Well if you follow the Avient thread at the Freight Dogs forum you would know about the allegations of millions of dollars owing to airport and fuel companies and how they did a runner from Vatry.

4 onboard were ex-Gemini.

Three of them did not survive.

Fogrunner, check in please...

terrible news
 

I knew 2 of the 3 who passed quite well and flew with them often. They were fine aviators and gentlemen too. Same has been said about the third fellow who passed. I also know the survivor and hope and pray he makes a recovery. He is also a highly experienced MD11 Captain.

Just to dispel any confusion, these pilots were Americans (irrelevant but just for the record), and they were all competent and VERY highly experienced, especially on the MD-11. There were NO amateurs in this bunch, and they were NOT some marginally trained troop of glassy-eyed semi-illiterates flying some decrepit African airplane as some would imagine or suggest. All that seems to be African about that operation is the registration, curious as that is.

The lousy airline business with non-existent opportunity in the USA compelled these pilots after airline failures and furloughs to go overseas to earn a pay check in order to feed their families, even if it meant flying for a company "based" in Zimbabwe.

God rest your souls my friends

The NTSB is sending investigators to China, so that should settle questions about what kind of investigation we´re going to get:

U.S. to Probe China Cargo Plane Crash - WSJ.com

Xinhua: .........[A] 61-year-old American man was seriously injured with bone fractures in the chest and lung as well as pneumothorax. "If there is no complication, he is expected to be out of danger within 48 to 72 hours," said Sun Wanju, deputy head of the hospital.

The other three injured men were from Indonesia, Belgium and Zimbabwe. They had bone fractures and contusions, according to the hospital.

Hi all

I dont know if you've seen these pictures but on sky news they have some pictures (at the bottom of the article) from the far end of the extended centre line and you can clearly see how the a/c took out the localiser antennas and also the tyre tracks through the mud and the long grass before its final resting place:

Three Americans Die In Plane Crash In Shanghai On Board Zimbabwe Plane, According To US Embassy | World News | Sky News



HFS:ok:

dc10fr8k9

"There were NO amateurs in this bunch, and they were NOT some marginally trained troop of glassy-eyed semi-illiterates flying some decrepit African airplane as some would imagine or suggest."

So what you're implying most African operations are staffed with "semi-illiterates"?

These guys might have been experienced and on top of their game but the thing still crashed.

So what if people are simple? If aviation, was kept simple it would be a lot safer than it is now IMHO. We are getting too far away from the basics, for my liking. Instead of becoming simpler, aviation is becoming "complicated" to the detriment of the basics. There is a lot of time that should be spent on the basics, that is taken up with covering ones backside with paperwork, to keep the authorities happy. We are supposed to have less paperwork not more. I think this problem is going to get worse. We are gradually being driven into the "ground" with it all.

We have aircraft coming out now, in lower weight classes than heavies with new avionic fits, that require a totally separate type rating for the almost the same airframe. Is it getting simpler, therefore safer? I dont think so.

I am not saying it was the case in this tragedy as no one yet knows the cause. Human error may have played a part.

Reported to be a long runway, and a tailstrike with an experienced crew. What would happen if freight shifted on rotation, obviously after V1?

FMC Entry...
 

Sounds like the zero fuel weight may have been entered into the Gross Weight line and the FMC generated a low V speed set. Numerous accidents/incidents have been the result of this. Sad but true.

The 2 last comments are very true. Possible causes:
- incorrect ZFW entry. It`s a killer.
This has for consequences:
- strongly incorrect TO speeds. Incorrect flaps setting. Inadapted TO power.

What about a badly balanced/loaded plane as well?

Crew fatigue? ( including loadmaster ) Could be the root cause of all above.

Sadly another african-registered aircraft...How well are checked the flight operations there in Zimbabwe? Same standards as in UK or Germany for instance?

I wish a speedy recovery to the survivors. Good men trying to earn an honest wage. I know one of them.

As for Avient, I hope it goes under and Andrew Smith gets held liable, culpable and whatever else can be thrown at him. And the same should go for the corrupt British politicians on his "payroll" that have allowed this company to deal in arms and African blood for so long unchecked.

I am from Africa and flown around there most of my life. I have seen the direct results of the "business" that this illegal UK company engages in. The dead bodies and maimed children from the weapons Mr. Smith so happily supplied while the UK looked the other way.

It is no coincidence that one of Africa's richest countries has the highest body count of any war since WWII. All assisted by vultures like Mr. Smith.

Its a pity others should lose their lives, while Mr. Smith lives on with his ill gotten gains.

Very good, condolences masking an attack and political points all in one post! You left out global warming and Tibetan independence!

Hear Hear!

Perhaps time the gentleman starts providing pertinent undiabolic answers and his silent partners and backers exposed.

