C-SAR
However, Sitting Bull statement has increased exponentially my questions!
Some examples: Where did the nose first impact occurred? How does a nose first impact tie with the debris field and the markings present on the ground? (not only from the limited pictures on the ground, but also the videos from above openly available); How did the nose eradicate the electrical poles (if it was the nose)?; How did the electrical wire ended in the tail cone?; How were the cactus cut? And many more....
You had been on the scene, so your statement concerning the poles and lines and the beginning of the debris field have a very strong handle, therefore aperently nobody saw any need to question your assesment.
Now, that you rise those questions yourself, iīm keen to add some points. There is no intention to downsize your work, you have done a hell of a job there.
In another non-english forum, which i canīt find anymore, the discussion over the lines and poles was also taking place with on scene pictures shortly after the crash. On those pictures a lot of undamaged lines (power or phone-lines) could be observed. On later pictures some of those lines had been gone. The outcome in this forum being, that there was no contact with powerlines prior to the contact with the ground and some of the lines had been downed later.
So could it be possible, that the lines wrapped around the tailsection are not from the initial impact area and have nothing to do with the downed lines prior to the impact area. Could those lines have been downed earlier, or could they have been damaged during rescue and salvage operations with heavy equipment? Those poles look like being 3 to 4 meters long? Depending on the way they are fixed to the poles those lines may hang as low as two meters in open area (though they would be higher over streets). A Heavy crane might well be too big to go underneath them.
At least one pole looks like it just has fallen near the place it had been standing before, not beeing dragged at all. And at least two poles look on the pictures as if they had been lying already some time. On one pole the lines had been stored in a manner, like companies would do it if they remove a section of cables temporarily.
The lines at the tail could be coming from downed lines after the initial impact area, as mentioned before there seem to bee a lot of lines in the area. Maybe the cause for the downed lines had been known to the authorities, therefore the area was accessible for you.
Considering the hard ground, the area you visited is probably the initial impact area, the initial contact shearing off the nosegear or collapsing it. The cactus can be cut from the wings or a engine nacelle. The main gear together with the strong wingbox gets overstresed in the impact simultaneously, which leads to the immidiate breakup of the fuselage and the detachement of the tail.
The bigger question with all scenarios is imho the absence of contact marks from the engines. Could a crash landing like described above lead to the complete detachement of the wingsection together with the wings and engines, thus not contacting the ground in the initial impact area but tumbling ahead of the airctraft until the final resting place at the end of the debris-field? Later contact-points with the ground would be wiped out by the onfollowing fuselage debris.
franzl