Atlas Air 767 down/Texas

[fdr]

Small package freight debris is going to be dispersed rapidly by wind and current, and a full analysis of their location and time since event would be needed to work out whether they have been liberated in flight. The B767 has had only two in flight events with a rapid descent to impact; Lauda 004 and Egypt Air 990. Lauda was from a structural failure resulting from uncommanded TR deployment on the LH PW4060 engine, resulting in overload of the vertical stab, and a torsional failure of the tail and a rapid overload in negative g of the wings. Egypt Air was.... disconcerting and remains disputed along national lines. The event timeline however is compelling and similar events have occurred far too often in the industry. The B767 has had it's fair share of AD's on the stabiliser and the attachment structure going back more than 20 years. The CF6 engine on the 76 has had it's fair share of uncontained failures. Gust front related overload is raised due to the existing weather that was being avoided/penetrated, but would not by itself have led to an overload of the system, and 18 years after AA587 the industry is more aware of the impact of rudder doublets. The debris trail of large components will be telling.

R.I.P.

[EternalNY1]

Absolutely no comms, not even a "mayday", so it seems something happened fast and/or they had their hands full.

Wondering about a possible mid-air but it's all speculation at this point.

[ironbutt57]

Originally Posted by EternalNY1

Absolutely no comms, not even a "mayday", so it seems something happened fast and/or they had their hands full.

Wondering about a possible mid-air but it's all speculation at this point.

sudden sharp dive could indeed indicate some occurrence with the horizontal stab/elevators, or even a crewmember falling onto the controls.

[SliabhLuachra]

Forgive me, but am I hearing things at 2:33 here? Is there somebody shouting ''pull''?

You Tube

[patrickal]

Originally Posted by B2N2

.....
4.It appears something sudden occurred that prevented even a Mayday call.

As opposed to the ridiculous supposition of a possible suicide, a more likely possibility would be a multiple bird-strike through the windscreen. But this is all guessing way ahead of the curve. What we do know for sure is that several families suffered an unimaginable loss today, and they need our thoughts and prayers more than anything else right now.

[Machinbird]

Anyone have an idea what was in the cargo?
Atlas advertises that they can handle outsize cargo. Was it just Amazon cargo or a commercial mix?

[peterarmitage]

Bird strike

if you saw the large numbers, and sizes, of the pelicans that show up in front of my home on Lake Houston, you would easily imagine a bird or two strike on the screen by a couple of those things could incapacitate both front seat occupants.

[scallop]

Originally Posted by Toruk Macto

Is it too high for a drone ?

Technically, no. But unlikely for several reasons.

1. Vast majority of consumer drones technically capable of that altitude are factory geofenced to 400 ft AGL with some effort required to “jail break.”
2. Vast majority of consumer drones are 2-3 lbs, compared to an eagle weighing 6-14. Guaranteed to cause damage, but fairly unlikely to cause catastrophic damage.
3. Most people would not fly a drone around a line of storms, since most of them aren’t rain proof.
4. Bigger drones are more expensive and more likely owned and operated by licensed pros who could and would likely get a waiver, COA or 333 if they needed to be in that spot, meaning ATC would be in the loop and routing folks around them.

So it’s not impossible for a drone to be up there, but it’s unlikely. And it’s very unlikely for one big enough to cause catastrophic damage to be up there.

[tdracer]

Originally Posted by Machinbird

Anyone have an idea what was in the cargo?
Atlas advertises that they can handle outsize cargo. Was it just Amazon cargo or a commercial mix?

Amazon primarily uses their freighters to move relatively large shipments between their distribution centers, then sends the stuff out from their distribution centers via local services do the deliveries.
Amazon sells a lot of personal electronics (think Li batteries) hence my initial thought of maybe a cargo fire - but as I noted that's not likely given how suddenly what ever happened must have happened.

[ironbutt57]

Originally Posted by Capvermell

Perhaps the workload during the descent for landing and the intermediate altitude presented the greatest likelihood of non recovery of the dive (by the other pilot) while still being high enough to ensure total destruction of the aircraft on impact.

Its either that or alternatively some never before seen sudden and catastrophic structural failure in an elderly and probably high number of cycles aircraft. Probably the change in pressure from 10,000m to 5,000m was exactly the point at which a failure induced by the change in cabin pressure might take place?

cabin pressure would have been reduced to very little at this stage of the flight..who's to know..everybody only guessing at this point, and there is no "sudden change" normally in the pressurization of the aircraft, the system brings it down at nice comfortable 350-500 feet per minute...wait and see...hope it had a new enough DFDR to give good information...

[wjcandee]

Originally Posted by Raffles S.A.

FAA has it listed as registered to Andromeda Leasing LLC

That's an aircraft leasing subsidiary of Atlas. Amazon Air dry-leases the aircraft from an Atlas subsidiary and hires Atlas pursuant to a CMI (crew, maintenance, insurance) agreement to fly, insure and maintain it.

[wjcandee]

Originally Posted by tdracer

Amazon primarily uses their freighters to move relatively large shipments between their distribution centers, then sends the stuff out from their distribution centers via local services do the deliveries.
Amazon sells a lot of personal electronics (think Li batteries) hence my initial thought of maybe a cargo fire - but as I noted that's not likely given how suddenly what ever happened must have happened.

