Atlas 767, Houston

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3WE
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Atlas 767, Houston

Postby 3WE » Sat Feb 23, 2019 9:28 pm

News photos of water.

Were there storms in the area?
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3WE
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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby 3WE » Sun Feb 24, 2019 12:17 am

***storms***
There were lively storms around, but several indications they didn't enter anything that would be significant.
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J
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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby J » Sun Feb 24, 2019 12:19 am

Don’t know. Heard it was an Atlas 767 flying for PRIME AIR (Amazon) that was only a few years old.

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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby KPryor » Sun Feb 24, 2019 3:23 pm

In-flight breakup? Sure came down awful fast and spread debris over 3 miles.
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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby 3WE » Sun Feb 24, 2019 3:43 pm

In-flight breakup? Sure came down awful fast and spread debris over 3 miles.
Source?

Not questioning you- it’s just that I hadn’t read anything about a 3 mile debris field (instead 3/4)- media not very good at asking questions and relaying useful facts.

I DID see Boeing’s tweet that they are concerned with the safety of the crew. :roll: (not trashing the tweet, but that the media felt that it contributed to The Who, what, when, where and why...)
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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby KPryor » Sun Feb 24, 2019 4:11 pm

To be honest, I can't remember where I read the 3 mile debris field. I'll see if I can find it again. I've been on so many sites it's all starting to run together.
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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby KPryor » Sun Feb 24, 2019 4:16 pm

Searching now and found news stories about a 3/4 mile debris field, but can't find where I saw 3 miles. I'm betting the 3 mile report was wrong now after reading some more.
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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby 3WE » Sun Feb 24, 2019 4:24 pm

Searching now and found news stories about a 3/4 mile debris field, but can't find where I saw 3 miles. I'm betting the 3 mile report was wrong now after reading some more.
No foul- so far, I’ve been curious, but haven’t seen anything to support LITERAL in-flight breakup.

There were reports of moderate chop, but things seemed rather mundane.
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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby KPryor » Sun Feb 24, 2019 4:36 pm

Some weather concerns at the time but didn't seem like pending doom. Here's the liveatc recording https://forums.liveatc.net/index.php?ac ... tach=10265
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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby Gabriel » Sun Feb 24, 2019 5:05 pm

The AVH article includes this:
In the late evening (local time) of Feb 23rd 2019 the Sheriff's office reported one body was recovered. Joint efforts by the Sheriff's office, the FBI and NTSB continue to recover the victims and the black boxes. The crash scene extends over a distance of 3 miles in shallow waters up to 5 feet deep. Multiple dive teams from the Baytown police, Houston police and Texas Department of Public Safety are working at the crash site.
Now I tend to think that the 3 miles, if correct, may be due to debris floating and drifting due to wind/currents.

The plane seems to have been in control until very near the end, with the altitude and ground speed slowly descending until at the last moments the ground speed reached it's all-time-low of 240 kts (I don't know the wind, but it seems too slow for an in-flight break up and to fast for a stall) and the sink rate increased to 7000 fpm.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/GTI ... H/tracklog

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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby KPryor » Sun Feb 24, 2019 5:13 pm

One graphic I saw that was created from data at flightradar24 seemed to show the aircraft descending normally, then a short period of climbing before taking the plunge to the ground. No claims as to the accuracy of the graphic I saw.
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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby KPryor » Sun Feb 24, 2019 5:20 pm

Post rescinded based on the fact it was a post of misunderstood data.
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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby J » Sun Feb 24, 2019 5:57 pm

Youtube showing weather radar and with some ATC audio:

https://youtu.be/0cn58iVuzBY

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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby Gabriel » Sun Feb 24, 2019 6:47 pm

One graphic I saw that was created from data at flightradar24 seemed to show the aircraft descending normally, then a short period of climbing before taking the plunge to the ground. No claims as to the accuracy of the graphic I saw.
I see no climbing in the fightradar24 data or plots:
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flig ... 1#1f98a1ae

There is an increase of speed at the last moment, not strange when you are falling at 7000+ fpm.

