Halifax — The tail of a Boeing 747 struck the runway twice, then broke off before the loaded cargo jet crashed, killing seven people, investigators confirmed Friday.
Bill Fowler, a spokesman for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, said the tail of the wide-body plane snapped when the aircraft ran off the end of a runway at Halifax International Airport and struck an earthen berm topped by navigational equipment.
“There is an indication the aircraft was barely airborne,” Mr. Fowler said at a news conference. “The scrape trail disappears just before the berm.”
Mr. Fowler said the trail struck for the first time about 250 metres from the end of the 2,700-metre runway, then again with about 170 metres to go.
“The indication is there was prolonged contact of the aft fuselage with the runway and off the end of the runway,” he said.
About 300 metres beyond the end of the runway, the tail then struck the earthen mound topped by an antenna and snapped.
“That is what caused the tail to break away from the rest of the airplane … ,” he said. It came to rest near the berm.
The rest of the plane hurtled into thick brush, carving a wide V-shaped swath before coming to rest in pieces about a kilometre from the tail.
“The main part of the fuselage continued ... ballistically until the final impact point,” he said.
A maintenance worker at the airport suggested Thursday that the plane did not use the full length of the runway and simply ran out of room.
Mr. Fowler said investigators were looking into that but added: “We do not have any information that there was an early takeoff point, that is, substantially early.”
MK Airlines said the dead crew members were all men. Six were from Zimbabwe while the seventh was South African.
The Boeing 747-200, which was loaded with fuel for a flight to Spain, crashed shortly before 4 a.m. Halifax time near an industrial park and quarry about 30 kilometres north of Halifax.
The crash forced the airport to close for several hours, delaying or cancelling 17 flights. Power was temporarily knocked out, but flights resumed on one runway later in the morning.
Aside from the usual three-person crew in the cockpit, the plane was also carrying a loadmaster and a spare crew.
The weather at the time of the crash was good with a partly cloudy sky and light winds.
The huge aircraft, which stopped in Halifax to refuel and take on cargo, was loaded with lawn tractors, parts, computer gear and 53,000 kilograms of lobster and fish bound for Zaragoza, Spain.
Mr. Fowler said preliminary information suggests that the aircraft wasn't overloaded.
The crash was the fourth for the cargo company in 12 years and the second involving fatalities. All three previous crashes were in Nigeria.
In 2001, one crew member was killed when a 747 went down about 700 metres short of the runway.
In 1996, a McDonnell Douglas DC-8F-55 struck trees during approach. There were no fatalities.
In 1992, a McDonnell Douglas DC-8 crashed and caught fire, also during final approach.
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