Wedge:
I agree with you on this one. I do understand why many people get upset as sometimes journalists get it wrong, go over the top or whatever; but that is what we humans do. I have worked with a few journalists and have met a few more. They are no more or no less professional or competent in their own field than the selection of people I know in aviation.

Sad day, indeed.
ND

Kalium,

What a sensetive and upstanding proffesional you are. Perhaps some of the heartless ones on here would not be so quick to post if it was someone they knew.

All the best.

The Pen is mightier than the Sword
<img src="wink.gif" border="0">

I did find the latest news at <a href="http://luchtvaart.pagina.nl" target="_blank">the latest aviation news</a>

"
Bombardier says 'cooperating fully' with Birmingham crash investigators
MONTREAL (AFX) - Bombardier Inc said it is "cooperating fully" with UK and US accident investigators looking into today's crash of a Bombardier Canadair 604 aircraft at Birmingham International Airport.

The company said in a statement the plane entered service in autumn 1999 and was being operated by EPPS Aviation, based in the US.

Citing local authorities, Bombardier said two passengers and three crew died in the accident. "

Keep informed, it will be updated every 5 minutes.

Here's more on the people onboard:

<a href="http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/business/0104agco.html" target="_blank">http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/business/0104agco.html</a>

quote .....

"you can please "some of the people" all of the time ..... you can please "all of the people" some of the time .... etc etc" ......

its so true, so as far as I'm concerned, just give the people a choice ...... there's not a lot of effort involved in "powering down" a TV .....

as for media accuracy, I remember getting mad every time our local television station used "file" film of 747's when reporting on our national airline, despite the fleet having been converted to "330's" years before ...... mind you, the 74's always looked much nicer !!!!

Diverging left of track, I know, but..
Our ops dept didn't pass on the info about BHX being closed, despite us not even leaving the crew room before the outbound sector. About 150 miles from home, fog-outs aplenty, we contacted ops to tell them we'd go to Brum as a diversion. Imagine my suprise! Volmet still giving Brum weather and no selcal message. Not even a notam or phonecall downroute. 10 hours+ later and we managed to scrape (+40 feet and +50m RVR) in at home.
Only at times like this that we find the failings of our systems. I intend making noise about this. Like Sept 11, lets find the lessons behind the story and try to make our lives safer as a result.

My thoughts are with the families.
Blue

I was also using Brum as a planned divert yesterday when it was closed. Why was there no mention on the various Volmets?

A quite puzzling crash. I hope it wasn't an uncommanded roll situation. All our nightmares.

PS

Don't know about the volmets, but it was on the atis that the apt was closed, and the next update would be Sat, 12:00hrs. This was being broadcast Fri, 15:30 hrs

Looks like a similar accident happened just over a year ago involving this type of aircraft.

Accident occurred Tuesday, October 10, 2000 at WICHITA, KS
Aircraft:Canadair CL600-2B16, registration: CFTBZ
Injuries: 2 Fatal, 1 Serious.

This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. Any errors in this report will be corrected when the final report has been completed.

On October 10, 2000, at 1452 central daylight time, a Canadair Challenger 600-2B16, C-FTBZ, operated by Bombardier Incorporated, was destroyed on impact with terrain and an airport perimeter fence during initial climb from runway 19 (10,300 feet by 150 feet, dry concrete) at the Wichita Mid-Continent Airport, Wichita, Kansas. The airplane came to rest on a two-lane north-south road located along the western perimeter of the airport. The 14 CFR Part 91 test flight was not operating on a flight plan. The test flight was a Civil Aeronautics Administration flight evaluation of stick force per 'g' of the airplane as per Joint Aviation Requirement 25.143(f). The pilot and flight test engineer were fatally injured. The copilot sustained serious injuries. The flight was originating at the time of the accident.

A witness reported the following, "I looked out the right side of my vehicle, and saw an airplane (flying south), flying sideways about 6-10 ft. off of the ground. I then saw the aircraft level out, and I thought that everything was OK. I slowed down and was watching it and it tilted sideways again (right wing toward the ground). I then saw the right wing of the aircraft start to plow into the ground. I was stopped and watching the aircraft. The wing was in the ground and I saw the nose of the aircraft hit the ground, and the craft started flipping..."

A very tragic and sad accident. Does anyone have information as to preceding departure traffic vis a vis possible decaying wake vortices? Many of us have known near ground encounters, my worst being during flare in the A321. Not that small an a/c yet still vunerable.
My heartfelt condolences to all affected by this seemingly puzzling and unusual mishap.

I think enough has been said now - time to close this thread?

The accident airplane in Wichita was a highly modified testbed with experimental controls.

Looks a bit cold on the ATIS any one deiced lately?

Primarily I would like to say how dignified my colleaugues have been over the past 30 or so hours. Some have had visions they never wished for and others have experienced emotions never before felt. They know who they all are.

I find some of the speculation and innuendo disheartening. Are you aviators not the first to condemn Press speculation, yet you too indulge.

