The reason people watch these accidents is to learn from them in the pro pilot world. It's what is most sobering and increases the minds attention to what is going on during the accident.
Just because an airplane crashes and people are killed doesn't mean we shouldn't watch it. We should learn as much about that accident as possible so we hopefully do not find ourselves in the same position.
These men died flying the airplane, that is for sure. What they did, how the airplane reacted and many fine details are observable from this clip. They tried hard to the end.
There were 5 heavy trucks in the airplane and since I have had extensive experience flying cargo, it makes perfect sense to presume a load shift. In fact it is about the only thing that can make this type of accident happen based on the airplane's attitude and the point in time after liftoff that it occurs. It just is what it is.
I'm sorry for the crew and their families, it's just not what we want for our fellow pilots, but it's life and since all of the families have been notified it is now a training tool. That's way it is in the real world of aviation. It's not for everyone, so if it upsets one then one shouldn't watch it.
Chris...
Well done, Chris.
I found myself at a loss as to how to respond to the earlier, quite understandable, comments. I think you made the points that need to be made appropriately and with fair consideration for the impact the incident had on the families of the crewmen aboard.
In the aviation industry, clear minded evaluation and assessment of tragedies like this are part and parcel of what improves the safety of air travel for all in the future. No, it's not "entertaining" but, for those who live in the sometimes gritty world of endeavors that are inherently unfriendly, learning from tragedies is a must. Turning your back or closing your eyes to evidence of failure to recognize the realities of failure to adhere to its principles is simply not an option.
thanks for reminding us.
Ted
p.s. It is worth noting that, because of the threats which permeate the region, departures from Baghram airfield are non-routine, high performance efforts intended to remove the aircraft from ground based threats in an expeditious manner. Thus, the aggressive nature of these expedited climbs lends itself to two potentially unrecovefable situations that might have delayed a response by the flight crew and which may have cost them their lives.
Most departures in transport category airplane like the 747 are a balance between expected performance and the ability to recover from an engine failure at a critical moment. Thus, a normal takeoff is conducted in a manner which doesn't place the aircraft in any remotely hazardous attitudes while near the ground. Rotation, lift off and initial climb are carefully calculated and monitored closely to insure a safe recovery should an engine fail. Since those engines seldom do fail, 99+% of all takeoffs are non events in terms of the sort of outcome seen in the video. There is simply too great a margin of error built in.
When, however, the calculation is made that the risk of lethal interference from the ground exceeds that of an unlikely engine failure, more aggressive attitudes and airspeeds are utilized to maximize the angle of climb after lift off (gain more altitude per unit of ground covered) the airplane must operate closer to the edge of the envelope in terms of airspeed and angle of attack. Thus, any unexpected/unplanned alterations to the "lift, drag, thrust, CG, angle of attack" formula are immediately more hazardous to the success of the endeavor. If, in fact, the CG of this 747 moved unexpectedly aft at the same time the flight crew was purposely placing the aircraft "closer to the edge" aerodynamically in search of separating themselves from ground based threats, their risk of failure was increased two fold. First, the aft-ward CG shift in and of itself makes the airplane more responsive to elevator inputs and the rate of pitch increase will accelerate (common knowledge to stunt fliers) and, second, the pilot flying is anticipating and demanding the need for more rapid rotation so he/she is less likely to respond as rapidly to what will quickly become an excessive rotation. The pilot will be pulling the nose up to achieve a predetermined airspeed for the initial climb and expects the pitch attitude to be "greater" than normal. In this case what he gets is more than he asked for.
When you combine the natural acceleration in pitch rotation beyond what was planned with the delayed response of the pilot flying who is expecting some degree of greater rotation...and when the planned attitude/airspeed is closer to the limit, i.e. the critical angle of attack, the time available to recover and adapt to what is now an unknown pitch/CG/thrust/airspeed requirement will be dramatically--and in this case, excessively--reduced.
This is exactly what Chris, myself and literally thousands of other experienced transport category pilots saw when they watched this, undeniably tragic, video. For those that operate in the theater it is an educational reminder of the unforgiving nature of what we do. It is not existential to us, it is real.
A little side note about quirky and/or tragic videos and pilots. There was(is) a popular second story bar in downtown Narita (The Japanese city where the Tokyo airport is located) that catered almost exclusively to layover crews from the around the world. Populated by small round tables (no chairs, they would have taken up too much room) laden with bowls of unshelled peanuts above a floor covered with the detritus of the contents of those shells already consumed by the pilots and flight attendants surrounding the tables, i.e. the floor was covered with empty shells.
Every night, feeding from an apparently endless tape, there were replayed a series of videos of aviation whackadoodles of all sorts on B & W TVs scattered around as in a sports bar in the states. Most popular were botched approaches to Kai Tek airport in Hong Kong, butchered launches and captures on aircraft carriers and, frankly, crashes of airplanes more or less out of control for hundreds of reasons. Everyone of the "events" chronicled had its own little tale to tell (not unlike the video that generated this thread) and, without exception, somebody at some table every night would address exactly what he or she felt the pilot did right or wrong or what caused it to be unrecoverable...or whatever. Yup, the prime reason we were all there was to drink Soporo and eat peanuts but you couldn't take the airplanes out of the pilots. We all watched 'em over and over and, subconsciously, put ourselves in the cockpit of every one of them while assuring our selves that, had we been at the controls, we would have done this, that or the other thing and the outcome would not have been memorable enough to film.
I've no doubt that a fair number of future "instant replays" of those filmed "ooops moments" were short circuited by virtue of a Soporo, some peanuts and pictures of airplanes doing naughty things at the command of their "Captains". We couldn't all make all the mistakes ourselves. Truth be told, our passengers didn't want us to!
Topic: CG shift on a 747 (not pretty!) (Read 3577 times)