USAF MC-12 and National Cargo 747-400F crash in Afghanistan

Stall. If only they had been somewhat higher they might have recovered. RIP

Embedded vid. wow :/

reply to post by StrawHatBrian


As long as I'm not driving our sleeping I'm hard to beat on this sort of thing. lol. I live aviation.

As a pilot the video appears authentic. Reports I have heard was that cargo was loaded incorrectly causing it to break loose move aft and cause a far aft cg resulting in a stall on takeoff. RIP to the crew.

on cnn.

edition.cnn.com...

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by StrawHatBrian

 

As long as I'm not driving our sleeping I'm hard to beat on this sort of thing. lol. I live aviation.

Amen to that I always like reading your input on aviation from chemtrail threads to unfortunate matters like this. As you stated, it's to early in the game to tell what happened but I'm going to ride with cargo shift....Something let loose.

reply to post by Militarywarfare


The Bagram departure includes a max performance takeoff as well. So they're at a steeper than normal AoA on climb out. They may have secured it enough for a normal departure, but not for the climb angle required out of Bagram.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul

 

The way they rolled so far to the side, almost inverted, and then rolled back upright leads me to believe they were fighting hard, and were getting it back under control. It didn't look like it would just suddenly stop that roll, and roll winds level without them fighting it.

I am sure they were fighting hard - but I've been looking at the video with a number of pilots from a couple of 25,000 hr ex-747 captains to a guy on my team who is a 250 hr C cat instructor - they think the a/c was just wallowing out of control - the change from side to side apparently explainable by differential lift over the wings as one side gets better airflow than the other.

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


Oh you can tell that it was wallowing just the way that it fell off when the stall started. But the way that it evened out so perfectly, and lowered the nose was incredibly close to the proper stall recovery procedure. The initial NTSB report is due out in a few days, so we'll just have to wait to see what they have to say after looking at the FDR and CVR.

reply to post by Zaphod58

I agree. Excellent if doomed stall recovery maneuver . Not enough altitude.

Hello ATS Readers, Writers,

I awoke this morning to see this in the news here in OZ. At that time it had really barely happened almost.

My immediate thoughts were load shift!

Because angle of attack went way steep, way fast!

NO pilot worth his salt would try to grab that much sky that fast, like it was a fighter jet..

Zaphod is on it.. and right I am betting..

Terrible video to see, those poor buggers!!

My thoughts are with friends and family of those who perished, just awful.

We had an old cargo plane crash in my old hometown in Arizona.. in that case the pilot was not used to the high altitude of our little airport, and just did not get enough lift, and was overweight for the air density.

The pilot ploughed it into a field because they were headed straight for a school... all were lost on that one too.

They hit the ground about 400 yards from the end of the runway.. awful fire... what a mess!

Pravdaseeker

reply to post by Zaphod58

They may have secured it enough for a normal departure, but not for the climb angle required out of Bagram.

Interesting point...so loadmaster did his job well if a normal takeoff, but failed to account for the steeper climb out of that location. An example of what can go wrong if you do things by the book, but don't account for additional variables.

National Air Cargo has released a statement on the crash:

National Air Cargo released a statement saying it would not speculate as to the cause of the accident involving National Flight NCR102 in Afghanistan on Monday.

“With our full cooperation, an investigation by appropriate authorities is under way, and we encourage everyone to join us in respecting that process and allowing it to take its appropriate course,” the company said.

National Air Cargo released these facts regarding the aircraft and its movements prior to the accident:

• National Flight NCR102 was en route to Dubai from Camp Bastian and had stopped to refuel at Bagram Air Base.
• The cargo contained within the aircraft was properly loaded and secured, and had passed all necessary inspections prior to departing Camp Bastian.
• The aircraft landed safely and uneventfully in Bagram.
• No additional cargo or personnel was added during the stop in Bagram, and the aircraft’s cargo was again inspected prior to departure.

National Airlines is a wholly owned subsidiary of National Air Cargo Holdings. National Airlines, based in Orlando, Fla., operates scheduled and on-demand cargo service globally and charter passenger service in the Middle East.

www.aircargoworld.com...

The New Zealand Defense Force was to fly on another National Air Cargo aircraft just a few hours after this accident. After the crash, they indefinitely suspended the use of National Air Cargo for airlift.

