Accident at Halifax

snapped · Post by **snapped** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 11:03 am

My guess they have been told to keep there mouth shut until more facts have come to light.

golden hawk · Post by **golden hawk** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 11:13 am

Linecrew - I agree. Good Post. Let's let the investigation occur - could me any number of factors.

CAL · Post by **CAL** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 1:42 pm

Question:

Can you back track any further than the intersection of 15/33 and 06/24 at YHZ when using 24?

lilfssister · Post by **lilfssister** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 3:00 pm

snapped wrote:My guess they have been told to keep there mouth shut until more facts have come to light.

EVERYTHING we say, see, and hear at work is considered confidential. Information may only be released by NC employees to specific people and is vetted through upper management. I doubt you'll ever hear anything directly from the controller(s) involved, other than what comes out in the TSB report. Their union representative may make a statement to the press, but I would assume it would be of the "our member acted in a professional manner and followed their Manual of Operations to the letter" type of statement. At least I would hope so.

Rebel · Post by **Rebel** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 3:09 pm

CAL

The normal taxi would have been G-F-Rwy15 holding short of Rwy 24. Depending upon your weight most heavy departures would request a backtrack to the button of 24. At that time of morning it is quite possible that they would be allowed to backtrack down the full length of the active if so requested. The width of the runway would not pose a problem unless it was ice covered which it wasn't. Since I wasn't there I have no idea what happened although I'm sure the investigators have a pretty good idea if it was a taxi error by now as they already possess the tower tapes.

CAL · Post by **CAL** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 4:46 pm

That was the perfect answer.....thanks!
What I have read 'although' ofcourse no one knows....is that he did not take the back track? that is sort of what witness are saying at this time.

Rebel · Post by **Rebel** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 6:02 pm

CAL

We’ll have to wait and see what the accident investigators tell us as to the cause but don’t be surprised if it turns out to be a combination of events as that would be quite normal.

Murph · Post by **Murph** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 7:49 pm

Just heard today that apparently the aircraft made 3 attempts at rotation, each resulting in a tail strike, got airborn but did not climb, tail contacted some sort of tower off the end of the runway causing it to seperate from the rest of the aircraft, fuselage continued "ballisticly" until striking a man made hill, suspected that the aircraft was "overloaded with fuel and cargo"

boeingboy · Post by **boeingboy** » Fri Oct 15, 2004 8:47 pm

Funny Murph',

TSB investigater in charge says the plane wasn't overloaded.

Rebel · Post by **Rebel** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 1:20 am

Murph'

TSB investigators never said anything like what you posted...Stop shooting from the hip when you don't have any of the facts.

BuddyJay · Post by **BuddyJay** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 8:27 am

Howdy folks... I've posted a pic in my gallery of an A340 on take off from Rwy 06 at Halifax. It started its roll at the button of 06 and didn't rotate until after taxiway Delta and probably lifted off just past Echo. Might give you some idea of how much runway a "heavy" can eat up at YHZ. But keep in mind there are a number of factors involved for any take off..

To clear up the hitting a tower at the end of the Rwy, there is no tower, just the Rwy end lights in a small field. It's a pretty good sized fixture... Enough to snap a tail off, IMHO, yes. But did it snap the tail off, I don't know... We'll have to wait and see.

Enjoy the pic

BJ

golden hawk · Post by **golden hawk** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 8:30 am

Let's see.....

What was the weight?

How was it loaded re C of G?

Was the load secure?

Were the flaps properly set?

Did the crew overrotate?

Was a crew member incapacitated?

Did an engine fail?

Did they ingest a flock of seagulls?

Was the power set correctly?

Was the wing clean?

Did the aircraft have a pre-existing structural flaw?

Did they do an intersection takeoff?

etc......

My point is that there is so much to investigate, we really have to be careful not to speculate - I'm sure the TSB will have a thorough report once all the facts have been examined. They did an excellent job on Swissair 111, and should do the same here. I doubt anyone guessed inflight entertainment system wiring was the cause in the early going.

KAG · Post by **KAG** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 9:06 am

I normally don't comment on tragedies such as this as I am not an investigator, nor was I there. So please don’t think I’m trying to “jump on the bandwagon”.

I was talking to a friend of mine who works handling planes (and that one) in YHZ. Although he himself wasn’t working that night many of his close friends/co-workers were and these were some of the points he mentioned to me. Take them as you will.

The plane was fully loaded with the exception of 2 small spots at the rear of the plane, unusually large load. Also a large amount of fuel was taken on as the cost of fuel was cheaper in YHZ then there destination.

