Posted on 05/03/2013 4:16:35 AM PDT by cunning_fish
A US cargo plane has crashed after taking off from an airbase in Kyrgyzstan, local reports say.
The tanker aircraft had left the US Manas airbase near the capital Bishkek, officials told AFP.
The emergency situations ministry said the plane had broken into three pieces but information about casualties has yet to be released.
Seven crew members died when a US civilian cargo plane crashed at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan on Monday.
Witnesses of the Kyrgyzstan crash told local media that they heard a boom and saw an explosion.
The transport plane was carrying a cargo of fuel when it disappeared off the radar near the mountain village of Chaldybar, close to the border with Kazakhstan, Reuters reported.
The US military uses the Manas airbase to maintain its operations in Afghanistan.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
From all appearances the first one was a stall due to steep climb. Aviation friend of mine thinks cargo may have shifted as well.
My son is a KC-135 pilot who has deployed twice now. He lost a pilot friend this past week in Afghanistan.
>>>One thing that could be done would be to use something like the A-10 Warthog as Fighters to accompany the tanker until it gains enough altitude.
A manpad may or may not be able to do much damage to an A-10. I believe A-10’s have been known to loose an engine and still fly. Plus the fact that the cockpit is kind of armored like an army tank.<<<
Idea is not new for this part of the world. In 1980s Soviets used helicopter gunships to shield troop transports from heat-seeking missiles over Kabul airport and Bagram airbase.
I might be spewing non-sense with suggesting escorts for the KC-10's/KC-135's.
But one thing is that if an A-10 Warthog is the escort, and they know where someone fired from the ground, then the A-10 is a nice aircraft to be in. It has the ability to go in low and slow and smoke those firing on the tankers and escorts...
If I were to grade the Obama Administration over things that are going on, they would get a low F grade -- not even close to a D grade...
Helicopters seem to be vulnerable to ground fire -- even some of the most modern ones.
I think from specs I saw the Warthog could accompany the tankers for a while -- they cannot reach the full speed of the KC-10 or KC-135.
But an A-10 Warthog would slow down the tankers at some point...
Although the first crash could’ve been cargo shifting to the back, now it’s time to rethink the cause..
It was a KC-135.. Isn’t that a mid-air refueler?
DHS is "O"s personal army, He cares far far less about the real Military machine, because he can not totaly control it.
>>>It is my understanding that an A-10 Warthog can take alot of punishment.
Helicopters seem to be vulnerable to ground fire — even some of the most modern ones.
I think from specs I saw the Warthog could accompany the tankers for a while — they cannot reach the full speed of the KC-10 or KC-135.
But an A-10 Warthog would slow down the tankers at some point...<<<
To be honest KC-135 is less vulnerable to manpad attack. It has four, not two engines. Manpad warhead is very tiny and it rarely hits somewhere but jet exhaust.
I am sure they do. However, if there is any kind of a prolonged stand down, ongoing air operations would be radically affected. We are stretched pretty thin, and especially with the ongoing budget mess. Tankers are an essential part of our force projection and the KC-135 is the bulk of the fleet.
Missile? Equipment failure? Pilot error? Catastrophic failure of some sort? It's too soon to tell yet.
It will take a few days to get the likely problem identified - unless there were current radio transmissions from the aircraft at the time describing some problem, and that might help. Otherwise, it is likely an on scene investigation of the wreckage and analysis of the Flight Data Recorder will be needed to nail down the exact cause. That will take a little time, although they can probably come up with a suspected cause pretty quickly once they can examine the wreckage.
Kyrgyzstan is also known as Kyrgyzia.
“-stan” means “land of” or “place of” in Persian.
The load shifted toward the back of the 747 which pushed its Center of Gravity back causing it to go nose high. Once you get up to about 19 degrees (or even less) it’s gonna stall.
When it shifted to the left the left wing had stalled first followed by the right. I’m sure the pilot did all he could to keep the wings level and get the nose down but it wasn’t enough.
We already have the happenstance, the coincidence.....
Just a note that National Cargo released a statement saying that Bagram was only a fuel stop for the 747BCF. There was no change in the cargo or personnel at Bagram. Cargo was only inspected. So it appears that the cargo was fine for the first leg of the flight, from Camp Bastion to Bagram.
Doesn’t mean the cargo didn’t shift, but it makes it a little bit less likely.
three if you count the KLM 747 that belly flopped a couple days ago. Using the Paul Harvey “threes “ rule that should be all for now.
“In one short article they call it a tanker plane, a cargo plane, and a transport plane.”
Why is this a surprise? The same reporter probably calls a Glock a ‘Saturday Night Special’, a ‘junk gun’ and an ‘assault weapon’, too. And in the same article, no doubt.
He probably also thinks that the Germans produce a particularly deadly version of the popular pistol and it’s called the ‘Glockenspiel’.
A pilot friend of mine notes that if the load shifted to the rear of the 747 then in free fall it would have come down tail first. Except that it didn’t. Thus he says it’s safe to rule out the load shifting as the source of the problem.
“When it shifted to the left the left wing had stalled first followed by the right. I’m sure the pilot did all he could to keep the wings level and get the nose down but it wasn’t enough.”
After watching the video again, yeah, you’re right on the money. I noticed the high nose too, but thought it was camera angle.
At that height, there was really nothing the pilot could do. No time to get the nose down and get out.
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