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Afriqiyah Airbus 330 Crash

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Afriqiyah Airbus 330 Crash

Old 20th May 2010, 06:03
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Libyan Air Crash Black Boxes Go to Paris for Analysis (Update1) - BusinessWeek
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Old 20th May 2010, 06:29
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After intensive re-examination, particulary of C-SAR's pics, I believe a different scenario happened to the tail strike/high AoA scenario.

If it was a tail strike/high AoA impact, there would be two major impact gouges. One, when the tail struck, and a second one, when the fuselage hit, perhaps 150-200 metres on. I can see only one... and it is a very much wider gouge, than a tail cone would make.

I suggest the following scenario. The aircraft flew into the ground at a low AoA, and the crew never knew a thing until they hit, virtually level. The fuselage impacted at a high rate of descent, and virtually exploded on impact. The wheels were possibly still up, thus the reason for no wheel drag marks. The crew were unaware of their true height (and position), due to patches of mist, sun in their eyes, and quite possibly an incorrect/faulty altimeter reading.

The fuselage promptly shattered into many pieces as a result of 135kts forward speed, and a high vertical descent speed... as witnessed by the LARGE AMOUNT of debris, SPREAD OUT, right after the initial impact crater. The tail separated, largely intact, when the main portion of the fuselage broke up, and tumbled along behind the main debris field, coming to rest, part way along the debris field.

The wings and wing root box, being the more substantial part of the aircraft structure, continued forward, relatively intact. However, the engines hitting the ground, contributed to a major forward rotation of the wings.
Thus, we then have the engines separating shortly after impacting the ground... and at the same time, giving enough impetus to completely rotate both wing structures, resulting in them coming to rest, upside down.
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Old 20th May 2010, 07:15
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Plausible except the part with the gear again.

With gear completely retracted, the main gear strut would probably stay with the wingsection or at least not separate that early with the tail section like it happened.

So either it was fully deployed or it was in transition. In the latter case however there should be distinct marks on the wheel rims, which i cant see.

Was anybody able to locate the nosegear?

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Old 20th May 2010, 07:55
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Many thanks for the pictures.
Examination of the wings pictures leads me to suggest that
a) the right wing has flipped upside down and is the closer one in the pictures, the wingtip end towards the camera, with either the tip+aileron or part of the flaps separate a short distance away.
b) the left wing is right way up, likewise with the tip closer to the camera, and is farther away in the photographs.

Comments and corrections are welcome.

There is what looks like an airport service road going right under the wings, and it appears that there is free sight from the road visible farther away. So hopefully there will be other photos that can confirm if the above is true or false.
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Old 20th May 2010, 08:05
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The debris field does not really support the nose up tail impact scenario.
What we see:
The tail is surprisingly intact, the VTP tip is undamaged, the rudder tip is broken, the HTP is still attached. It sits upright but against the flight direction.
The wings are also quite intact, even some of the fixed trailing edge structure (light composite parts) are still attached. The wings sit upside down in the direction of the impact.

If the tail broke of first at impact, it needs to rotate around the vertical axis to reach its position, this would require a HTP tip ground contact, which would not leave the HTP perfectly in place (The HTP attachment is not at all designed to take such loads).
If the wings would tumble over after loss of tail, it would rest upside down against the impact direction.

For me this looks like a fully inverted nose down impact. Fuselage completely disintegrates, wings (being the most heavy part) slide forward and come to rest at end of debris field (inverted in direction of flight). Due to fuselage desintegration, the tail section flips over 180° and lands VTP up agains flight direction destroying most of the lower forward part but keeping the HTP attached.

Would not be the first time that an airliner impacted inverted nose down after LOC... but for an Aircraft with that many protections ???
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Old 20th May 2010, 08:07
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if the wings are resting upside down, then they must have rotated in a barrel roll the way they are positioned now... But what looks a bit like flap fairings could also just be a big crack?
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Old 20th May 2010, 08:30
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Originally Posted by volume
For me this looks like a fully inverted nose down impact. Fuselage completely disintegrates, wings (being the most heavy part) slide forward and come to rest at end of debris field (inverted in direction of flight). Due to fuselage desintegration, the tail section flips over 180° and lands VTP up agains flight direction destroying most of the lower forward part but keeping the HTP attached.

