Flaps stopped at position 2 due to low hydraulic pressure.

As flameout = no fuel and this aircraft is just under half way to its destination, I must mention the obvious 2.204622 lb = 1 kg.
Well I hope not (again !!) but I would add it to the list of possibles.

Some French medias are mentionning a probable overweight take off. Any mention of that in the other medias?

I second your thought Backoffice.

If this plane ran out of fuel one third of the way to its destination, then there is stong possibility of some kind of conversion error regarding refuelling. Litres versus pounds versus kilograms, as was the case with "The Gimli Glider", the Air Canada 767 that ran out of fuel en route from Montreal to Edmonton in 1983.

See this link for details.

Another jet (DHL) was fuelled at the same port of departure around the same time. Analysis of the fuel, at the departure point, and on the DHL aircraft show no contamination.

Officials have already stated that sufficient fuel was onboard the aircraft on departure, and the fuel did not have any containment.

Its early days, it will take some time to get to the bottom of this.

Can we move on from "running out of fuel" or "bad fuel".

Are those the guys that had their ADF's tuned up for the football match instead of navigating and got lost?

this statement is not true and the official accident report can confirm it.

Sgt Pepper's correct. The basic error was having set the course to 270 instead of 027. The glide down, with some flap (don't recall how much) was at 170 knots and 1,000fpm and they hit the trees in the flare at 130knots and 800fpm.

Thanks for the information. At least there is a high likelyhood of the French getting involved and publishing the final report on their website instead of the usual never hearing about it again that usually happens with crashes in this area of the world. Where did you find the official accident report for that Brazilian 737 crash? Not expecting a link.

The French are involved.

link

Sgt Pepper, tks for the reminder.

Punkalouver

The jungle landing aircraft was a Varig 737-241, reg PP-VMK, and in fact there is a link to the accident report in aviation-safety, but in Portuguese:

http://aviation-safety.net/database/...?id=19890903-0

I was around when it happened as, I imagine, Sgt Pepper was, and dismayed at how the holes in the proverbial cheese just seemed to align themselves conveniently to turn a relatively minor cockup into a major calamity.

Sorry for taking things off thread. Back to Venezuela and it may be instructive to learn how much time they had to think things through after it all went quiet. If they were aiming for a strip and had the altitude, what massive bad luck.

Looking at Aviation Safety Network the DC9/MD80 series have had three previous accidents involving loss of power to both engines...[list=1][*]1977 - DC9 - "entered severe thunderstorms between FL170 and FL140 over Rome, GA. Both engines failed and couldn't be restarted."[*]1985 - DC9 - "Just after lift-off, the DC-9 rolled left and both no. 1 and 2 engine compressors stalled."[*]1991 - MD81 - "the aircraft took off with clear ice on the wings. In connection with lift-off, the clear ice loosened and was ingested by the engines. The ice caused damage to the engine fan stages, which led to engine surges. The surges destroyed the engines. The plane then struck sloping ground tail-first and slid along the ground for 110m. The fuselage was broken into three pieces, but there was no fire. Crashed with approximatly 4000 kg of fuel onboard."[/list=1]

Other icing accidents involving DC9's
[list=1][*]DC9 - 1968 - "Flight 982 took off from runway 35 and, upon gear retraction, rolled violently 90 to the right. The roll was counteracted, but the left wing struck the runway. The DC-9 crashed and came to rest in a grove of trees, 1181 feet past the runway end.
PROBABLE CAUSE: "A stall near the upper limits of ground effect, with subsequent loss of control as a result of aerodynamic and weight penalties of airfoil icing."[*]DC9 - 1991 - "The aircraft stalled during take-off and rolled 90 at 50-100 feet. The airplane then suffered compressor stalls, the left wing contacted the runway and the aircraft cart wheeled. The DC-9 came to rest inverted 6500 feet from the threshold.
PROBABLE CAUSE: "The failure of the flight crew to detect and remove ice contamination on the airplane's wings, which was largely a result of a lack of appropriate response by the Federal Aviation Administration, Douglas Aircraft Company, and Ryan International Airlines to the known effect that a minute amount of contamination has on the stall characteristics of the DC-9 series 10 airplane. The ice contamination led to wing stall and loss of control during the attempted takeoff." [/list=1]

Was there any convective weather in the area? Cold they have possibly penetrated the top portion of a cell inadvertantly, and hail damaged the engines??

Looking back at the photos on the third page (compact impact?) and the reported descent rate of 7000'/min would these be consistent with a deep stall? I know nothing of the MD-82 but that T-tail layout was IIRC implicated in a few losses of similarly configured aircraft many years ago (BAC 1-11, Trident).

