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Old 21st May 2010, 18:29
  #785 (permalink)  
bearfoil
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C-SAR

An easy guess would be the pilot thought he was lined up, had a distraction when looking into the rising Sun, add in the mist of Dawn, and just when he "found" the runway he had been tracking, it was an insignificant road with a line of lights that mimicked approach lights.Instead of having the 1000 feet of altitude his brain told him (by deducting a 40 foot width of road that looked like a 175 foot wide runway means we're at.....1000 feet...... instead he was at 40 feet, sinking and engines low.

A friend a long time ago had a similar event. On his third approach to 19R he saw the approach lights and chopped his throttle expecting to see asphalt any second. It was night, and he landed on the roof of a MACY'S Department Store. Only eight people died. He had flown several hundred traps in Corsairs, a distinguished civil pilot with 30000 hours. The "Approach lights" were parking lamp standards at the Mall 1000 meters right of the threshold. RIP Jim.

As for the debris and trajectory, by now it seems fairly well thought out. Tail left early followed by a belly plant at the vicinity of the Main Gear. The wing box, wings, and fuselage bounced high, but the nose was heading low from the loss of the tail, so it planted nose first and the fuse pole vaulted over the forward body which was wheelbarrowing into the rock and gravel. The wings, together still though broken at the rear box, launched another several hundred meters and flopped down in near normal orientation, separating from the wing box which had fallen off just before the two wings came to rest. In this debris Hell, there lived a ten year old Dutch boy, who was no doubt in shock that he was alive.