[Red Badger]

Aviation Ping!.........😪

[greenbrier]

A C-130 breaking apart in midair - seem inconceivable.

[volare737]

I have no idea what that is, but it does not look like a C-130.

[Blurb2350]

“. . . had taken off from Ganja International Airport.” Hmmm . . .

[ConservativeMind]

Undiagnosed metal fatigue?

[Paal Gulli]

57-year-old airframe bought 15 years ago from the Saudis. Preliminary examination didn't discover any bullet holes or other damage indicative of a "shoot-down." Common (reasonable) guesses across the blogosphere include corrosion of the airframe or cargo breaking loose and causing internal structural damage. Every failure has to have a first occurrence and my first instinct was that it might be airframe failure due to repeated pressure cycles, which of course also would be related to quality of maintenance. Wikipedia has a list of C-130 crashes and this is the only one that appears to be spontaneously breaking up in flight.

Seeing the wings (presumably with the nose still attached) spiraling stably toward the ground reminded me of Eugene Moran, the B-17 tail gunner whose plane. the Rikki Tikki Tavi, was shot to pieces on a bombing mission over Nazi Germany. The tail fell off, with him still in it, and somehow miraculous was statically and aerodynamically stable FLYING BACKWARDS. Moran was essentially in his own glider falling to earth. And to compound the miracle, he landed in a stand of trees, which slowed his deceleration on impact to a survivable rate.

Unfortunately, the rest of the airframe (and crewmen) didn't have Moran's good luck.

[CodeToad]

Tukey hints at unusual flight attitudes. Hmmm...

[jerod]

First of all... That does not look like a C-130 in that photo... Secondly... C-130’s are among the safest and most reliable aircrafts ever created. For the wings to fall off a C-130, it would take a major error on the part of the maintenance crew.

[dpetty121263]

The E model has had wing problems.

[Professional Engineer]

Aloha wills it.

[redfreedom]

The C130 ranks as one of the most reliable aircraft ever made. How could it just break apart? Poor maintenance not detecting cracks or other structural issues? How about help from the inside where a crew member was in a hurry to get his 72 virgins?

[AlaskaErik]

The Royal Air Force officially retired the last of its C-130Js in 2023.

More evidence that the idiots are in charge of the UK. Do they really believe the A400M is going to be able to do all the things a C-130 can do?

[FrankRizzo890]

C-130E? IIRC, the E’s are OLD old old. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re bad if properly maintained, but I’m betting this one wasn’t.

[PAR35]

came down in Georgia

Saw that and thought - back in Georgia for a factory overhaul?

Got to this, and went 'well, that's the long way around to get between those destinations unless it was a factory repair stop.

flying from Azerbaijan to Turkey

Then it was, 'Oh, they mean Joe Stalin's Georgia. Reporter could have used a copy editor.

[zipper]

Way too early to know but this does look like it could have resulted from a thrown prop blade that sliced through the fuselage, as happened with the Marine KC-130 at cruise. That was caused by a damaged Hamilton Standard prop.

The video looks like #3 engine nacelle may be missing the prop.

If it were a strict over-g (seems unlikely in cruise without a thunderstorm) I think the wing box would have folded first - the wing box held together so I think something else happened first.

[Celtic Conservative]

Looks like in the modernization upgrade program they skipped the airframe inspection.

CC