Elmendorf C-17 Crash Video

T

TallFlyer

Well-Known Member
The military has released the video from a C-17 crash earlier this summer at Elmenndorf AFB in Anchorage. It's not yet on youtube so I'm unable to imbed it, but it can be found at this link.
 
Wow, that's certainly dramatic. Is that deck angle normal? Totally ignorant on the subject and very much NOT trying to internet-expert it. RIP.
 
Crew was trying a new maneuver, briefed beforehand and not flat out hot-dogging like the Fairchild B-52 in '94, but not within parameters and aggressive apparently. Put the aircraft into the maneuver, stalled, and there wasn't altitude to recover, unfortunately. Lack of CRM contributory.
 
The Fez said:
Looks very similar to the B-52 crash at Fairchild. RIP.
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I dunno man. Bank angles from the start seemed to be fast and excessive. Very much like the Fairchild crash.

[video=youtube;ReSm7r45_ds]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReSm7r45_ds&feature=player_detailpage[/video]

[video=youtube;YQa4PpIkOZU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=YQa4PpIkOZU[/video]
 
MikeD said:
Crew was trying a new maneuver, briefed beforehand and not flat out hot-dogging like the Fairchild B-52 in '94, but not within parameters and aggressive apparently. Put the aircraft into the maneuver, stalled, and there wasn't altitude to recover, unfortunately. Lack of CRM contributory.
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Overly aggressive. The C-130J and A400M at Farnborough were doing a lot of this same stuff and a few years ago the Russians were popping rivets on their An-124 with turns that had ALL spoilers UP in hard low level turns. Freighters are not fighters even if someone tries to fly them as a fighter. And.. release back pressure, roll wings level and PULL.

USAir 427 also rolled, went nose low and the crew, startled and reacting to a horrific event, pulled without being able to get wings level. They, and the pax, paid dearly.
 
MikeD said:
Crew was trying a new maneuver, briefed beforehand and not flat out hot-dogging like the Fairchild B-52 in '94, but not within parameters and aggressive apparently. Put the aircraft into the maneuver, stalled, and there wasn't altitude to recover, unfortunately. Lack of CRM contributory.
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Not saying your wrong, but word we received from an A/F safety guy was the pilot was trying to do the authorized performance, but wanted to show he could do it faster than the planners said it should be done. Meaning he was trying to show his "superior skills" that he could do it better and faster. In other words, he said the guy was hot-dogging it. Again, just what we where told, not saying it's THE truth.
 
I'm once again posting when I probably shouldn't, but A) some of that "hot-dogging" doesn't look all that dangerous to me. Some of it does. B) I don't think it's fair to condemn the deceased crew of the C-17 based on perceived similarities with a previous accident in a dissimilar aircraft 15 years prior. Especially if the 17 guys were, as MikeD stated, performing a maneuver they were required to learn and demonstrate.
 
mooneyguy said:
Not saying your wrong, but word we received from an A/F safety guy was the pilot was trying to do the authorized performance, but wanted to show he could do it faster than the planners said it should be done. Meaning he was trying to show his "superior skills" that he could do it better and faster. In other words, he said the guy was hot-dogging it. Again, just what we where told, not saying it's THE truth.
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I think its like any other pilot, just trying to put on a good demonstration and show, but in this case pushed it too far, with the end result as shown.
 
Orange Anchor said:
Freighters are not fighters even if someone tries to fly them as a fighter. And.. release back pressure, roll wings level and PULL.
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This is exactly what I was thinking watching the last 3-4 seconds of that clip. Looked to me like they had a decent amount of time to roll back upright, and pull for all they were worth, but then again, I am no C-17 pilot, and who knows if they had already departed and thus had no roll authority at that point. And yeah, I have chatted with a few AF C-17 types, and more than any other heavy person I have ever talked to, they seem to view their aircraft as some sort of hybrid pointy nosed jet. Maybe it is time to throttle back a notch, and fly the thing like the transport it is. Not meaning to come off as harsh, as I'm sure this crew was skilled at what they were doing (and I of course don't have the priviliged details of this mishap), but big picture, I question only the common sense of their leadership that put them up to this.....not the crew in question....there is no reason in the world that an airlift/transport type aircraft should be pushed to the point of departure in peacetime operations.
 