Actually, it works this way: (1) customer places order; (2) algorithm determines which DC(s) are going to contribute product to the order, based on a number of factors; (3) box containing material for a specific customer is prepared at each necessary DC; (4) an algorithm determines, for that day, what the best way to send it to that specific customer is (organic Amazon, FedEx, UPS, Ontract, Lasership, etc.); (5) package leaves DC. If it's going to be riding Amazon Air, it goes to the departure airport, where it is built into a mil-style pallet with a cargo net over it (if the flight is not going through CVG) or put into a can (if the flight is going through CVG, where the cans will be unloaded, the packages sorted, and the packages placed in cans for the flight to the destination airport); this may have changed by now as Amazon cans proliferate. The cans or pallets are loaded on the aircraft. At the destination airport, the packages are trucked to an Amazon "sort center" (formerly called an Amazon "postal sort center", PSC), such as Avenel, NJ. There, the air shipments are run through the center along with ground shipments that have been truck line-hauled by Amazon contractors from closer DCs than this package's DC was. The packages are sorted at the SC for last-mile delivery either by the USPS (biggest provider of last-mile for Amazon-organically-line-hauled packages), by a local carrier like Lasership/Ontrack, or more recently by Amazon-hired local delivery contractors or even by AmazonFresh when those trucks are first moving into an area. If it's going to USPS, Amazon-contracted delivery takes it to the injection point, which is usually the DDU (Destination Delivery Unit, meaning the local post office), and the local mailman takes it from there. The USPS doesn't usually touch it until it is dropped by Amazon at the DDU, although in some places with lighter volume it might get injected at the three-digit-zip destination regional center, called the SCF (sectional center facility), with USPS handling it from there.

So what goes on the planes is thousands of to-the-consumer Amazon packages for which Amazon Air is just one of several potential shipment options. At the other end, they get delivered by USPS or Amazon-contracted delivery.

If I didn't say it earlier, it's Amazon's dry-leased plane. Nobody but Amazon gets to put anything on it. Atlas doesn't get to use it for anything other than Amazon Air flights without express permission from Amazon, which as a practical matter they're not going to receive.

If it's going to go by UPS or FedEx, those guys put it into their own network near the origin DC and keep it on their network all the way until they hand it to the consumer (except to the extent Amazon ever uses FedEx SmartPost (a horrible service that I think they avoid) or UPS Surepost (which is a better service that plans for the package to be delivered by UPS to the local destination post office for last mile, adding a day, but which often ends up with the package staying on the UPS network all the way to the consumer if they're going to be delivering nearby that day).

[wjcandee]

Originally Posted by SliabhLuachra

Forgive me, but am I hearing things at 2:33 here? Is there somebody shouting ''pull''?

Sorry but I don't hear it even with the headphones turned up to 11.

[FIRESYSOK]

Originally Posted by wjcandee

Sorry but I don't hear it even with the headphones turned up to 11.

Hard to say. At that “okay” transmission there is definitely something. Perhaps a “whoa” or “oh”; perhaps nothing but an artifact on the file- bleed through, etc.- that coincides.

[visibility3miles]

30,000 fpm is 341 mph

[wheels_down]

Can faintly hear something in the background. Pull or oooo sound....something was up.

[log0008]

I can't here anything other than 'ok' however that ok too seems to be in a different tone compared to the other transmissions, very rapid response.

I've had a listen to the original Liveatc audio and can't hear it there either, however this transmission was less than 60 seconds prior to the first "Giant 3591 Houston Approach?"
At 8.35 on the audio file is the ok message, the atc request is at 9.25, the first ELT request at 10.05. Would interesting to know if the first "Giant 3591 Houston Approach?" was because the control had lost the aircraft on radar or because he noticed it was in a dive/descending below assigned alt.
http://archive-server.liveatc.net/ki...2019-1830Z.mp3

[extreme P]

Originally Posted by patrickal

As opposed to the ridiculous supposition of a possible suicide, a more likely possibility would be a multiple bird-strike through the windscreen. But this is all guessing way ahead of the curve. What we do know for sure is that several families suffered an unimaginable loss today, and they need our thoughts and prayers more than anything else right now.

Has a Boeing windscreen ever been penetrated by a bird?

[wjcandee]

Originally Posted by log0008

Running of the FR24 track the aircraft's final left turn doesn't seem to follow the standard approach, which aircraft immediately following it did.

Your altitude graph was interesting. Those blips upward are most likely a function of an FR24 / Flightaware characteristic where the data set records the assigned altitude for a return or two before returning to the reported altitude. Most likely the path is smooth along that plot until the last moments where it falls off a cliff.

[FIRESYSOK]

The accident site seems to be near the RDFSH waypoint which would be flown to in the event of runway 27 transition, however they were given the runway 26L transition by ATC at some point which should have been a more northerly track toward GARRR waypoint.

An altitude constraint of 6000’ would coincide with the RDFSH (RWY27) ‘transition’ at 210 knots published speed. I’d be curious to see a map-position/speed/altitude plot for the last part of the flight. Things could have gotten a little discomposed if the plane flew something unanticipated. The turn could have also been a vector I didn’t hear on the tape, etc., etc.

Godspeed, men. Terrible day indeed.