Uh Oh!

That last photograph is just odd. How would that happen? I can't believe the winglet was sheared off by the drop into the sinkhole. Those wings and winglets are designed to endure and survive some pretty severe buffeting and turbulence, I'd think. Strange...

CW

 

Any chance that sinkhole has any relation to the (relatively) nearby flooding in the Mississippi River basin?

 

I agree.
The only scenario I could think of was the end of the wing slapping the ground when the wheel sunk in the sink hole.
Maybe the hard sudden impact of slapping the ground was strong enough to snap the vertical part of the winglet horizontally.

 

Is that the top part of the winglet sitting on top of the wing?

I have to agree-- I don't get the winglet damage.

 

The NTSB will now release a fact finding that it was the somebody's fault...

The people maintaing the airport should have known that the sinkhole had developed under the taxiway...

Or the pilot should have used ground penetrating radar prior to taxi to insure that the taxiway was sound....

Or????

 

The last thing we need at airports is more reasons to do cavity searches.

 

Haha!

 

You guys are all wrong. The cave in was from an over load. When the airplane was repainted they used some really old paint...it had lead in it.

 

As far as the tip winglet, didn't the Burt Rutan "around the world" plane fracture one tip about like this on a wing tip brushing the runway during takeoff? If memory is correct, they deliberately knocked the other one off with a chase plane to avoid an out of trim issue.

 

I saw something similar happen to an F-14 about 15 years ago.... If memory serves it was being towed and it only dropped about a foot so there really wasn't any visible damage to the plane.

 

Airline pilots scare the crap out of me when they taxi, way faster than we ever did in fighters. Looks like they were moving fairly quickly when they hit the hole.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

It will cost some dollars, to fix the airplane.

 

Some of them do taxi pretty fast. The oddest experience for me was a 737 flight where we started to accelerate at a decent rate for takeoff BEFORE turning around to face down the runway. Going around the corner while still accelerating was a very strange feeling. He also raced to the gate after landing and shut off the engines immediately (the plane was 4 hours late at that point...).

 

I agree. Looks like he was moving pretty fast to tear the main gear off. Of course, that hole looks pretty abrupt and deep.

 

How fast did you taxi in fighters? My limited experience taxiing behind them (mostly F-16s) it was maybe 15-20 knots at most. Yesterday I was up at Vance AFB and was surprised how fast the T-6s taxi, they really zip around, looked like they were pushing 30 knots.

 

Mark- 15-25 knots would be about right. There was considered no excuse for a taxi accident. Always better to stop and get a wing walker if anything looked close. Have done so several times.

Taz
Terry Phillips