WOW, my first reaction was were they fighting some kind of fly by wire malfunction or something, but if those maneuvers were intended they certainly seemed extreme.
 
///AMG said:
This is exactly what I was thinking watching the last 3-4 seconds of that clip. Looked to me like they had a decent amount of time to roll back upright, and pull for all they were worth, but then again, I am no C-17 pilot, and who knows if they had already departed and thus had no roll authority at that point. And yeah, I have chatted with a few AF C-17 types, and more than any other heavy person I have ever talked to, they seem to view their aircraft as some sort of hybrid pointy nosed jet. Maybe it is time to throttle back a notch, and fly the thing like the transport it is. Not meaning to come off as harsh, as I'm sure this crew was skilled at what they were doing (and I of course don't have the priviliged details of this mishap), but big picture, I question only the common sense of their leadership that put them up to this.....not the crew in question....there is no reason in the world that an airlift/transport type aircraft should be pushed to the point of departure in peacetime operations.
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Not a mil guy, but:

A C17 is not a Caravan or a Cub. It won't perform like that, and I'd suspect (with no swept wing time) that your margin of error in a swept wing airplane doesn't allow you the luxury of "mushing around the corner." To me, that looks eerily like a moose-hunter stall. That sort of stuff is something I'd have no problem doing in a Caravan, 207, 206, Cherokee, or any other small machine. I think that the C17 might be a little too large, and have too much inertia for human reaction times in that sort of maneuver.

What kind of stall recovery performance can someone expect out of a swept wing jet as opposed to a straight wing jet, or a straight wing prop?
 
ppragman said:
Not a mil guy, but:

A C17 is not a Caravan or a Cub. It won't perform like that, and I'd suspect (with no swept wing time) that your margin of error in a swept wing airplane doesn't allow you the luxury of "mushing around the corner." To me, that looks eerily like a moose-hunter stall. That sort of stuff is something I'd have no problem doing in a Caravan, 207, 206, Cherokee, or any other small machine. I think that the C17 might be a little too large, and have too much inertia for human reaction times in that sort of maneuver.

What kind of stall recovery performance can someone expect out of a swept wing jet as opposed to a straight wing jet, or a straight wing prop?
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I think we are saying the same thing here? As for swept wing, I've only flown comparatively light swept wing jets, but yeah, there is a noticeable loss of lateral control around the stall....heavy wing drop, etc......but with the nose down, you quickly regain that lost lateral control if you are conscious of the issue and make a positive effort to right the wrongs you have placed on the aircraft (ie not trying to make a loaded rolling pull on a jet that is still a sliver away from departing again)
 
You don't 'fight fly-by-wire'. Watch the video. The airplane appears to be doing what is commanded.. ie, full spoilers up on one wing means a hard max rate turn. The spoilers don't come up of their own accord.
 
Boris Badenov said:
Well, I've tried, anyway. :)
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And so have I. I have pictures of my -135 sitting in fingertip with another -135 and we are probably not 50ft apart.. over Thailand. And I have had the tanker in 45deg+ when I was a lot younger and a lot less experienced. And I met the receivers where they said they had to be including the karst region in northern Laos near the Chinese border. All this to say you can have a fighter attitude in something other than a fighter and it can have consequences. In this case, it appears the fatal error was letting the nose drop.

Also, as I learned in the tanker and later repeated in the 737 when we were having the rudder-hard-overs, you MUST unload the airplane if you expect to roll out. Without that, it is a foregone conclusion if you are low.
 
Orange Anchor said:
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Also, as I learned in the tanker and later repeated in the 737 when we were having the rudder-hard-overs, you MUST unload the airplane if you expect to roll out. Without that, it is a foregone conclusion if you are low.
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I guess what is second nature to the pointy nosed guys, may be a little less common sense for heavies? Fair enough, no ribbing intended and that might explain the last few seconds of this video clip, thinking about it from another perspective
 
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