Would not be the first time that an airliner impacted inverted nose down after LOC... but for an Aircraft with that many protections ???
You won't invert an Airbus in Normal Law... As I said before, CFIT pure and simple.. Besides - all this speculation that the wings are upside down is just that.. When I look at the latest photos posted the far wing appears to have quite a camber on the top surface, therefore it would 'appear' to me that the wings are in fact the right way up and facing forwards in the direction they were going when they hit the ground trying to find the runway!!

I'm not sure who made the comment about the crew 'not being aware they were below MDA' Well, unless there was a problem with the rad alts you are always aware of where you are in relation to MDA and the ground with the 2500,1000,100 above,MINIMUM,100,50,40,30,20,10 countdown etc - believe me, you can't miss these callouts on the 'Bus!!
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Old 20th May 2010, 09:16
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Hello,
All suppositions given above (inverted, no high AOA) are not taking into account the very first impact and following trail left on the sand. Some pictures taken from the ground won't give the real feeling of depth in the debris field (wrong horizontal distances are due to optical illusions). The best footage so far is the from Dutch video:

first pict with initial impact, trail and barely no debris:


second pict, still no debris until the mosque road, the first house fairly close to the trail is left intact, ruling out low level wings:

third pict, second impact clearly visible after the mosque road:

fourth pict, debris between the second and third impact are mostly cabin content due to tail separation; a third impact due to tail separation is clearly visible:

fith pict: third impact following the tail separation clearly visible, after that the debris of the main cabin appears:

sixth pict with fire traces visibles:

7th, and finally the wings:

Last edited by takata; 20th May 2010 at 09:28.
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Old 20th May 2010, 09:22
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Um, as a humble avionics guy I have great respect for professional pilots and would never gainsay their highly informed opinions. But I have one small reservation, and that is the assumption that the clockwork was fully wound and functioning perfectly. There have been instances in the past of multiple electrical systems failure and an unplanned power-down can affect the systems in unpredictable ways. Some reports say the pilot asked for emergency assistance to be available on landing. This would indicate that he had some sort of problem with the airplane. We don't know what the problem was but it could have been another electrical failure and could have disabled instruments and annunciators. Or even caused unplanned deployment of the ? Now you can all rap my knuckles again and send me to bed without any supper.
 
Old 20th May 2010, 09:25
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Hi,
Originally Posted by mike-wsm
Some reports say the pilot asked for emergency assistance to be available on landing.
You might bother to read the thread before speculating. This never happened, communications with ATC reports no problem until crash time.
S~
Olivier
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Old 20th May 2010, 10:17
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takata, thanks again.

The several images that exist of the terrain prior to the first image that you posted above, show the poles knocked over. This feature is consistent with C-SAR's ground level photographs of the poles many pages back.

Entirely from memory and very rough calculation, is it not about 100 meters from the first pole knocked down to the first impact point that you marked in the photos above?
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Old 20th May 2010, 10:47
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For me this looks like a fully inverted nose down impact. Fuselage completely disintegrates, wings (being the most heavy part) slide forward and come to rest at end of debris field (inverted in direction of flight). Due to fuselage desintegration, the tail section flips over 180° and lands VTP up agains flight direction destroying most of the lower forward part but keeping the HTP attached.

Again, and how would the main gear strut come off that early in the szenario above? It is designed to withstand heavy loads. The strut located in the vicinity of the tailsection http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/4...ml#post5699903 is not only seperated from the structure, the lower crossbone supporting the four wheels is separated as well and shows in onother picture bent and brokenhttp://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/4...ml#post5701898 . That kind of damage is most probably asociated with excessive loads on the whole wheel assembly while still attached to the aircraft. The inverted impact does not fit for this kind of damage.

