Can someone smarter than me explain what a plausible cause of the crash? I didn't see any apparent mechanical failure. I can only imagine the forces required to flip an entire 747 like that. DISCLAIMER: An F bomb about half way through, and well it's an airplane crash from a short distance so it's pretty graphic. Don't get caught loafing by your boss. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162...deo-appears-to-show-747-crash-in-afghanistan/
I heard the load shifted to the back of the plane and threw off the whole balance, then caused it to stall out
Yikes, that's scary stuff. It's pretty amazing that the pilot got the plane right side up that quickly. But when you're falling like a rock, there's not much you can do. I heard someone on board was possibly from MN?
Load shift caused an aft CG condition right after takeoff. Someone didn't get the cargo secured before takeoff and everything went to the back of the plane. Even if they had been at 30k feet they probably wouldn't have been able to recover the aircraft, once a load starts shifting around you're pretty much screwed. Right after takeoff was an automatic death sentence with no airspeed and no altitude. You could tell the pilot was hard on the rudder trying to keep it upright, but all of them probably knew they were doomed once it happened. RIP to the crew, those last few seconds must have been terrifying once they realized they were going in.
I heard some more on this, sounds like they were hauling 5 Oshkosh M-ATVs. Each one of those is 27,500 lbs of armor plated vehicle, one of those shifting could easily cause a chain reaction and cause something like this.
"Hey bob, what's with that big pile of tie downs over there?" "those didn't make it into that 747? ****. Oh well.. i'm sure everything will be fine." </airplane crashes> "I think you've got some explaining to do, bob." "****ing enzyte."
Yea, you can tell how quickly the plane rotates, that he hit the rudder hard, but had no airspeed. The plane was already stalled when it came into view.
I have a friend there working for black water, he watched it happen and said you could hear the engines whine as soon as the load shifted.
I agree - it looks like it's already at a very high deck angle as soon as you see it. Initially I read somewhere that they thought maybe it was a control surface failure (elevator) but now the load / CG shift seems much more likely. I did stall maneuvers in a Cessna a few years back (part of training), and I remember thoughts of doom even though we were at 3,000 feet and it was completely recoverable. I feel bad for the crew, I'm guessing they were trying to recover until they hit. A real shame if it does prove to be something like a missed tie down or two.
The pilot probably did everything right, but none of that mattered after **** was ****ed. Really sucks.