In this lies the root of his flying on a Zimbwean AOC of convenience, allowed by a regime that despises anything British and every "white man", with a type that the Zim CAA are not qualidied and approved to regulate.

Think people, it cant be too dificult to figure out!

Doubleu-Anker,

How ironic that you suggest that I am doing exactly the kind of thing I am admonishing others not to do in this (or any such instance)! No indeed Anker, I am not implying that. I am implying that others ought not to make such an assumption, as many probably may!

Having said that, African registered aircraft just like the MD-11 itself, have about the highest rate of crashing statistically. So being in an African registered aircraft that is also an MD-11, the odds definitely go up astronomically, despite the new paint job and the seasoned crew. But not something I would not have risked after being out of work for a year myself, as my resume was also in that pile. Though I was not current on the MD11 anymore and so that (fortunately for me in retrospect) put me out of the running.

In any case, it's too bad that America is in such decline that Americans have to go to work for a Zimbabwean company of all things (or any overseas company for that matter) in order to pay the bills back home. Once upon a time our ancestors emigrated to America to seek work and purpose, and now many of us have had to leave to do the same. We are a country in decline with a leader who bows too deeply to foreign princes and potentates, but I digress. Sad what has become of us, and of our glorious industry, where the likes of Juan Trippe are surely spinning in their graves.

Half of my old colleagues from the airline that we worked for (which went Chapter 7 in 2008), had to go overseas (me included) to find work. A few are flying multi-million dollar heavy MD-11's registered in the USA, for less $ than what an average waiter makes, just in order to "stay in the game". Many are still out of work. And now a few are dead.

In any case, all I wanted to do was to pre-empt the idle speculation of some of the inevitable self appointed experts and "top guns" that usually come out of the woodwork when a tragedy like this happens. All I wanted to say, whatever the result of the crash, that these were great guys, and great aviators. And, "there but for the grace of God" go the rest of us.

Almost no maintenance, and not allowed to write in the techlog!
No flight time limitations!
Loadmasters stay onboard for days, I flew with one who was staying onboard for four days!
No regulatory oversight.

No surprise.

What's even sadder is that all those accidents/incidents still haven't resulted in worldwide acceptance of an FMS update that simply blocks the Gross Weight entry field while the airplane is on the ground. Such an FMS update does exist - as an expensive option. Typical example of an ergonomic design flaw that has cost far too many lives.

xetroV
You are correct in saying one way to fix the problem of putting the zfw into the gw field in the fmc is simply to block any data entry whilst on the ground, but why is it an expensive option?
My company did just that shortly after a tailscrape incident a few years back, anyway the cost of having that mod done to the fmc software has got to be a hell of a lot cheaper then repairing an a/c or worse still losing one.

just wondering, knowing the "background" of this operation: what kind of cargo where they supposed to deliver ?

Some things are left un-asked. You certainly would not imagine anything "questionable" coming out of China. eh?:}

I was fortunate in that my senority kept me away from cargoliners except for a two month period where I flew them just to see what it was like and because the schedule was fitting for other plans I had. But.....I treated every take-off as a max gross takeoff no matter what and even then added ten extra knots to everything. Now, this wasn't in an MD-11 [it was a DC-8F], but I'm sure the same thing could be done. My comment is just because there have been a few accidents where an extra ten knots of airspeed would have saved the day. But, we'll have to wait for the final report to see what all the numbers were; runway, GW, etc. Hindsight is so easy.:bored:

"But.....I treated every take-off as a max gross takeoff no matter what and even then added ten extra knots to everything."

Does that include V1 on a balanced field?...

Unbelievable really, the sheer number of MD-11's lost recently.

Incorrect entry of weights into the FMS is certainly plausible in this accident scenario, it wouldn't be the first time. Whether that was caused by finger trouble, or a gross load sheet error overlooked by all concerned remains to be seen.

Installation of the W&B system on that aircraft might have given the crew a heads up (transducers on all gears, transmits a relatively accurate computed weight and CG to the FMS, advisory info only). Very expensive option though, not many MD's have it, certainly this aircraft did not.

One other thing that came to mind, a failure of the center engine at V1, or worse, as the aircraft was rotated at Vr, would cause an enormous pitch up. Tried it many times in the sim, it's a nasty beast to handle successfully, even for highly experienced crews, and even when you know it's coming. Requires an aggressive and sustained push on the stick, something most of us are understandably reluctant to do close to the ground.

I'd be interested to know any further info about this flight.

Was it an ad-hoc charter?
What was the flightplans for the aircraft to and from China? (Origins, destinations etc)
Cargo information...commodity, payload etc
Who was the aircraft flying for/booked by?

Ad hoc? Probably...So what?

CFP? PVG-FRU, do read the thread. From FRU? Don't know. Is it relevant to the accident?

Payload. Prob max. Is it relevant to TOW?

