I'm seeing many reads, some downloads, but no responses yet.
Here's the nickel tour:
The CAB report says the plane cartwheeled, slid backward and upright to a stop, and burst into flames. Multiple pictures show the plane was upside down instead of upright. Ground scars say the plane's arrival at the final site was high-energy, not a sliding stop.
The CAB and ALPA agree that the plane was slightly nose-down and gradually descending in a 90-degree right bank. Consider the likelihood of that.
The ALPA report says the number four prop left scars across a railroad embankment, which is how they calculated ground speed. But the number four engine was left lying on the track, so it must have been the number three prop that left the scars. The wing was intact nearly to engine four, which means the ground cannot be touched by the number three prop in a bank steeper than 30 degrees.
The CAB and ALPA reports are wrong. That much is a slam-dunk. The errors are partly understandable and partly unconscionable.
The puzzle is in unraveling what actually did happen. This is a 54-year-old mystery. Part of the mystery is that no one even knew there was a gap in our understanding. The other part is to figure out what the crew was doing and how the plane really went down. To me it looks like an attempted belly landing that didn't work out.
Last edited by BRDuBois; 7th Dec 2015 at 00:12.