Not only was it not terrorist, I doubt it was even cargo-shift. It has the look of simple (and I might add classic) steep climb stall. Once the aircraft stalled, clearly the nose dropped (as it is supposed to do) and the pilot appeared to be regaining control. Another 12-1500 feet of altitude and it might have been the most impressive ‘buzzing’ of the field ever recorded.
And yes, this exact type of accident has happened before. When you get that much mass rotating that quickly, Mr. Newton takes over and makes it continue to rotate even as the pilot commands it to stop. As some point airspeed diminishes below stalling speed, and you become a passenger until the nose drops and airspeed is regained. Hopefully you don’t run out of altitude before that happens.
Were there any locals on that ground crew who loaded the aircraft? Were maximum capacity limits ignored? It's hard to watch that dashcam video, and I found that the puppy whimpering then the driver chuckling kind of odd, given the enormity of what just happened. Horrible.
No. Next question.
I’ve also thought that maybe the practice is for jets departing that base to take off at a steep angle to avoid possible fire from the ground and in this case the crew just stalled the thing. I used to worry about that happening whenever my family flew out of Ontario or Burbank in SoCal.
Once that occurs at takeoff there is no maneuver sufficient to correct from that pitch up, tail down stall.
You don't have sufficient speed, thrust, or altitude to regain control.
Indeed. Especially as the cargo was vehicles. Someone screwed up on the tie-downs, either not properly attached, or inadequate for the load. Something slipped, connectors snapped, and instant major CG shift in the most dangerous portion of the flight. . .