B747-400F Down at Bagram

[Tonks]

Very difficult viewing of a horrific incident... the only saving grace is that it was quick...

May fellow aviators rest in peace!

Tonks

[WhisperJet]

Hard to take, that one.
I want to look away but I simply can't.

Nick

[VC10]

I was at Kabul Airport in 1983. The Russian a/c all took-off and then circled over the field to gain altitude, chucking out flares every 15 seconds, before going on their merry way.

Paul

[cstorey]

Falling into the horrid trap of speculating, I do not think it was an aft CG problem caused by a cargo shift. If that had happened then in a negligible lift situation at the point of stall, it would have been more likely that a tail slide would have resulted rather than the clear nose down pitch which occurs . Equally, line squall/microbust/windshear does not usually result in this sort of problem: the more usual result is a failure to climb at all . The whole thing is horribly reminiscent of the Korean Air disaster at Stansted some years ago where an attitude indicator fault ( admittedly in the dark rather than daytime VMC ) resulted in an identical crash . Perhaps an even more likely candidate here is a runaway stabiliser going unnoticed

[airboatr]

I ageee, what little i know about aeronautical, if there was a weight shift to the back as servere as the media is showing, how was it overcome.

Is it more plausible to say the wing began stalling during the climb , the buzzers went off or they knew it was slowing to stall. Pushed the nose over but by then the yaw tipped the plane to left and the cg and aerodynamics righted the plane just before impact.

I ask because if the load shift went back. Would it also have rolled up the side and then the ceiling
Causing the plane to continue to roll onto it's back as it was nearly wing over.

Maybe when it went negitive g the load would have, for a few seconds, been lifted allowing the aerodynamics of the plane to right herself.

Perhaps the black boxes have the answers.

[NigelC]

I have it on good authority that Stab Runaway in 744 is easily dealt with. Stab switches in throttle quadrant.

It wouldn't take huge movement of the load to put it out of c of g limits. Flaps can be enough!!!

November 23, 1987: A Ryan Air Services 1900 crashed on approach to Homer, AK airport. Flight 103 was fully loaded (all 19 seats occupied; 1437 pounds of cargo) when it took off from Kodiak runway 07. The aircraft lifted off the runway, fell back and accelerated for about another 15 knots before it became airborne. The aircraft was approaching Homer when it was cleared for the localizer/DME approach to runway 3. The crew reported a 2-mile (3.2 km) final 5 minutes later. On short final the wings were seen to rock back and forth; the aircraft then dropped steeply to the ground in a rather flat attitude, struck the airport perimeter fence and slid to a stop on its belly. Probable cause - "the failure of the flight crew to properly supervise the loading of the airplane which resulted in the centre of gravity being displaced to such an aft location that the airplane control was lost when the flaps were lowered for landing