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Amazon Prime Air Cargo Plane Crashes in Texas, Three Dead (weather.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Weather.com:
An Amazon Prime Air cargo plane crashed Saturday afternoon into Trinity Bay near Anahuac, Texas, as it approached Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Three crew members aboard the plane did not survive the crash, the Chamber County sheriff told WJTV. Air traffic controllers lost radar and radio contact with Atlas Air Flight 3591 shortly before 12:45 p.m. CST. The 767 jetliner was arriving from Miami when the crash occurred 30 miles southeast of the airport, according to a statement by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Where will they bury the survivors?
I don't think that burying survivors is legal.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I know this thread will fill with jokes, but I'm sorry to hear that they died in the accident.
It was Atlas Air Flight 3591 a contract flight for Amazon.
Passionately Indifferent
I heard that it crashed in a cemetery. They had recovered over a hundred bodies so far.
Condolences to those who knew the pilots. Fortunately no victims on the ground.
Its too soon to say what caused this tragedy. Weather? Package? Other?
Whatever it was, the plane appears to have suddenly gone from a mile high to ground impact in about 10 seconds.
https://www.flightradar24.com/...
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/2...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
https://www.click2houston.com/...
https://www.flightglobal.com/n...
I asked a family member in Air Traffic Control (ATC) on what happens from an ATC perspective when this type of thing happens. It just happens that my family member knew the protocols and could share what is available publicly since they were working at the time of the accident.
They were under the Houston Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON). This facility handles aircraft after departure usually up to 17,000 feet and arrivals descending from 17,000 feet. On the ATC tapes, you can hear them call “Giant 3591” several times but no response. Then they ask a United flight if he was picking up an ELT (Emergency Locator Transmitter). After a crash, the aircraft automatically sends a signal on a dedicated frequency so that it can be found. Additionally, we would call any nearby aircraft/helicopter to report coordinates and what they see to initiate response teams.
https://flightaware.com/live/f...
When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail
By media reports, there were at least 5 eyewitnesses to the events leading up to the crash. The eyewitnesses report that the plane appeared to be having mechanical troubles with the pilot fighting for control.
That's unreliable info, but if true it would point towards a maintenance or mechanical problem with the plane, rather than pilot error. (Many crashes are caused by pilot error, so that's not unheard of).
Gotta be horrifying for the crew, to be powerless.
Actually, in this case it looks to me like a weight and balance issue. Of course, anything that happens when you are low and slow can cause you to ball it up pretty quick and not have any warning. Weight and balance could make it impossible to control the aircraft's attitude and only become apparent as the aircraft slows down for it's approach.
So, my leading theory is that the load wasn't properly secured and shifted though the turbulence they where experiencing or during takeoff. Then as they where slowing down for the approach they couldn't keep the aircraft in trim and control the attitude. They either stalled and couldn't recover or couldn't keep the noise up as they where adding flaps and putting the gear down which involves some pretty big trim changes.
Another possible issue is a micro-burst. It was very windy and thunderstorms where around but they where way above the critical altitude to allow recovery and pilots are highly trained for recovery from any hint of this these days. They didn't seem to be low enough for this to have killed them.
It could be pilot error, but when you are an ATP rated pilot flying this kind of aircraft, even in the right seat, you have a lot of experience. It is unlikely you are going to ball it up w/o somebody in the cockpit catching your mistake. Pilot mistakes do happen, but that's why there are two and why one flies while the other monitors these days. I put pilot error at #2 on my list for this crash.
For pilot error, the most likely mode here is an "over stress" of the aircraft. They where in rough weather, it was very bumpy, and it's easy to apply too much control pressure and structurally damage the aircraft. Such damage can break your ability to control the aircraft. The most dangerous thing that's happened is pilots who applied too much rudder and the tail departs the aircraft as a result. In this case, it seems the aircraft was not missing it's tail, so I don't think this happened, though it's possible that mechanical damage got done, rendering the tail useless.
Mechanical issues are on the very bottom of my list of possible causes. It's possible something went wrong with the horizontal stabilizer and, like the weight and balance problem, they lost pitch control at the exact wrong time, but due to the huge safety issues with this part of the aircraft, there are backups of backups for controlling this. It's possible, but unlikely unless there are serious maintenance problems with the airline and the FAA's inspectors are asleep on the job.
So, mechanical issues are about the last thing on the possible list that I would investigate. My list goes, weight and balance, pilot error, weather, aircraft system failure (maintenance).
However, the NTSB will look at everything. They likely have the flight data recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder already recovered and are in the process of dumping the data now. My guess is they will pretty quickly know what caused this one. We have the complete aircraft and the black boxes. There is unlikely to be much question as to what exactly happened.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101