Who did it fly for? Who booked it? Does it matter? Could have been an ACMI for a big carrier, could have been a charter. Is it relevant to the crash? Its high-season, Christmas flying has started.

:ugh:

A conspiracy theory... didn't take long :ugh:

:rolleyes:

Those who are involved in -F ops know that the likes of FRU, TAS, GYD amongst others are used as FUEL stops. MZFW PVG-Europe ain't gonna work non-stop.

Good grief, I suppose this is Bush's fault too.

An impressive display of geo-political knowledge, but not really sure if it's relevant.

Pudong west-bound freight normally consists of cell-phones, laptops, name-brand golf clubs, and other items of Chinese manufacture, suitably pseudo-labelled after arrival at destination, thence considered to be of high value by Euro citizens of means and wealth. Marketing geniuses take note.

Central Russian airports, although by no means up to Euro standards, do offer long runways served by precision approaches, very nice hotels full of pretty, healthy and enthusiastic blondes, a refreshing frontier experience by anyone's standards, the layover considered to be quite exciting even by the itinerant freighter pilot's mostly questionable, and very exacting, wisely perceptive of requirements.

The Chinese are highly responsible in most things they do, the ancestors watch with a careful eye apparently; I suspect this accident will reveal a very ordinary technical failure of the aircraft, exacerbated, beyond normal standards of control, by the idiosyncratic nature of the MD-11.


I remain convinced, after more than 6000 hours, that she is a good ship. Effective training is the key to survival here.

tsme -
V1 was based on actual weight. Not much choice there. But.....that is another problem area...V1. Actual runway length isn't always considered in the V1 calculation. You might have loss of power on an engine past V1 and have 10,000 feet of concrete in front of you. Are you going to continue? Book says yes, but I say no. Again.....it's a judgment call. But...we digress.

I don't know Boeing's current FMC software pricelist, but I do know that this software fix has been offered by Boeing for quite some years already as a operator-selectable option. I.e, implementing this fix cost money. Not surprisingly, the beancutters in my company initially didn't see the importance of this option, and consequently we flew for years accepting a totally avoidable risk of gross crew input errors during the pre-flight performance calculations.

I agree, and luckily my company nowadays thinks likewise. But similarly to your company, it took at least one "interesting" incident before the risk was fully acknowledged. This problem could have been fixed years ago. In my opinion, allowing a grossweight input on the ground (not in some obscure maintenance page, but in the PERF INIT page) is a serious ergonomic design error, and the fix should be mandated by Boeing, rather than offered as a payable option. (Perhaps this is also applicable to the Airbus FMS, but I don't know that equipment. But the problem certainly exists/existed in the Boeing and MD-11 FMSs.)


Of course, it remains to be seen if this scenario happened here. On first sight there seem to be similarities with other performance-related takeoff incidents and accidents, but it could very well be something totally different that caused this crash.

I found only two - Narita and this one. Is Centurion at Montevideo confirmed to be a write off? It didn't seem so badly damaged.

The crash site was a few metres from the vor at the end of runway 35R, only thing left of the aircraft was the tail section. Didn't look like it got airborne, I have aerial footage of the crash area but I am unable to upload it to this site.

:ugh::ugh::ugh: The relevance of that irrelevancy to this accident is..... ?

I give up. Must be full moon.

Yeah the pictures don't make alot of sense. Wheel tracks leading off the runway, a flat field, then a massive fire/explosion that totally consumes most of the wreckage. Why? Why not wreckage similar to the Kalitta 747?

Has anyone heard from Fogrunner yet?

Does anyone know if this was the first flight after paint job? (you know where I'm going here).

Personal crib for T.O. V speeds....Use estimated T.O. weights and jot down/turn the cards to V2 (only T.O. V speed directly connected to weight). If finals are much different...something wrong.

Not a criticism...an observation.

Apparently not, the plane was sighted in HKG a couple of days before the crash with the new paint job according to a mechanic I ran into this weekend.

Still, I had similar thoughts after seeing this picture on Huck's post with the cockpit windows possibly masked for the paint job:

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/3...ml#post5344440

Has anyone heard from Fogrunner yet?

Yes, he's ok.

oh please... and I guess LH, UPS, and FedEx are doing similar work with their flights from PVG to the former central russian states and onward to europe... I agree with bugg smasher...

The FMS software is from the U.S. company Honeywell and is programmed in Phoenix, U.S.A.

They are responsible for the software and prices.

The guys making the software for Airbus and Boeing/MD11 are sitting on the same floor in rooms next to each other.

Who are the bad guys again ?

I knew someone would bring that up. :ok:

An operation run by (ex) mercenary registering it's plane in Zimbabwe (now that's original at least :) ). Flight from China to Kyrgyzstan... Not exactly routine Fedex / DHL in my book.
The actual cargo was perhaps irrelevant to this accident but I would bet a fair amount of money that is was not only consumer electronic & clothing...