You’ll see a lot of this one on the morning news. Latest guess at posting time – high winds.
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I’m no expert, crash or photoshop, but “it looks like to me” there was not any wind at all. I’m looking at the smoke at the time of the crash and afterwards. Pretty much just lazily floating upwards isn’t it?
It looks more like a porpoise effect from either over rotating on takeoff, or more/most likely “forgetting to flare” on the landing. Hard for that to happen absent some other stress.
agreed
The winds were gusting to 40+ mph at Narita.
did the nose gear fail first ?
MD11 is from a 70’s generation of birds you wonder why they aren’t flying human cargo anymore.
There are gonna be a whole bunch of pissed off people tomorrow waiting on FedEx to deliver their parts and laptops and shit from China.. and waiting.. and waiting…..
CNN Confirmed, but they say the plane landed on “Runway A”, not how runways are designated although it looks like the MD11 made its approach to 34 L. It looks to me like a wind shear got a hold of her.
Stall. Definitely looks like he was flaring for landing, and stalled it out. Thats the only thing that would make the nose drop like that. If it was a sudden loss of headwind or windshear I would think the whole plane would drop together, not just the nose.
spooky, I’ve had this same crash on an MD80 before in xplanes.
I bet the flaps were set incorrectly.
It looked like he suddenly lost lift on the wings… it just dropped onto the runway. Classic wind-shear.
This video shows more of the incident:
The plane had a hard landing right before the video starts. It bounced back up, came back down harder, and bounced back up again, dragging the tail hard, rotating the plane and causing the port wing to hit the ground.
A sudden gust of tailwind just before the first touchdown could easily have caused the first sudden drop and bounce.
Look for Salon.com to provide the most realistic explanation within a couple of days.
From MSNBC:
Investigators said the accident may have been caused by low-level turbulence or “wind shear,” sudden gusts that can lift or smash an aircraft into the ground during landing, said Kazuhito Tanakajima, an aviation safety official at the Transport Ministry.
Unusually strong winds of up to about 47 miles per hour were blowing through Narita City on Monday morning around the time of the crash, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.
But Tanakajima said the wind speed at the time of the accident was not enough to be considered dangerous, unless wind shear was involved. He said there was headwind of about 45 miles per hour, and a crosswind of about 7 miles per hour.
Strong winds and turbulence have caused other recent incidents at the airport.
Last month, a flight from the Philippines was jolted by severe turbulence as it circled prior to landing, injuring 50 passengers and crew members.
The MD-11 has been involved in accidents in which it flipped while landing, and pilots have complained about the aircraft in the past. The plane is no longer used by carriers for passenger travel but is widely employed for moving cargo.
In 1999, an MD-11 flipped over and burst into flames, killing three people during a crash landing in a storm in Hong Kong. And in 1997 one of the planes landed hard, flipped and caught fire while landing in Newark, N.J.
Both sad & ironic:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29828359/
14 people, including 7 kids, die in plane crash
Single engine turboprop dived into cemetery 500 feet from destination
ah i’m all for the logical explanations, but the cemetery crash was described in the exact same manner.. nose suddenly dropping…
all i have to say is..wtf is going on??
this makes how many plane crashes in the first
three months of *this year*??
i think this is waay above the historical norm..
-too many easy answers..
if i hadn’t witnessed the flocks of geese
flying overhead here in the Bronx myself within 5-10min of flight 1549 going down, i’d be real suspicious.
-anyway,
if i was to speculate outside the norm, i’d
say someone has gone overboard playing with their new/old electromagnetic toys..or ionizing tech that is supposedly for research only..
need to find out who and/or what was on the planes
as well..
-just saying, -too much blatant corruption being thrust in our faces lately to rule it out.
-s
Wow, that second vid fills in a lot of missing information. It looks like the first touchdown was very hard but survivable. However, after the porpoise bounce, the plane was near stall speed and the pilots may have over corrected resulting in a nose dive. The second hard impact collapsed the left main gear thereby slamming the left wing on the tarmac. When the left wing struck the ground, it apparently ground in and snapped leaving the aircraft with asymmetric lift. The lift from the one remaining wing caused the aircraft to barrel roll on the tarmac.
Sad. I don’t want to blame the pilots or the aircraft so I will wait for the official accident report. However, I suspect pilot error will be to blame. Usually, when conditions are considered marginal, it is ultimately up to the pilots to make the final call on whether to delay, proceed, or divert. When wind shear is involved, the choice is rarely clear and obvious.
That was a horrible accident. Already these poor pilots are fed up of carrying all these shit loads of FedEx and then they crash while flying old aircrafts. I mean we think we’re having a hardtime at our jobs. Sheesh..
Whatever caused the accident, it is sad and disheartening indeed.
#9–hopper==excellent video, thanks.
Its been said that aviation is not more inherently dangerous or complicated than driving a car or sailing a boat==just much less forgiving. Watching videos like this, that saying can’t be true?
No do-overs.
Kudos to hhopper for finding 2nd video. I could not visualize what would cause the sudden nose dip in the first video, but now it makes much more sense.
It would be interesting to see in a simulator what percentage of pilots could save the plane after that first bounce. My opinion, very few.
If this plane was landing why all the fuel?
I know they have to have some surplus but that was a pretty big fire.
Am I wrong about this?
almost looks like the Wings are to far back, and someone Increased the WEIGHT FORWARD, in the cargo.
As soon as he cut power, IT DROPPED the nose.
What are those building shapes in the background?
Look very much like oil storage containers. Or am I mistaken completely?
Perhaps a google earth might show.
If they are oil/fuel storage then the potential for a HUGE disaster is present in any future crash of this kind.
Hope I’m dead wrong.
Just to beat Adam to it….no way this was wind or pilot error….pilots simply do not make mistakes, EVER. There is more behind this, I have a feeling. Too many important people with things to hide have contacts at MD, FEDEX, Narita Airport, etc.
On the issue of wind shear and micro-downbursts, this has been identified for DECADES. I thought all airports identified as having this potential weather condition had sensors to alert the field/pilots of the possibility of same with the advice to go to alternate airport unless landing at scheduled airport was that big a deal?
The “news” will be that Narita has had such a system for 20 years, it was working, and pilots advised to go to alternate airport – BUT – all arrivals are mandatory for FedEx?
Ha, ha. Well, lets hope not.