Airbus A330 registered to UPS down in Birmingham, AL

It looks, at this early date, that you may be right... landing early, clipping trees and poles hundreds of yards before impact.

The fire or explosion before crashing (if true) could be from these earlier impacts.


I saw the "diesel fuel" remark by the Birmingham airhead... trying to sound very knowledgeable when just 'fuel' would have done, and been correct.

 

A homeowner in the 2000 block of Tarrant Huffman Road (you can look that up on Google Maps to see its relation to the runway) reported that pieces of the plane wound up in his yard (presumably after clipping trees) and took out part of his deck.

Its fortunate that houses south of there were bought out and torn down, making for an unobstructed approach to the runway, or the situation would have been much worse.

 

More... Black Boxes recovered, one crew ID'd...

Huge investigative team on this one. Three areas; Mechanical or Crew or Cargo.



UPS cargo plane crash: Could mechanical or cargo problems be to blame?

 

Well now we know why the main runway was not used for this landing....

Crash: UPS A306 at Birmingham on Aug 14th 2013, contacted trees and touched down outside airport

I wonder if the crew was caught out and did not follow the proper approach procedures???

 

Hmm. The Captain lived less than a mile from me.

Sad story. RIP.

 

Pictures of one of the engines doesn't show a lot of turbine damage. It appears the fan wasn't turning very fast (or at all) when it hit things...

There are, of course, many plausible explanations...

It is annoying this doesn't make many headlines. The treatment of cargo aircrews is unjust in the media.

 

Since when has the media been fair or just?????

 

Was reported that engines were operating normally and had ingested very little debris.

 

Not ingesting much debris would be another explanation for little fan damage. But that seems very uncommon.

 

FRom the footage of the debris field it looks like the A320 impacted the up-slope belly first. If that is so, the engines could have been thrown off without ingesting too much dirt. The nose shows most of the damage to the underside instead of being totally destroyed from a nose first contact. Just guessing from what has been shown.

 

I read a bit ago that the debris in the engines was a small amount of dirt and a few small tree branches.

So Bob's scenario sounds correct.


They seem to be leaning toward Pilot Error.

 

A little bit more info on the crash. And they name the two pilots.

UPS pilots warned of low altitude 7 seconds before crash

UPS pilots warned of low altitude 7 seconds before crash.

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - U.S. government investigators looking into the crash of a UPS cargo plane said on Friday the pilots received a low altitude warning barely seven seconds before the sound of impact, according to data recovered from the cockpit voice recorder.

Investigators retrieved data from the cockpit and flight data recorders on Friday that could shed light on Wednesday's fiery crash in Alabama that killed the jet's pilot and co-pilot.

"I personally breathed a huge sigh of relief once I learned we had good data," said Robert Sumwalt, a senior official with the National Transportation Safety Board. "We'll know everything that was said in the cockpit."

Sumwalt said a preliminary review of the voice and data recorders showed the pilots received the first of two audible warnings before the sound of impact can be heard, indicating the United Parcel Service Inc cargo plane was descending at a hazardous rate.

A warning system in the air-traffic computers at Birminghan's airport showed no indications the plane was approaching too low, Sumwalt said.

The cockpit voice and flight recorders arrived at the NTSB's headquarters in Washington late on Thursday, hours after they were pulled from a heap of melted plastic and debris at the crash site.

Preliminary results from the agency's investigation, which is still in its early stages, have shown no evidence of engine fire, and the pilots did not issue a distress call.

The Airbus A300 jet was approaching the runway at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth airport before dawn when it clipped the trees in an adjacent residential area and crashed well short of the runway.

An air traffic controller on duty told NTSB investigators he saw a "bright spark flash" that looked like a powerline breaking, Sumwalt said. The controller saw the plane's landing lights "followed by a bright, orange flash ... and then a red glow."

The NTSB has sent investigators to Louisville, Kentucky, to study the A300's maintenance records, officials said.

UPS identified the crew members who died as 58-year-old Cerea Beal Jr., of Matthews, North Carolina, and Shanda Fanning, 37, of Lynchburg, Tennessee.

