Posted on 04/03/2006 5:10:20 AM PDT by Trust but Verify
McChord about 1982, right? I was sitting in a security vehicle on the edge of the runway. Wondering if we were going to have a major incident and cordon off the area or who knows what. Thankfully, all personnel exited unscathed, glad to see your brother was okay also.
(now I've got that Micky Mouse "It's a small world" song in my head)
No LCD display in the back when I was flying C-5's in the 80's. Given budget constraints and the low priority assigned to that type of passenger consideration, I doubt that they have added such a thing since then. On occassion, when out over the ocean on long flights, we invited passengers in small groups from the back to come up to the cockpit for a "look see." I doubt that this is permissible today.
In the helio pics of the crash, the plane looks like it was never taken out of take-off configuration.
Could someone confirm?
Very doubtful. The only engines that are capable of in-flight reverse are the two inboards. To get them in that mode required peculiar throttle movements (if I remember correctly: lifting over a stop and moving backwards and down) that no one would make after takeoff. To me, the most likely scenario remains a multiple bird-strike causing the near simultaneous loss of two engines.
The landing configuration is very much like the takeoff configuration (ie., gear and flaps down). Flaps down is what the pics seem to show. If the bird strike scenario is correct, at some point after the strike and engine failures, the pilot would probably be trying to get the gear and flaps up (if they were not already up) in order to reduce drag.
Drag reduction would be critical so that he could gain altitude and airspeed and make it around to the south of the airport for an emergency approach and landing — difficult to do at heavy weight on only two remaining engines. At some point the gear and flaps have to come down again and the drag increases beyond the capability of two engines to maintain level flight.
Then you are in a controlled and irreversible descent even with the two remaining engines at max power. If you have enough altitude, and if you can control the adverse yaw, and if you can maintain your airspeed, and if you are close enough to the runway, you will make it. Unfortunately, one or more of those ifs didn't work out for this C-5 pilot.
But fortunately, by God's grace, they all survived. The accident board will sort it all out and give us an accurate read on the causes later on.
If I remember correctly, he was in transit from Korea or Okinawa. He was at that time in the communication/security branch of the US Army. Beyond those details memory fails me.
The latest update I read states that 11 of the 17 crew and passengers have been released from the hospital. The six remaining in 2 Delaware hospitals are all listed in "fair" condition.
Apparantly, the plane was 10 minutes into flight, over or very near New Jersey when they turned around. My father, who volunteers at the base said that the word was mechanical failure of some sort. On the way back in, they clipped a telephone pole, which caused the nose to jerk up, and the tail down, which is what ripped off the tail. Then, on the hard "rebound", the nose went down hard causing that separation.
It's still early, and the only "official" parts of the above that I've heard from multiple sources are the 10 minutes into flight and hitting a telephone pole at some point. If the plane was already over Jersey, I would think that rules out (or at least minimizes the possibility of) birds as a factor. Then again, I'm a banker, not an aviation expert, and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night :)
The cockpit is designed to seperate from the cargo compartment/fuselage on impact. So it done as it was designed.
This is a C-5! A C-17 does not have a retractable nose. Only the C-5 has this capability.
I was reviewing some of the eariler comments, How does the military come up with the numbers. It seems like C-5 would of been some aircraft that would of came out before the C-17 and the C-17 would of came out before the C-141. But it seems like there's no pattern in the numbers. How do these numbers come about.
US Military Aircraft Designation Systems
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/history/q0012.shtml
4/4/2006 - DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. -- Air Force officials released the names of the 17 survivors of the C-5 Galaxy crash here April 3.
Survivor names, base and medical conditions are as follows:
Capt. Brian Lafreda, Dover, fair
Lt. Col. Robert Moorman, Dover, fair
Lt. Col. Harland Nelson, Dover, fair
Master Sgt. Timothy Feiring, Dover, released
Master Sgt. Michael Benford, Dover, fair
Tech. Sgt. Vincent Dvorak, Dover, fair
Master Sgt. Brenda Kremer, Dover, released
Chief Master Sgt. David Burke, Dover, released
Chief Master Sgt. George Mosley, Dover, released
Tech. Sgt. Henry Fortney, Dover, released
Senior Airman Scott Schaffner, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, released
Tammy Lucas, Lockheed Martin employee, fair
Staff Sgt. David Abrams, Dover, released
Senior Airman Nicholas Vather, Dover, fair
Retired Chief Petty Officer Paul Kath, released
Hannelore Kath, released
Retired Tech. Sgt. Raul Salamanca, released
Wings-level landing might have saved C-5 crash survivors
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123018580
4/4/2006 - SAN ANTONIO (AFPN) -- A veteran C-5 Galaxy pilot said all 17 people survived the April 3 plane crash at Dover Air Force Base, Del., mainly because the pilot did his job.
