crash footage of Flight 102 - shocking and viewer discretion

Even in a small plane you have to watch out for shifting the center of gravity rearward. Apparently it was a cargo plane and something large enough to pull the tail down shifted to the rear. When that happens, you might not be able to recover even if the plane had been higher in the air. When a plane stalls, the plane has either lost flying speed, the angle of the wing is in a position that insufficient air is moving across the wings to create enough lift to keep it aloft or possibly both. The only chance you have is to get the nose pointed at the ground and increase flying speed to the point you have enough lift to fly the plane and make the controls respond to the movement of air across them. The fist few thousand feet after take off is critical in everything from a jet fighter to an ultralight. An engine out, or center of gravity shift can be fatal for any kind of aircraft.

 

The eeriest crash I have seen was of a large military plane making an extremely sharp turn. It just seemed to slip down to the ground. Apparently it was a show-boating maneuver.

That is also a perfect example of a plane not having enough speed to keep the wing flying. In fact the term you used "slip" is what intentionally turning the planed on it's side when preparing to land on a short field to dump altitude in a hurry, but you time had better be right, getting the plane back in an attitude that will allow you to flair the plane for a landing. People with large reproductive organs and very small brains incorporate this maneuver along with "ground effect" which is an additional bit of lift you get from being in close proximity to the ground, this effect is only the height of the length of you planes wingspan to get into very short or unimproved very short landing fields. Not something you want to try unless you have pretty steady nerves and actually know what you're doing. Helps to be sitting on a large pair too.

 

yep, a stall is loss of wing lift, usually from lack of airspeed.

You could hear the engines were WOT before impact. No engine smoke, while it was still in flight.

At the beginning of the vid, you could see the 747-400 was in an extreme nose high attitude. The plane ran out of energy, and the nose dropped (and it yawed). It would probably need 2000' or more to recover from a stall. My guess is, that they had a weight & balance problem and they didn't know about it until they rotated off the runway. By then, it was fait accompli. And the crew would know they were screwed at this point, when the nose went abnormally high and wouldn't respond to down elevator.

 

TD...I use the term "slipping" when I rudder into a cross wind on landing...not rolling the plane on it's side as you mentioned.

 

I think the something snapped right at take off or even before and they were just screwed at that point. Couldn't abort and no way to get the nose down after rotation. Just terrible...

 

On March 12, 1960 at 6:06am a B47 Stratojet blew up shortly after takeoff in Little Rock, Arkansas and crashed into a neighborhood near downtown. I was 7 years old at the time and I had just walked into my aunt's bedroom where my mother and aunt were sitting on her bed with their backs to the window. I saw the jet in flight and saw a flash and smoke suddenly streaming from it and then it tipped down heading straight for the ground. I interrupted my mother and aunt to say, "that plane is gonna crash," but they were busy talking and paid no attention. It destroyed some homes including one belonging to my uncle's best friend. I believe three or four people died and one person managed to parachute and survive with injuries. I have had dreams about that plane crash ever since then, even in recent times.

 

Agreed. I had video of me being seriously injured all over the evening news, didn't like it one bit.

 

TD...I use the term "slipping" when I rudder into a cross wind on landing...not rolling the plane on it's side as you mentioned.

It has been many years since I've flown any at all. I may have been given a wrong term, but I was always told since we flew in and out of a very short field that had wires on one end and hay bales stacked at the other end, that dumping altitude by turning the plane on it's side was slipping. At any rate it was something I had to do to get the plane down, I was never comfortable doing the maneuver but my boss did it all the time. I might add that his landings were roughly akin to those of a mud hen, or coot, sort of resulting in a plop, more that a chirp. Sorry if I gave bad info.

I hope you never have to employ this type of maneuver to get into an airport. The wires on one end thing was compounded by a sign dead center of the runway with steel letters stating WIRES attached to a telephone pole. We landed a piper colt (with a tee handle for braking) which pretty much fell out of the air when you cut the throttle, even worse, on occasion a single engine comanche which had been deregulated to run on 80/87. Don't ask, my boss was nutty.

Sorry if I used an aviation term improperly, I quit flying following the same advice that Clint Eastwood always injected into his movies somewhere. "A man's GOT to know his limitations." I'm may not be the worst pilot ever, but I might be the worst who isn't dead.

 

I had dinner and got to thinking about the attitude we used to get the aircraft in to get into the small field with not only wires and hay bales but houses on the wires end.

I think what we did was just abbreviate "forward" slip to "Slip." I looked the maneuver up and here is basically what I was talking about but did not describe it step by step.

1. When executing a forward slip to lose altitude, power to idle, and slow the plane to 80 knots before starting the slip. Typically flaps are not used in this situation, but consult your Pilots' Operating Handbook (POH) before deciding whether flaps are necessary.

2. Pick a point far in front of you and make it your heading or target.

3. Bank into the wind. As soon as your target starts moving, apply opposite rudder in order to keep moving towards your target. (Ex. Left rudder, right aileron) Make sure the nose of the plane is low enough to keep your airspeed up. Do not apply too much aileron because you can become inverted. Do not allow the airspeed go above 80 knots because that will stress the plane. Do not allow the airspeed to drop below 60 knots because you can get into a cross-control stall and induce a spin.

4. To recover from the slip, simultaneously release the rudder pedal and level the plane with the ailerons.

Fortunately, the strip was located pretty much north, south, (landing from the south) winds are USUALLY not much of a problem here, and the prevailing wind is out of the West, north west.

Things were much different in those days. I never missed an opportunity to bum a ride, or split some time with a buddy. The airports were wide open, and you could buy a decent two seater for $5000 (with by then had a drooper kit, and had been metalized except for the rear empennage which was ceconite) with a current annual which is what my boss's widow sold the Colt for when he passed away from a heart attack.

