the crew members who ejected, assuming they survived (or their heirs/estates assuming they didn't). Of course, I'm sure there are already suits being filed in the Bagram accident, but the liability issues related to ejection seats would add that much more to the mix.

And don't forget those on the ground. Say the crew ejects from an airplane and it plows into a neighborhood or populated area. Whether the airplane could be controlled or not, those on the ground suffering damage will sue as well.

4) Statistically, ejection seats are not needed. The number of accidents such as this is so low compared to the hours flown that they really can't be justified. If someone DID try to mandate ejection seat installation, I can about guarantee that the cargo industry is going to go to the FAA and point out that military cargo planes such as the C-5, C-17, C-130, KC-10, and KC-135 do not have ejection seats and they would (rightly) point out that the missions and environments that those aircraft operate in are by nature far more hazardous than the environments that civilian cargo aircraft operate in.

[Louis Gonzalez]

Ejection seats on airliners & cargo shift question

. . . Even a parachute for everyone on board would affect ticket prices & have limited effectiveness in any accident.

I am still in shock from seeing that video, the high angle of attack, the loss of airspeed and aileron effectiveness... Seeing it roll right past 90 degrees reminded me of that B-52H accident in the 90's. Once you roll that much, your wings aren't giving you any more lift at all. There was simply nothing they could do at that point. May they rest in peace.

I think this is the first time a 747 has been lost in this manner.

The witnesses in the video must have felt horrible - they probably thought it was a passenger plane, and a big one (not to belittle the loss of life in any number).

Cargo Shift: does that mean that a truck came completely loose and rolled all the way to the aft bulkhead upon rotation? Or would any movement of cargo be enough to throw off the plane's center of gravity?

Did restraining equipment come loose or fail? Or would a weight and balance miscalculation be enough to cause such a catastrophic accident?

[obmot]

I am still in shock from seeing that video, the high angle of attack, the loss of airspeed and aileron effectiveness... Seeing it roll right past 90 degrees reminded me of that B-52H accident in the 90's. Once you roll that much, your wings aren't giving you any more lift at all. There was simply nothing they could do at that point. May they rest in peace.

Disclaimer: I am not a pilot or an aviation 'expert' by any stretch of the word...

What I perceive from the video (as awful and gut wrenching as it is), and again noting I'm no expert, is that despite what appears to be an utterly hopeless situation (the jet looks essentially vertical at the very beginning when it comes into view), is that the crew really seemed (?) to manage the stall in a remarkable fashion...meaning they got the nose back to level (from tail down/nose up), controlled a roll to the left, then the subsequent 90 degree+ roll to the right, coming back to wing level. And (in my uneducated opinion) it looks in the last few moments like they likely would have recovered had they been up a few thousand feet higher.

Said another way - it seems that the crew did a remarkable job in 'controlling/recovering' the stall to the extent possible despite what was probably an impossible situation given the lack of height.

I'd enjoy hearing what real pilots think of my perception. Perhaps what I perceived to be good stall management, was in actuality just a completely out of control jet that happened to 'appear' as if the crew was making the right adjustments (but for the lack of altitude).