National Air Cargo 747 Crashes at Bagram, Afghanistan

[tony357 386]

http://www.nycaviati...n/#.UYFitrWTiSq

 

On Monday morning, a National Air Cargo Boeing 747-400 N949CA, operated on behalf of US Mobility Command, has crashed just after takeoff from Bagram Air Base with 7 crew members on board.

The following is a dashcam video showing the full crash. You can see the aircraft’s nose pitch up heavily, stall, then fall to the ground.

[Malsua 1,422]

I saw that this morning...the speculation is that the load shifted to the back and unbalanced the aircraft. Flying out of those airbases they climb out at maximum angle to get as far up as they can once they are clear of the air field. This stresses the load restraints. Very scary and sad to watch. If they had had another 500 feet of altitude they may have been able to stay aloft. They got the thing leveled out right before it hit.

[67gtonut 847]

Ugh..... gives me chills to watch that....

 

Plane just stalls......

 

RIP crew

[BlueLineFish 615]

Wow...that's crazy. Very sad.

[BlueLineFish 615]

That angle of departure is insane. i know why they do it but to actually see it is insane. Watching something that big just sit in midair momentarily is surreal. RIP to the crew.

[ryan_j 0]

WOw that is crazy stuff. My brother is there right now and will be coming home in a few weeks... I hope he makes it out without incident. RIP crew.

[10X 3,300]

That angle of departure is insane. i know why they do it but to actually see it is insane. Watching something that big just sit in midair momentarily is surreal. RIP to the crew.

 

I saw this earlier on one of the pilot bulletin boards. The pilot would have planned to climb out at maximum angle of climb (which is steeper than the more-commonly used maximum rate of climb) for reasons already described. It's hard to tell what the deck angle really is from the perspective of the dash cam, but it does look impossibly steep--which is the case if you exceed maximum angle due to load shifting or control malfunction or whatever. There simply isn't enough power available to prevent the airspeed from decaying, leading to an aerodynamic stall, often followed (as was the case here) by a spin entry.

 

Light planes don't have a very good track record of recovering from stall/spin scenarios at low altitude; I can't imagine how hard it would be in a plane as large as a 747. It does look like they recovered from the spin entry (the first step), but didn't have enough altitude to recover from the stall.

 

RIP.

[JackDaWack 2,895]

Looks like a textbook stall. It also doesn't look tail heavy during the recovery attempt. That's really sad to watch, that has to be one of the worst feelings in the world falling out of the sky like that.

 

five heavy military vehicles weighing more than 70 tons were on-board, crew reported a shift in cargo before crashing... probably why they couldn't get the nose down.

[ogfarmer 138]

WOw that is crazy stuff. My brother is there right now and will be coming home in a few weeks... I hope he makes it out without incident. RIP crew.

My younger brother (USMC) is there also, returns home in August.

[Soju 153]

I'll way in with my opinion, as I feel I have some experience that is relevant.

 

Over the past 5 years I have flown out of Bagram on over 50 different occasions. I am a crew member on heavies, and deal specifically with the loading and restraint of cargo, and the weight and balance of the aircraft.

 

Bagram AB is pretty much surrounded by large mountains. Not to far off the departure end is such a mountain. As such, it is beneficial to climb at the highest rate as practical. (see photo below)

 

 

The report is that aircraft had 5 MRAPS on board. The MRAP's I have moved, weigh between roughly 30-40,000 pounds each. Just one of them getting free and shifting aft, especially at low speed (configured with the gear down as well) would be enough to immediately throw the aircraft CG out of it's flyable limitations.

 

What you see in the video is the nose go up at a ridiculously high angle, airspeed bleed almost completely off, the left wing stall, an uncommanded roll, following by the other wing stalling. They had no speed, and no altitude to recover.

 

It certainly looks like the cargo shifted. That video was very hard for me to watch. What a terrible week for aviators. Just days earlier an MC-12 crashed in Afghanistan killing all 4 crew members. Our squadron has had a number of our pilots deployed to that unit, and judging by some of their facebook posts, it appears some of them knew the crew. Sad.

 

This type of thing really makes me appreciate my safe flying history.

 

Here is what it looks like on a clear day just prior to departure at Bagram

[EWC88 24]

You can go on YouTube and see video someone got of it. Very sad RIP

[scorched 0]

Very sad indeed. Watched the video. Thoughts and prayers go out to the crew

[Secret Squirrel 3]

Almost definitely a cargo shift caused that, very sad to see.

[smoe_picka 0]

Aviation rule of threes. Lost a 135 from out of Manas.

 

 

 

[Soju 153]

Aviation rule of threes. Lost a 135 from out of Manas.

 

Yep. Sad.

 

MC-12, April 27, near Kandahar, Afghanistan.

747, April 29, Bagram , Afghanistan.

KC-135, May 3, near Chaldovar, Kyrgyzstan.

 

http://photos.denver...-in-kyrgyzstan/

 

 

http://www.airforcet...2-crash-victims

[jrfly3006 42]

 

 

Yep. Sad.

 

MC-12, April 27, near Kandahar, Afghanistan.

747, April 29, Bagram , Afghanistan.

KC-135, May 3, near Chaldovar, Kyrgyzstan.

 

http://photos.denver...-in-kyrgyzstan/

 

 

http://www.airforcet...2-crash-victims

hope its done for now... God Bless and RIP to all... Heroes every one of them.