Jet struck runway, broke in two, probe confirms
CTV.ca News Staff
Investigators probing the deadly crash of a Boeing 747 cargo jet at Halifax International Airport are refusing to speculate on what may have caused the plane's tail to scrape the runway before breaking off.
Speaking at a news conference in Halifax on Friday morning, Transportation Safety Board of Canada investigator Bill Fowler said, based on his initial survey of the crash site, it appears the jet's tail struck the ground twice, before tearing loose on contact with an earthen berm 300 metres beyond the end of the runway.
"There is an indication that the aircraft was slightly airborne, in other words; the scrape trail disappears just a few hundred feet before the berm." At the antenna-topped mound, the plane broke in two, he said.
With its tail torn off, the rest of the fuselage flew into the bush, cutting a kilometre-long swath before coming to a stop.
"It was like it was almost dragging -- the behind was dragging," eyewitness Darren McLaughlin told ATV News, an affiliate of CTV. He said the plane just seemed to blow up, "from white sky to an orange sky."
Pressed by reporters to suggest what could have caused such a crash, Fowler would only say there are a number of scenarios that demand attention.
"From the aircraft loading to the aircraft performance -- whether all the engines were operating -- we're just going to go through, systematically, each of the elements that could produce a scenario such as this and we'll go where the data and analysis leads us."
In an interview with The Canadian Press on Thursday, a pilot familiar with large planes said their tails do occasionally touch tarmac when the pilot pulls the nose off the ground.
Known as 'rotation', it's so common many large planes have protection built-in to the tail, and pilots can typically recover.
"It doesn't happen that often,'' said the pilot, who didn't want his name used. "You can encounter turbulence right at rotation.''
A MK spokesperson told CP the aircraft was in the process of rotating when it crashed.
Headed from Connecticut to Spain with a load of tractors and parts, computer gear and more than 50,000 kilograms of fish, the Boeing 747-200 had just refuelled when it crashed before 4 a.m. local time on Thursday. All seven crew were killed.
The dead are described as male nationals of the U.K., Germany and Zimbabwe who lived in South Africa and Zimbabwe.
MK Airlines, the company that owns the crashed aircraft, is a Ghana based, British-owned cargo firm that has been involved in three other crashes since 1992.
All were in Nigeria -- all during final approach to landing. Two involved DC-8 aircraft, and resulted in no fatalities. The most recent, involving a 747 in 2001, killed one crew member.
Vouching for the experience of the crew flying the plane out of Halifax on Thursday, MK Airlines operations manager Capt. John Power said the 747 crews "generally have a high level of experience."
"None of the crew members flying the plane were involved in any of the previous accidents," he said.
"I personally have flown with the senior captain on board that aircraft for 14 years, and as far as the other crew members are concerned, they have all had previous flying experience on DC-8 aircraft."
With investigators from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Ghana in Halifax for the accident probe, former aviation accident investigator Tom Hinton says it takes time to coordinate the effort.
Individual committees will investigate witness accounts, the airliner's electrical system and its data and voice recorders, he says, and then submit reports to be compiled into a final document.
But the investigation won't even begin until the painstaking process of documenting the entire crash site is complete.
"They have to document all of the wreckage in situ before anything is moved," Hinton told CTV's Canada AM on Friday. "Everything is photographed and documented before it's even moved."
The RCMP is treating the crash as a potential criminal investigation for now, following witness reports of explosions during the crash. But investigators said they had no reason to believe an explosion had brought down the plane.
After numerous cancellations and delays Thursday,
Halifax International Airport is now back in limited operation. HIAA spokesperson Pat Chapman says airport staff are focused on cleaning up the fuel spilled in the crash.