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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby KPryor » Sun Feb 24, 2019 7:03 pm

I didn't word that very well. What I meant was it was a graphic that someone else had created based on data they got from FR24. Based on your link, I would agree it doesn't show any climb just prior to the final descent. I need to do a better job of finding good info sources.
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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby 3WE » Sun Feb 24, 2019 9:06 pm

I need to do a better job of finding good info sources.
You know how to fix that, right? (WFTFR).

In the meantime, I appreciate your discussion.

Freak severe mechanical failure,
Bad cargo (explosion/fire)
Disgruntled employee sabotage (my current favorite)
OR
Meteor strike.
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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby KPryor » Sun Feb 24, 2019 11:33 pm

Watching a recording of the NTSB press conference from earlier today. Main debris field is approximately 200 yards long by 100 yards wide. That's not a very big area I would think. They also have some surveillance camera video that shows the plane heading down at a steep angle. They didn't show it, just described it. CVR and FDR not yet found.
Video of press conference here: https://abc13.com/atlas-air-3-killed-in ... o/5154495/
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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby ocelot » Mon Feb 25, 2019 1:34 am

Curious feature that's come out today: very little fuel with the wreckage. Strange, because fuel exhaustion alone shouldn't cause this kind of event.

Maybe an uncontained engine failure ripped open the tank and it all vented a few thousand feet up? But you'd need to be phenomenally unlucky for it to get both wings, and I doubt the crossfeed plumbing (even if open) would be anything like sufficient to drain the other tank in the time available before impact.

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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby 3WE » Mon Feb 25, 2019 1:54 am

We actually have precedence on 767 fuel exhaustion. It was not a good landing, but neither was it the steep dive.

I’ll give you uncontained control system damage...
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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby Gabriel » Mon Feb 25, 2019 3:00 am

We actually have precedence on 767 fuel exhaustion. It was not a good landing, but neither was it the steep dive.
it was quite a good landing. The plane landed on a runway (well, a former runway anyway), everybody walked away uninjured, and the plane could be flown again 25 more years . It did required substantial maintenance after the landing before further flight, so it was not a perfect landing.

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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby 3WE » Mon Feb 25, 2019 8:24 am

We actually have precedence on 767 fuel exhaustion. It was not a good landing, but neither was it the steep dive.
it was quite a good landing. The plane landed on a runway (well, a former runway anyway), everybody walked away uninjured, and the plane could be flown again 25 more years . It did required substantial maintenance after the landing before further flight, so it was not a perfect landing.
I am referring to the water landing. Can you say context? Many did died. No one walked away. Plane totaled.
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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby Gabriel » Mon Feb 25, 2019 12:36 pm

We actually have precedence on 767 fuel exhaustion. It was not a good landing, but neither was it the steep dive.
it was quite a good landing. The plane landed on a runway (well, a former runway anyway), everybody walked away uninjured, and the plane could be flown again 25 more years . It did required substantial maintenance after the landing before further flight, so it was not a perfect landing.
I am referring to the water landing. Can you say context? Many did died. No one walked away. Plane totaled.
Oh, I thought you were talking about the Gimli glider, Air Canada's 767 where they mistook kg / lb of fuel.

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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby J » Mon Feb 25, 2019 1:57 pm

The following article discusses an NTSB briefing including remarks from Chairmin Sumwalt:
Video recorded from a nearby jail captured the plane's final five seconds before it smashed into the water, Sumwalt said in a briefing Sunday afternoon. "It's descending in a steep descent, steep nose-down attitude," Sumwalt said. "By looking at the video, I saw no evidence of the aircraft trying to turn or pull up at the last moments."
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ree-aboard

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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby 3WE » Mon Feb 25, 2019 2:19 pm

Monchie should probably delete this post for redundancy..."No visual evidence of attempted recovery".

And I don't think we have ANY eyewitness accounts of a "smoke trail/flaming engine"....no mayday call.

I'm seeing a disgruntled loader person, or the jump-seater, or one of the pilots shooting the cockpit occupants and maybe themselves.
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Re: Atlas 767, Houston

Postby J » Mon Feb 25, 2019 8:54 pm

News reports are saying the third person on the flight was a jump seating Mesa Captain who had supposedly recently been hired by UAL.

This report says he was texting a friend in Houston about 20 minutes before the plane went down.

https://www.khou.com/article/news/frien ... 7b64424a56


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