On push back the tug operator made a comment that the plane was “really heavy” as the HUF was having a hard time pushing it back. It should be noted that 3 sources (pilots, loadmaster, and line crew) confirmed the load and albeit heavy, on paper was not over weight and within C of G. The newspaper was incorrect as to load, there was more fish then reported (30,000 pounds more) and there weren’t tractors on board but these little 6 wheels amphibious ATV’s, which are fairly light, among other stuff.

It was thought by the ground crew that an intersection departure was made either Echo or Delta, not 100% sure on which.

I know next to nothing about the 747, but I assume a reduced power T/O is the norm and as such the line crew are used to what noise level those engines make. Apparently some point down the T/O roll, the engines powered up to such a point that everyone had noticed and turned to look, indicating Full power. Line crews were noted as saying they’ve never heard the 747 make that much noise on takeoff.

Then as mentioned the tail struck, was dragged, the nose went higher as the end of RWY 24 came, the tail broke off, the power to the airport was cut off, all lights went out, then the fire ball.

A few of the line crew raced to the scene, in an attempt to find survivors. You all know the rest.

Again, not making any assumptions, just sharing some of what was told to me by someone who knows/works with the eyewitnesses.
But the truth of what actually happened will only be known when the investigation is complete.

Cheers.

flynfiddle · Post by **flynfiddle** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 9:15 am

KLM used to fly a 747 into YHZ twice a week (this is going back about 10 years), I do not recall ever seeing that aircraft not do the backtrack for every inch of 24... that's not to say it was never done.

Rebel · Post by **Rebel** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 12:29 pm

King Air Guy

Hopefully the crew would have consulted their WAT charts to see if a reduced thrust T/O was an option and they had sufficent runway available for their operation. Personally if I were heavy, weather etc I would backtrack. Although in the final analysis you would only pick up an extra 100 feet or so out of a total of 200 feet available taking into account the length and the turning radius of the aircraft, it’s always better to have available runway in front of you then behind you. This is assuming taking position from G, F and runway15, which would have been a preferred taxi routing, other then doing a full backtrack from another exit. I would question why a heavy would attempt a T/O from any other exit unless they were really light, as you must take into consideration all the other what-if’s.

Your accounting of what the line crew heard and saw is interesting and informative although speculating on what could have happened is tempting, I’ll wait for the accident report.

scubasteve · Post by **scubasteve** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 1:45 pm

waiting for the report is the right thing to do but I think part of the reason we always postulate (good one eh?) a cause for the incident is because by the time the report comes out..by and large we've forgotten the incidence in question. Its almost been a year since that Caravan went down and we're getting some things on the weight issure from it but the whole report isnt done yet...probably another year. Its human nature to ask questions and wonder what happened and unfortunately the answers come long after the questions are asked

Rebel · Post by **Rebel** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 2:17 pm

scubasteve

"postulate" That's a good word

and one that I like. You are correct, the time between the accident and the official report is way to long and leads pilot's to postulate..

North Shore · Post by **North Shore** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 7:53 pm

Someone mentioned an overload of 30,000lbs. I'm not sure of the source of that, but it seems a little speculative at this point. Besides, as far as I know the MGTOW of a '47 is somewhere above 600,000lbs, leaving an overload in the region of 5% - hardly enough to cause a catastrophe like this, one would think.

boeingboy · Post by **boeingboy** » Sat Oct 16, 2004 11:04 pm

Depending on engine type and mod status the MTOW for the -200 is around 750,000 lbs (I think it's more like 780,000 - but I don't have the figures in front of me right now)

ptc · Post by **ptc** » Sun Oct 17, 2004 5:57 am

Here is the latest from the accident

Bodies recovered from Halifax crash site

Last Updated Sat, 16 Oct 2004 22:19:43 EDT

HALIFAX - Investigators have recovered the bodies of the seven crew members killed in Thursday's cargo plane crash at Halifax International Airport and taken them to the medical examiner's office.

Bill Fowler, an investigator with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, said the Boeing 747 had two engines replaced a few weeks ago, but the reason for the replacement was not known.

FROM OCT 15, 2004: Plane's tail struck Halifax runway twice

"There could be any number of reasons why you'd change an engine," Fowler told a news conference at the Halifax International Airport Saturday.

"We're trying to find out the circumstances around each engine and what was it that required it to be changed."

He also said the plane's last major maintenance inspection was done in Jakarta, Indonesia, in September.

Investigators are looking at whether the engines played any role in Thursday morning's crash.

Killed in the crash were four British nationals, two Zimbabweans and a German.

Investigators are still searching for the jet's data and voice recorders.

Thursday's crash is the fourth time a jet owned by MK Airlines of Britain has crashed in the past 12 years.

Written by CBC News Online staff