Wait and see. And then let us all learn.

Such a sad event.
It's good to see that some PPrune contributors are refraining from the horrible ill informed speculation we normally see here!

Just two questions though...
(a) Why do the press allocate two sides of paper to profiles on the two pax and (in the same article) not even mention the three crew?

(b) At a time when airlines are fighting for their very survival, surely the airport could have opened the runway (not for public transport) for say a predetermined and published 30 minutes today. This would have allowed BHX based operators to at least ferry empty aircraft out of BHX and begin ops elsewhere (MAN EMA etc).

The wake from an empty aircraft would have impeded debris collection for AAIB surely?

Hey there PPIMan, are YOU the PPRuNe police or what? This is a RUMOUR network....what is it you do not understand?

Right on 411A!

PPIMan, if you don't like it then don't click on to this thread. Same goes for all you do goody moaners. When something in aviation happens, as an aviation professional, I immediately want to know who, where and what - and for this I come here to PPRuNe. Sure, there will be some c r a p posted , but I know that I will also get some good gen too. It's a matter of sifting through the good and the bad. If I'm watching TV and I don't like what I see, I change channel or switch it off. Same goes for PPRuNe.

blueup,

Good point. I guess VOLMET is just that, Met. If the airport was closed for met reasons volmet would tell you, so it would be a good idea to extend the service to other closures.

In fact, with modern comms, it shouldn't be too hard to put out grouped ATIS on a common freq.

Speculation achieves nothing. Why not wait until the FDR and the CVR data has been analysed.
The press do get aviation accident reports wrong in their early editions. They are not experts, let's leave it to the AAIB.

Ltn.man 604 is a completely different aircraft than the 600 you mention.Not even the same engines.Having worked on 604 we experienced many problems with the thrust reversers,found these to be a weak spot on both 601& 604.I wonder if one of these may have come out on take off?.Have never heard of uncommanded input to pfcu,s on this aircraft.

LTM Man was correct, the aircraft involved in the Wichita crash was a 604 (fuel migration in the aux tank was suspected). The type CL-600-2B16 covers all the 600's 601's and the 604 is a "variant" of that.

My condolences to the families.

IF the aircraft had not been de-iced could this have been a contributory factor? One report (could have been a local paper or an alleged witness)said the aircraft got airborne and then came back down. <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

RIP Tom, Rob, and Tim.

My condolances to the families and friends of the crew and passengers. LTN Man, how can you say this is similar to the ICT crash, obviously you don't know your head from your arse. Investigators take time to assess ALL facts before commenting, maybe you should do the same. The ICT crash was on a test bed aircraft configured in a certain manner for the planned test flight. I don't know how this 604 was loaded or any other fact other than people were killed so I make no comment.
Latte time

...I haven't posted anything on pprune since before the 9000 member mark...but here goes,
Thirteen Twelve,i am glad you 'upper cased' the words 'APPEARED' & 'SEEMED' in your post otherwise some people may have got the wrong impression and may have thought your inferrence was that BHX fire service's response wasn't immeadiate and without professional application to the task.
The FACTS are that;
1)The fire station alarms & doors were activated 1 to 2 seconds post impact
2)The fire vehicles arrived at approx impact +1 minute
3)The perceived delay in applying the fire-fighting medium was,as you probably would agree 'one of those slow motion moments' but several things have to be considered -
a)a brief assessment of impact site prevailing wind etc for successful retardant application,vehicle /crew safety
b)fire crews would have to suit up in B.A kit
c)fire vehicles cannot charge up to the crash site and start dumping foam there and then as casualties may lie in the path of the vehicles - a route to the closest point that foam/water can be successfully applied must be found before final tender / crash site closure attempted .

In all reality this will have happened very quickly ,but as this tragedy unfolded time must have almost stood still...as many of my colleagues have testified to that fact

I do not want to start a tit-for-tat posting thing here but having read your initial post,i think it was ,to me at least,a little insensitive as many people ,Ops,police,fire service etc. will have been deeply affected by that terrible day,and knowing some read this forum, 'your opinion'(and everyone has a right to one) may have appeared to infer to some,that BHX fire service MAY not have operated at their utmost professional and without speedy efficiency,which would be totally incorrect and without factual basis.

What's it got to do with me,an aircraft technician? My father was i/c the second airport tender on scene ,his wife was the watchroom officer who witnessed the incident and raised the alarms....both deeply affected by what they saw.

My sympathies to all the victims and their families and to all ground staff involved on that tragic weekend

And, to support my previous posting, the above interesting and factual posting is a good example of why I turn to PPRuNe for information.

Here here!

condolences to those involved.

Jetset Sparky, thank you for your detailed posting which I have acknowledged by editing, by addition my additional post. Any time is a long time to watch an aircraft on fire and obviously time passed slowly for me at the time of the accident. I have no regrets about my original posting and did indeed use upper case for the reasons you surmised. As an aside there is seperate thread running about the time it took Birmingham to re-open and perhaps that too, requires a better informed person than myself to respond.