Great thread, and great pics,
I just now read the rest of it. Didn't know breakup was already determined to be after the machine left the overrun. The groans I used to hear on taxiout already confirmed to me at least, that this machine can't survive any off-field ops. Sorry for stating the obvious.
I greatly enjoy the mix of armchair aviators and pros still in the saddle that pprune provides.
Everyone has different experiences in Aviation. Unlike some, I like the debate and speculation that goes on after an accident. It's a little like sports or gambling. I think it goes without saying we all realize that the real causes of the mishap can only be known by those in the cockpit and maybe, by officals if gov and business politics don't influence the outcome. It is fun to speculate and guess as to the causes, since every man who leaves the ground may have to draw on the hangar flying he picked up earlier to get his arse out of a jam (or maybe not; it's just great fun playing Monday Morning Quarterback!)
But the fact is, we've already seen disgruntled mechanics post on this site that all was not well with the supplemental mtc of said charter outfit. This is nothing new. Outfits like this are just trying to survive and fly in the ominous shadow of the big monopoly airlines. So I see both sides of this.
Engine surge and "torching" (belching fire) is a common problem with the JT9D series Big Fans at max power (Surge bleed valve issues if I recall.) (Were these -70A or -F or -Q engines by any chance?) Kind of strange, because the engines look kinda like -7A's in the pics which you normally found on -100's. We had one hybrid: a World Airways bird (749) with a -200 airframe sporting -7A engines. My outfit many times launched a "sick engine" out from the maintenance base out around the world. On T/O we would just pull back the engine that was misbehaving a little (surging or overtemping) and rotate out off the end, knowing full well if it failed on the overweight takeoffs we were screwed. We would call V1 about five to seven knots early because we knew (after CAL LAX DC10), that the gov approved abort data for stopping was all bullschidt. CAL was a mtc metal grinding mistake, but still, they cut it so close that only a perfect new airplane with a test pilot could stop it. Gov approved certification was derived from a test pilot who knew it was going to fail, and who was all jacked up to make it fit the data, no matter how many times he had to repeat it. This is the reality of Big Iron sales. This machine, the 747 was originally designed by the engineers who spec'ed the tooling to have a gross weight of only 750,000 pounds at take off. (100F conv frieghtor.) The 747-249F was commissioned and launched by my airline FTL and, after jacking and jacking and adding big engines got the weight up to 820,000 T/O. It had beefed up gear and beefed up flooring paid by the gov in exchange for a program I'm probably wise not to discuss here. An amazing machine at the time in that it could carry both 250,000 pounds of fuel and 250,000 pounds of freight if the runway was long enough. We were upset, anytime the runway was not at least 10,000 ft long (sorry, you chaps may have to convert units.)
I would be interested in knowing which model went off the end in this discussion. We had quite a mixed fleet and I believe our machines went to UPS and others like the one in question.
The bottom line is that these freighters operate on the edge of what is possible at V1. Weighing pallets is not an exact science (at least it didn't used to be when I did it.) The guys that tell you that everything is by the book are not honest. A 30 year old machine picking up pallets (mis) weighed by young kids for the gov, is , many times in my experience, bound not to perform to book standards (that used a brand new runway at Edwards without rubber deposits or commercial scheduling pressures or fatigue issues.) Two seconds response time after V1 and a "FIRE" call from the tower is about right for a jet-lagged captain to get on the brakes.
This crew did a great job imho: they walked away from it. What fool would go flying after V1 if the tower is shouting that you're on fire?
Come on!
"The Captain is the ultimate and final authority as to the operation of his aircraft." Isn't that in the U.S. FAR book any more?
I rest my feeble case.