 

TD, I'm probably in the same catagory of pilot as you. I have maybe 50 hours and all in a J3 and a Pacer. The J3 is pretty much a airborn go-cart and will fly itself if you can mangage to watch your airspeed. The pacer is short wing and takes slightly more concentration.

I haven't flown in years either but I hope to some more before I croak. There's nothing like the seperation you feel. While you're flying you're on an entirely different plane...

 

Same here. I have the dream a couple times a year. I just sort of stand there in awe while watching this slow-motion tragedy take place.

 

My nephew has been into Bagram a couple of times during his deployments.
He says that both arrival and departures are nearly vertical, as pilots don't want to spend any more time tootling around over the Badlands as they need to.

Apparently this plane was loaded with Army vehicles being sent back- probably LAVs, trucks and HMMVs.
It looks to me that one or more came loose and ran back when they were already climbing steeply. So sad for the families of the crew.

As for the Taliban claims-- in the video I saw no smoke coming from the plane before impact.
Anyway; those gutless wonders couldn't hit the side of a house point blank with a shotgun, let alone shoot a plane out of the air.

 

Turbines don't stall. 'Stall', for everyone that is not aware, pertains to the ability to have 'lift' created on the airfoils ceasing.

Yes, if an engine 'stalled' that could happen, causing the plane [lift] to stall. But not a turbine. However a turbine could blow into pieces halting thrust, slowing the craft enough to have lift cease. As in the plane travel lower than it's stall speed, again meaning the speed at which lift is no longer created across the wings/airfoils... If in the air when it stops flying, gravity takes it to the earth. I will mention the stall speed is HIGHER [correction] at a steep angle of attack, and also more load, HIGHER stall speed etc. I learned all that in Piper140, 101 class....

My shoot from the hip NTSB type guess is the plane was very tail heavy, be it all of a sudden, or just from the angle of attack for an aggressive climb with a tail heavy load. Or a load shift towards the tail. 'GUESS' totally....

Prayers to the families...

 

Condolences and prayers to all the family and friends affected. So very sad.

 

William Tele:

If you EVER get the chance to fly a rotary wing aircraft DO IT. I worked for a guy who bought a small gasoline powered Enstrom to learn to fly a chopper in. After he got his license he eventually bought a Hughes 500 from a Sheriff's auction, but one day he took me up in the Enstrom out over Buena Vista lake out near Taft, he let me fly it with him, then after about 30 minutes instruction said "you got it!" It was exhilarating beyond belief! Hard to maintain straight and level, you're just sitting there glass everywhere with no where to line up on anything, but like driving a cab over all at once you know where you're at quit chasing the horizon, and start flying!

I'm sorry to high jack the thread, I'm deeply sorry for those guys that bought it, and I'm sorry for all the things they'll never do. Flying is like nothing else, one little slip, and it's over. Sometimes you can get away with more, but it doesn't take much to have it all go bad, and there's only one place to go, down. Come to think of it, I guess life is like that too.

 

If it was a B-52 at an airshow...I've seen the footage...not pretty...
As far as this particular crash is concerned, I've heard everything from a load shift to flight control problems...from people closer to this than I am. I have 'vacationed' in that spot a few times and it's a steep climb out and a steep drop in because of the mountains in that area. There have been several accidents over the past few years, caught on video like this is absolutely horrible.

 

there are many ways an engine can fail, and an 'engine stall', when the engine is rotating too fast for the air flowing through it, is one of them. many things can cause an engine to stall. however, a contained engine failure, properly handled, will never bring down a multi-engine aircraft by itself.

even if all four engines quit at 100 feet the crew would still be able to pitch down for a controlled crash (perhaps just as fatal, but not looking anything like the video).

engines failing have nothing to do with aircraft wing stalls, as you can simply replace the force of thrust with the force of gravity by pitching down. if you have enough height and somewhere flat and long enough you can reach, then this is not a problem, the plane can simply glide, and we practice dead stick landings in the simulator. in fact, even during a normal descent a commercial airliner is effectively gliding as the engines are producing very little thrust.

if the plane does stall, given enough height, the stall can be recovered, so gravity does not 'take it to earth', unless you are too low.....

also, the stall speed is higher, not lower, at high weights. you need to be going faster to avoid a wing stall.

but I agree. looks like a load shift. horrific situation. they would have been desperately pushing the controls all the way forward. I can't imagine the horror of that.

since the AF447 crash our training has changed to actually reduce engine thrust at the point of a stall, for pilots who fly under-wing engines. the reason is that the under-slung engines at full power deliver a marked pitch-up moment, which hinders the ability to pitch the aircraft down when the aircraft is flying very slowly. I wonder if they would have had time to consider that. although there would have been no chance of recovery from that height anyway. very sad.

 

- Condolensces and prayers to all touched.

- They had an article about pilot, local to Mich. He got out of an ice storm with
a plane years ago, no one else could have done. Good pilot..... Bad things happen.

I won't watch that film again since it was on news the other day... eeerie

 

"also, the stall speed is higher, not lower, at high weights. you need to be going faster to avoid a wing stall."

Yes, I said that backwards ... I said lower when I should have said higher, brain fart. Corrected in my original post, thanks.

Maybe the pilot had a similar brain fart and instead of a push for full thrust went the wrong way and decreased thrust.

Of course, and as I tried to say, anything that decreased thrust, or increase drag or both can make the craft stop flying...

 

For years I have had recurring nightmares about seeing a large plane crash right before my eyes. Watching this video very much like that nightmare.

Many condolences to the families of the victims.