If so, and with no engine power to help with a recovery, the outcome was almost inevitable :(

OC

Coder, funny you should mention the Trident (assume you mean Staines..?) as was talking about that one only last week. If I recall correctly, the wreckage on that one had the tail largely intact, as seems to be the case with this one (though to a lesser degree - no engines that I can see).

I'd also be interested to know if anyone (media, investigators etc)has mentioned whether the tail has 'sunk', as suggested by a previous poster.

As has been said, looks like a case of masssive bad luck... :(

And agree, if the fuel on the DHL was tested and came clear, it doesn't look like a fuel prob...

For both engines to go so soon after each other, it had to be something pretty serious. Someone mentioned rotor failure cutting hydraulics, if this happened when the a/c was nose-up then I assume it would be pretty much impossible to recover, thus inducing a stall - do I have this right?- anyone care to explain/elaborate?

(Edited for clarity of question - I'm after an explanation, not saying I know anything here... :})

How many of those contributing to this thread have any detailed knowledge of the MD-80 systems?

Lots of qualified people knowing the MD-80 systems here -- less speculation about this crash, though:

http://www.md80.net/yabbse/index.php/board,17.0.html

Jan-Erik

For Jan Erik
 

TDG Aerospace manufactures the NOFOD anti-ice system for MD80 series aircraft. The system was designed to prevent ice from forming on the upper wing surface in above freezing temperatures where high humidity exists due to cold-soaked fuel in the wing tanks. SAS experienced a crash of an MD80 in 1991 that was caused by the ice on the upper wing surface being ingested by the rear engines. In the later part of the 90's, Reno Air fodded both engines on a flight out of Detroit_with the same problem. The Reno Air incident caused the NTSB to recommend_that the_FAA issue an AD on the problem. AD2002-21-06 was the final result.
_
The NOFOD system is called out in the AD. There are two of these systems installed on West Caribbean MD81's. The MD82 that crashed was an ex Continental that had the Honeywell system which, when you read the AD, had been removed due to technical difficulties. This system has had many problems over the past 10 years. I believe Honeywell applied for and was granted_AMOC with the problems supposedly fixed._In April 2005 Boeing had issued a letter to all MD80 operators stating that the Honeywell system was not safe to operate based on experience with one operator.
_
I know that the weather in Panama is quite warm this time of the year, but it is also very humid. According to what I've read, the plane flew in from Columbia and was dispatched once the passengers were boarded around 1:00 AM DST. The articles say that both engines failed, originally they suspected contaminated fuel but this was ruled out when it was established that a DHL plane that used the same fuel solurce flew safely to its destination.
_
My question is do you think it could have been ice FOD from cold-soaked fuel that damaged both the engines? I talked with an ex US Air engineer that told me that they had ice FOD on an MD80 from cold-soaked fuel_on_a flight out of_Milwaukee and it was mid-August?

Has this scenario any merit?

Wing Ice ingestion is a problem just after lift-off not afterwards

Severe weather encounter like SO242 and Tacca is a frozen pricipitation problem.

There have been two dual engine out events with the mad dog rear engine series. SO242 and SAS.

The Reno Air event recovered the surging engines in flight although they were both severely damaged.

The other events mentioned had no failures of the engine involved as the engines were simply responding to wing stall.

It's way too early for us armchair experts to conclude engines, aircraft or other

Seem to remember an ALM DC-9 out of JFK to the Caribbean that ran out of gas while diverting and ditched after multiple missed approaches.

link

Satellite picture at the time of the accident, impact is said to be at N09°39'69" W072°36'40"

http://www.rescate.com/16ago05.jpg

Queries for someone flying MD-82.

a. I imagine there's a RAT or ADG for to cover "no eng-driven generators left" scenarios?

b. If so, does it deploy automatically as on the 767 (et al)? Or must it be deployed?

c. Does the standby peanut gyro have integral battery power or does it run off the main battery? [a good attitude source being everything at 0300hrs on a dark and cloudy night]. Can't imagine that any digital displays would be still up and running once back to remnant busses....

d. Is it SOP to start the APU after losing an engine? Assuming that it's airstartable.....

e. i.e. (wrt d above) If you lost both engines, can you still then crank up the APU? Or will that seriously drain/deplete the main battery power?

f. Is there a separate emergency battery?


With respect to the reported 17,000fpm final Rate of Desc, just trying to envisage a scenario where control may have been lost due to losing the standby flight instruments. That's not to say of course that a severely distracted flight crew couldn't lose the attitude long enough for it to become unrecoverable (about 10 secs)...... even if the STBY Flt Insts were up and running.

thanks in advance for any sensible input to my queries....

No, there is not a RAT on the MD-80. Lose both engines and your down to the APU, if you can get it started. Very hard to start when the oil in the APU is like syrup from the cold.