Atlas Air 767 down/Texas
 

FAA: Boeing 767 cargo jet operated by Atlas Air Inc. has crashed into Trinity Bay near Anahuac, Texas, while en route from Miami to Houston; initial reports indicate 3 people were on board.

FAA statement says it was Atlas Air Flight 3591. Radar contact lost about 30 miles SE of IAH. Crash said to have occurred about 12:45 local.

Details are pretty scant right now as this just broke. However, Trinity Bay is a busy place so there may well be several witnesses if not video.

https://6abc.com/crews-responding-to...y-bay/5153229/

Live feed.

A Twitter post by @JasonWhitely states tail number is N1217A, a 26-year old aircraft operating as Amazon Prime Air, one of 30 767s in Amazon's fleet.

FAA reported as saying no survivors. RIP.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....eae30df380.jpg

FAA has it listed as registered to Andromeda Leasing LLC

https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinq...mberTxt=N1217A

I'd be careful with FR data extrapolating such massive sinkrates or whatever. That wx radar pic looks interesting though.

From a Houston station
https://www.click2houston.com/news/b...board-faa-says

They were penetrating that line of storms.

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.


I have had a look at the raw data and it seems like the aircraft was not in a rapid decent at the time the turn was made, the following graph for altitude starts at when the turn commences

https://i.imgur.com/4oVdFZR.png

Though it was very foggy this morning with a rather violent front forecast to come through, the fog would have lifted by the time of the crash. I live a few miles NE of IAH on the approach to 26R and the front was never as bad as predicted. It was actually much nicer than expected here, though I acknowledge that weather from one side of the Houston metro area to the other can vary quite considerably. However, the Chambers County Sheriff just gave a press briefing where he stated several witnesses in boats and at a nearby park had stated that the plane basically nose-dived into the bay. He stated surface visibility as good and weather was not reported as an issue.

Aerial pictures of the site show a pretty sizable debris field with not many large pieces visible. The largest piece I've seen was what appeared to be a portion of the vertical stab with the right side of the Amazon logo. The water is murky, five feet deep max with plenty of shallow mud marsh. This is going to take a while to piece together. The sheriff said Chambers County will make their hangar available to NTSB and have offered a building in the park near the scene for use as a command center.

Looks like an in-flight break up.
Condolences to families.
RIP

Debris Field.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/cargo-plane-carrying-at-least-3-people-crashes-in-texas-bay-officials-say

In-flight break-ups are almost unheard of, especially at a relatively low airspeed when level or in a shallow descent. And the 767 is a tough old bird.

Other possibilities exist, but the FDR and CVR should give an explanation. Adverse Wx unlikely to cause such a dive.

Local rumor is the flight was being directed around area of heavy/extreme precipitation prior to lost contact. There is also supposedly a LiveATC tape out of the flight. A bad day for all.

ATC audio on youtube. Accident apparently around 9:00.

I have to say that I find that a very strange statement to make at this point, even coming from a Canadair CL605 pilot.

Live ATC
 

one of last transmissions was a male voice with an accent requesting deviation 'west' (of the cell I assume), and ATC said no, so they said they would deviate East. This is from FlightRadar 24 and shows last radar reply and crash site.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....d62ebc1b21.jpg

Load shift?
Amazon stuff isn't usually too heavy, but maybe a pallet/container broke loose and started a cascade.