But..is this the first time a 747 carries a heavy load for a contractor, i seriously doubt they would make the mistake of not securing the cargo correctly for the flight, um like Zaphod58 said, "They may have secured it enough for a normal departure, but not for the climb angle required out of Bagram."...now i don't know much about planes, but how come the people who do know didn't take the proper measures for this flight, and like i said, i doubt this is the first time they have one of these kinds of flights.

reply to post by StrawHatBrian


Complacency, not thinking about it, etc. You do something the same way a few hundred times and it becomes second nature and you stop thinking about it. Just because they may have flown in there before doesn't mean that they were experienced with the departure, or that they even thought about it. They began their trip from another base, which may have had a different departure procedure.

Summary:

• The aircraft was loaded at Camp Bastion and flew to Bagram for fuel, as the fuel at Camp Bastion is either expensive or not available in significant quantity. It was going to fly to Dubai. The cargo was unchanged at Bagram.
  
• The aircraft was likely lighter at Camp Bastion since it had less fuel. And the airfield is lower by around 2,000 feet. Therefore the takeoff at Camp Bastion may have been steeper.
  
• In the 747, an alarm should sound if the thrust levers are advanced past a certain point with stabilizer trim incorrect.
  
• In the 747, if the CG entered into the FMS does not match the load in the nose gear, a warning will appear on EICAS.
  
• Bagram apparently does not have a departure procedure. If Bagram doesn't have one, then I see no reason why Camp Bastion would either.
  
• I find it incredibly unlikely that the loading procedure is different depending on the kind of departure. As far as I know the cargo should be secured throughout the entire envelope.
  

Therefore, I doubt the CG would have been wrong at the beginning of the takeoff roll. And if the cargo shifted it seems odd that this would have happened at Bagram rather than the previous flight, unless it was mere luck. Therefore, I think something on the aircraft was changed at Bagram, or the restraints got stress damage therefore broke, or it wasn't the cargo at all. In any case, there will be no simple reasons for this.

Originally posted by C0bzz

In the 747, an alarm should sound if the thrust levers are advanced past a certain point with stabilizer trim incorrect.

The trim tabs are usually adjusted during take off. I've seen cases where the trim was adjusted, and the tabs either went to full up, or stuck full up, and there was nothing that they could do about it.

reply to post by Zaphod58


The 747 doesn't have trim tabs. The entire horizontal stabilizer is moved instead with hydraulics.

Proper trim is absolutely essential, which is why it is set before takeoff. If the stab trim is totally incorrect then the aircraft probably won't even be able lift its nose regardless of pilot input, or the aircraft will autorotate well before Vr.

Aside: Why would the trim be changed at any point during takeoff? I don't know of any aircraft where the trim would be changed during takeoff.

If unneeded movement is detected on the trim, the aircraft should automatically shut the system down. The pilots can also do this manually. If the aircraft doesn't automatically shut the system down, then an alarm will sound.

If trim it isn't set correctly during takeoff taking into consideration the CG, a message will appear on EICAS - "CONFIG STAB" and a siren will sound.

747-400 manual: www.fs.uni-lj.si...
747-400 checklist: www.freechecklists.net...

reply to post by C0bzz


I've only worked on the E-4 a few times so I'm not as familiar with the 747 subsystems, but I've known several pilots that adjusted trim during takeoff to help make the climb out more stable and easier.

Does anyone remember the issues with 737s diving straight in due a stuck actuator (rudder)?

I seem to recall that there was some concern at the time as (IIRC) the component at fault was also used (with a different function) in the 747.....Might this be a factor?

Whatever the cause, it was surely an awful situation and one which no flight crew could possibly have recovered from.

My thoughts are with their families.

reply to post by squarehead666


They actually weren't rolling due to a jammed rudder. You can fly just fine with a jammed rudder, it's just harder. What was happening was that on long flights the PCU was freezing. When the hot hydraulic fluid would hit the frozen PCU, let's say with a right rudder input, the PCU would reverse and input left rudder.

That's why when you read the transcript of the Pennsylvania crash (USAir 427) the first sign of something going wrong was "Huh? What's this?" The crew had input a rudder command, and instead of the nose moving the way it was supposed to, the aircraft rolled past vertical and went into a dive.

I've been thinking about this a bit more and reading about this elsewhere.

The cargo doesn't care about the pitch angle on takeoff. The acceleration the cargo "feels" longitudinally should be directly proportional to excess power. The excess power will be maximized at the beginning of the takeoff role, not during climb. Therefore, it should not matter what the pitch angle was during takeoff, as it is irrelevant.

Also, cargo should be secured to greater forces than those encountered in flight, it is not loaded based on what is normal for the specific flight profile that can be expected for that specific flight. That would be a disaster waiting to happen.

Therefore, for both these reasons, the cargo was definitely not loaded for a shallower climb than actual.