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Old 20th May 2010, 11:11
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Thanks guys,I hope this is worth your efforts in explaining how to embed photo!

A composite I have constructed from information about debris scatter using Google Maps

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Old 20th May 2010, 11:35
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Besides - all this speculation that the wings are upside down is just that..
Two of the pictures posted here earlier (don´t find them at the moment) show the rear spar of the right wing with the side stay still attached to its fitting, at the upper end of of the spar. At least the right wing for sure is upside down.
if the wings are resting upside down, then they must have rotated in a barrel roll
If they would have done a barrel roll after initial impact, they would look far more desintegrated.
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Old 20th May 2010, 12:36
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Wing Images

To help in the discussion about the orientation of the wings, may I be so bold as to note that Nickdj in post #350 has put together a montage from video still frames showing the wings in their final resting place.
The image is not directly visible - you need to click on the link.
As another of the mere SLF lurking around in the background of this forum, I would not attempt to make a judgment from these images, but one with more knowledge of the Airbus wing structure may be able to comment.
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Old 20th May 2010, 13:02
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Once the wing separated from the fuselage, why would you not expect it to tumble about an axis from tip-to-tip? The leading edge of the center section could dig into the sand causing it to flip over or tumble forward.
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Old 20th May 2010, 13:16
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Engine to the WEST of the tail

Not sure if this has been discussed, but I just went back through all the pictures that have been posted and one thing I realized is that at least one engine separated before the tail of the aircraft broke off.

Look at the last pic in post #256 - you will see the tail facing the engine, and as we know the tail is reversed with respect to the direction of flight. So the engine is some distance West of the tail cone and tail itself. If you look at the pic in post #267 I would estimate that the engine must be about the same distance away from the tail cone, as the tail cone is from the tail itself.

So one of the first pieces off the aircraft was at least one of the engines. Where is the second one???

- GY
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Old 20th May 2010, 14:17
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Taking SmilinEd and his post into account, I see the left wing closest to the viewer, the right wing on the "other side" of the road, both right side up and both carrying some portion of the wing box at their root, with a substantial part of the center section a bit short of the wings. What I thought was a canoe I think instead is a tear in the wing as it flopped onto the ground. I also make out the left engine pylon protruding through the top of the left wing. They did not slide much, if at all; I believe they were airborne and are as SmilinEd says, the last of the wreckage due to integrity and mass of their structure. One theory is that either the main gear or tail hit first, bringing the nose down heavily, "pitch-poling" the fuselage over the nose. Some other poster proposed the fuel (that which was left) atomized and disappeared in a fireball congruent with its mass.

Noticed in the photograph is a spanwise and virtually uninterrupted separation of the leading edges. Testimony to the amazing strength of the structure, but sadly, also to the amount of energy borne in so heavy a mass in a tragic collision with the ground.
The survivor is a young man with angels surrounding him, it stretches the reason to know that a living being survived that chaotic end.

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Old 20th May 2010, 14:20
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Two points of interest:

(a) I dont think the pilot had visual with the runway because he would have easily tucked into 09 after reaching his MDA at about 1 NM threshold (MAP is 0.6 NM threshold), even though he was slightly offset (4 degrees as reported). Plenty of time to select landing flaps and touch down had he seen the runway.
b) The impact point was approx. 500 metres from the threshold; he would have reached the impact point approx 20 secs seconds after his MAP of 0.6 NM , the position of the marker. ie, the photo above (post #748) tallies with a missed approach executed at the correct point (Delta locator, at 360 ft AGL MDA)) but something catastrophic happened.
Look at high ROD due to calm conditions and also possibly turbine blade stall if manual GA.
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Old 20th May 2010, 14:37
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wings

Yoe have to be carefull in using the present position of the wingparts as being the final resting position after the crash.

As you can see at around 45 seconds in this clip, the parts have been moved by a crane shortly after the accident. AD Vliegramp Tripoli - 'Piloot meldde geen technische problemen' (483435)

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