Beal, the captain, who was at the controls on Wednesday, had been with UPS since 1990, and before that he served more than six years in the U.S. Marine Corps as a helicopter operator.

The NTSB said he had about 8,600 hours total flying experience, including more than 3,200 hours in the Airbus A-300.
.

 

Heard a news blurb on the radio, quoting Sumwalt:

"PAPI was operating within 1/100th of normal".


I'm thinking about their low appoach and the hill; maybe they couldn't even see the PAPI.

Autopilot was engaged until seconds before impact, but that was said to be normal.

No abnormalities between control settings and controls (flaps, etc.).

 

I suppose that would imply that it was programmed incorrectly?

 

Or crappy reporting... it was a radio news guy.

 

sad,but maybe its time to grade the hill,would it have helped?

 

Typically, an autopilot can't be used below minumums unless its coupled for an autolanding (ILS approach). Even on a visual approach, you back it up with whatever approach is in use, and set those minimums.

 

More on the autopilot, and autothrottle... was engaged until almost impact... from Sumwalt.

By Verna Gates

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - The UPS cargo jet that crashed in Alabama this week, killing its two crew members, was flying on autopilot until seconds before impact, even after an alert that it was descending too quickly, authorities said on Saturday

"The autopilot was engaged until the last second of recorded data," said Robert Sumwalt, a senior official with the National Transportation Safety Board.

He said information retrieved by investigators from the flight data recorder aboard the United Parcel Service jet showed that its auto throttle also was engaged until moments before the fiery crash.

The Airbus A300 jet was approaching the runway at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth airport before dawn on Wednesday when it clipped the trees in an adjacent residential area and crashed into a steep embankment well short of the runway.

Sumwalt, who spoke at a media briefing near the crash site, had said on Friday that the pilots received a low altitude warning barely seven seconds before the sound of impact. He repeated that in his remarks on Saturday but did not say whether the alert had triggered any attempt by the crew members to disengage the autopilot as part of a last-ditch attempt to abort landing and re-gain altitude.

The pilots did not issue a distress call.

Sumwalt stopped short of saying there was anything unusual about a so-called "instrument approach" to the airport using autopilot.

But he said the NTSB would be looking closely into "UPS's instrument approach procedures" and how it typically went about guiding a large cargo hauler to touchdown on Birmingham-Shuttleworth's Runway 18.

That's the runway the UPS jet was approaching when it crashed and Sumwalt said the investigation would include a flight test at the airport in a UPS A300.

Kevin Hiatt, president and chief executive officer of the Flight Safety Foundation, an Alexandria, Virginia-based international watchdog group, told Reuters in an interview on Thursday that a "full instrument" landing was not highly advisable at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth.

The airport can be tricky to land at because it is nestled among hills and that is especially true of Runway 18, said Hiatt.

Hiatt, a former Delta Airlines pilot, said he had touched down on the runway many times himself.

"It is not a full instrument landing. You have to visually fly into that runway," he said. "Sometimes it takes nuance to land there. You have to realize that hill is there or you could come in too low."

The crash occurred shortly before dawn in rainy conditions as low-lying clouds hung over Birmingham.

So far, Sumwalt said there was nothing to indicate the crash was caused by engine failure or any mechanical issues.

He also said the runway lights were examined and found to have been "within one one-100th of a degree of being properly aligned" at the time of the crash.

UPS has identified the dead crew members Cerea Beal Jr., 58, of Matthews, North Carolina, and Shanda Fanning, 37, of Lynchburg, Tennessee.

As a standard part of any accident investigation, Sumwalt said the NTSB was looking into the physical and mental well being of Beal and Fanning in the 72 hours before the accident.

Beal, the captain of the downed aircraft, had about 8,600 hours total flying experience, including more than 3,200 hours in the Airbus A300, according to the NTSB.

(Refiles to add dropped word "and" in 11th paragraph)

(Additional reporting and writing by Tom Brown; Editing by Bill Trott)

.

 

I erroneously assumed that they were making a visual approach but with indications that the auto pilot and auto throttles were engaged almost until impact puts a different light on things. I'm going to be quiet and watch.