Col. Udo McGregor said the “100 percent reason” everyone aboard survived the crash was because the pilot did a wings-level landing.
“The survivors are survivors because he put it on the ground wings level,” said the colonel, commander of the 439th Operations Group at Westover Air Reserve Base, Mass.
The transport took off from Dover at about 6:20 a.m. bound for Spain and Southwest Asia. On board were Airmen and several passengers. Base officials said the aircrew noticed a problem with the aircraft soon after takeoff and the pilot turned the aircraft around to land back at the base.
But at 6:42 a.m. the aircraft crashed into a grassy field and broke up into several pieces. Base officials think the aircraft might have struck a utility pole, which cut off the aircraft’s six-story tail section. It had a quarter million pounds of fuel, but miraculously did not catch fire.
Colonel McGregor, a command pilot with more than 10,600 flying hours -- more than 7,000 of those in the Galaxy -- said there are others reasons why the accident cost the Air Force only a transport aircraft.
One is that the aircraft -- almost as long as a football field -- has many crumple zones.
“If you watch car commercials on TV and watch them do the crash testing -- the more metal you have -- the larger the piece of equipment -- the more the chance you have of survival,” he said.
And the cargo plane has so much cargo space below its wings that a wings-level landing gives those on board “a pretty good chance of surviving,” he said.
“It’s an incredibly safe airplane,” said the colonel from Savannah, Ga. “Very, very few accidents for the millions and millions of flying hours that it’s accomplished.”
The colonel has flown all over the world in the C-5. He knows the transport inside and out. The emergency that the Dover crew faced -- a heavy weight, three-engine emergency return -- is a “pretty standard” procedure for which Galaxy pilots are well prepared, he said.
“In this particular case, the experience level of the crew would suggest they’ve done it hundreds of times -- practiced it hundreds of times in a simulator,” he said.
Colonel McGregor has had to deal with similar in-flight emergencies during his 15 years at the helm of the heavy jet. More than once he has had to land a heavily-loaded Galaxy with only three engines. But with about a million parts, many mechanical things can go wrong with the aging aircraft, which entered the Air Force inventory in the June 1970. After so many hours in the air, the aircraft is bound to experience one or two emergencies, he said.
“That’s just part of flying something for an extensive amount of time that has this many moving parts,” the colonel said. “It’s a very complicated airplane.”
The colonel remembers a flight into Osan Air Base, South Korea, when the air conditioning turbine on his C-5 malfunctioned and filled the entire aircraft with smoke. The aircrew made an emergency landing and did an emergency evacuation of 73 passengers -- who exited down the slide from the passenger compartment on the back of the aircraft.
At Dover, the aircrew also used the inflatable slide to evacuate the aircraft.
Colonel McGregor said the aircraft has a great safety record. And the upgrades through which it is going -- like getting new avionics and engines -- will extend its life “a significant number of years.”
“I would say more than 20 years is probably a reasonable guess,” he said. And with the upgrades, “it’s probably even more than that.”
The colonel said two boards will now convene to find out the cause of the accident. The first, a safety investigation board, will try to determine what the issues or problems were. They have 30 to 45 days to come up with answers.
Then, an accident investigation board will convene to “find the magic BB, the causal effect -- the things or things that caused or created the accident,” the colonel said.
The accident investigation board will probably have to have some kind of resolution to the commander of Air Mobility Command by the end of May.
“So it’s a fairly rapid process,” he said.
This is from one of the instructors re: the C5 crash:
I read this and my fairly well-trained eye (I attended the Air Force Crash Investigation Course a few years ago,) actually can see it develop in that very sequence. My observation upon seeing the pictures in the media (and some that never made the media) agrees with this scenario.
Unfortunately, I can't discuss much further, as it's starting to look like I am a prime candidate to be part of the Accident Investigation Board...
I see.
This info has made many of the aviation boards around the country. So - you'll probably see it again.
Good luck - keep me posted - if and when you can.
I'll ping you to the other news of the day.
It's still in preliminary stages whether I get involved or not. One thing's for certain, you will be in the know, as far as AF rules allow me.
No, it is you who is mistaken. The photo in post #8, which was removed long before you began flapping your gums, was of a C-17, not a C-5.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.