Fortunately there are no reports of injuries. It's a good thing this was a cargo aircraft.
Posted on 05/25/2008 9:24:02 AM PDT by Paleo Conservative
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - An American Kalitta Air cargo plane slid off the runway at Brussels's Zaventem airport on Sunday and broke in two but there were no casualties, the fire brigade spokesman said.
The Boeing aircraft's five crew all escaped through an inflatable emergency slide, spokesman Francis Boileau said. Four of them had minor injuries.
Boileau did not know if the accident happened during take off or landing, but said that apart from its cargo of cars and equipment, the jet was full of fuel.
He said the plane came to a halt some 200 metres (650 feet) from the runway and only 10 metres (30 feet) from a railway line.
"There was a danger of an explosion just after the accident because it was full of kerosene, about 100 tonnes of it, and there was a big leakage when it broke," Boileau said.
The fire brigade had secured the leakage within 30 minutes, he said.
"We see from the large tracks on the runway that the pilot tried to stop the aircraft, because he understood he could not bring it up into the air, and he drove it off the runway," Boileau said.
The Kalitta Air company's website says it is a Michigan Limited Liability Company owned by Conrad Kalitta. It started in November 2000 with three Boeing 747 aircraft and the fleet has grown to a present total of 18 B 747 freighters.
Fortunately there are no reports of injuries. It's a good thing this was a cargo aircraft.
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That’s a “just damn” moment if I ever saw one. Glad that all were OK...
Sounds to me like this was likely during takeoff
uh oh...looks like one of their dragsters.
It seems rather odd that the reporter didn’t check further to see if it was taking off or landing before going with this story. Surely the control tower would know. At least, I hope so.
That should buff right out.
Here it is.
IIRC, Fox News said it was taking off. It will be interesting to see if the FAA (or their European counterpart) orders immediate inspections of 747 cargo planes.
Dam center fuel tank
Other reports say it was an aborted takeoff. I was limited by copyright restrictions on other sources for this story. Other reports stated there were no injuries. This report states there were only minor injuries.
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/3997261/
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/05/25/belgium.aircrash.ap/index.html
http://www.luchtzak.be/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=46317
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aedKffyZCMro&refer=us
Is the Owner Connie Kallita of Drag Racing Fame?
Saw one like this in Hong Kong Harbor, quite Impressive:-(
I hate it when that happens.
Must have been a tired airframe....
It would have been 28 in July. That's not extremely old for a 747F.
Airplanes are not "full of fuel" on landing!
Every gallon of fuel not used on the flight is 7 lbs. of cargo they could have made money carrying. Also, the extra gross weight is hard on airframe and brakes when landing.
But this plane was taking off and aborted!
Thanks. Yes, I figured it was probably taking off, since it was full of fuel. It was more of a comment on the typical shoddy reporting than anything else.
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