C-130 down in Mississippi-2017

a reply to: iWontGiveUP

No, it didn't explode. It suffered catastrophic structural failure. It burned quite a long time. People in the area reported it was still burning after sunset, and they initially put 4,000 gallons of foam on it to try to fight the fire. They were probably stopping somewhere for fuel, and probably swap over to the other crew if they were augmented.

Bad...Just very bad...

The aircraft departed from Cherry Point, NC. One witness said he heard a boom, and saw the aircraft spiraling down with one engine smoking.

I know this will sound weird, but I was happy to see that you posted this Zaph. I only say that because when I heard it on the news early this morning while driving home from work that my first thought was I hope you weren't on it.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I seem to recall you posted pictures once from a refueling plane. I know the odds were long, but it was my first thought.

This is very sad. At least they have recovered everyone. Ugh, I just can't even imagine what that ride down for some had to of been. Prayers....

Based on statements this morning, it appears the aircraft was based at Cherry Point. That PROBABLY makes it a VMGR-252 aircraft, which would probably make it a J model.

a reply to: Zaphod58

4 person flight crew on a refueling mission

What was the additional 12 marines' mission?

Thanks for the updates Zaph!

a reply to: iWontGiveUP

If it's a T model, five person flight crew, extra crew if it's a long flight, so they don't have to sit overnight on crew rest, and the ones responsible for the weapons, probably from the unit they were heading to. A J model would have a flight crew of 4.

There was a press conference a few minutes ago, so I'm waiting for the transcript, but the latest update is that it was 15 Marines, and 1 sailor on board.

The aircraft departed Cherry Point, and stopped in Memphis. The first word the Marines had was when the FAA notified them that the aircraft dropped off radar.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I'm a wee bit confused. News keeps saying it was a refueler, I'm aware that the C130s can do this role. But then they're talking about the Munitions on board. So is it a Refueler and a Cargo multi role aircraft all in one?

Witnesses say they heard a Boom, looked up to see it corkscrew downward. So perhaps an explosion that caused the structural failure?

a reply to: Bigburgh

A boom can come from almost anything. I was at the Boeing plant in Everett when they were testing a wing box. One of the engineers told me to come over if I had the time because the last test was to test to catastrophic failure. They kept increasing the load on the box until it gave. When it let go it was one of the loudest sounds that I ever heard. That includes watching the USS New Jersey shoot off Lebanon.

A horizontal stabilizer failure could easily make a sound like an explosion.

a reply to: Bigburgh

The difference between a C-130 and a KC-130 is that, if they have external fuel tanks, a C has two tanks, a KC has four. The J model C doesn't carry any external tanks usually, the KC has four. The outer two are drogue pods.

A witness said they saw and engine on fire. Could it be possible the aircraft had an engine fail for whatever reason and debris severed the right hand side stabiliser eventually causing it to detach from the fuselage. I wouldn't of though if an aircraft lost one of the stabilisers but the rest of the aircraft was intact that it would cause such a disaster. I suppose it's in its name though .. a stabiliser

a reply to: ThePeaceMaker

It's possible. The question is which came first, the fire or the failure. They're going to have to figure that out.

It's possible they had a spin off and the prop went over the wing into the stab, but I'd be surprised as hell if it did.

The horizontal stabilizer is also the elevator to control pitch. If they went nose down, or even into a roll, they would have only had half the normal elevator, which would have been almost totally ineffective. .

a reply to: Zaphod58

When a prop lets go the parts tend to stay in the plane of the prop arc. I could see a prop coming apart, impacting the fuselage and damaging the flight control runs. The damaged flight controls could have put the aircraft in a position to cause a stabilizer failure. The clue to finding out what happened are probably in the pieces of the aircraft furthest from the impact point.

a reply to: JIMC5499

That's a lot of Torque- pressure!
Watched a wing snap test online. Holy god!

a reply to: JIMC5499

That's why I said I'd be surprised as hell. Every spin off I've ever heard of it either ended up embedded in the wing, or fuselage.

At least one article is saying that investigators are saying it "blew up in midair". That's resulted in a fairly spirited argument on Facebook. There's no way in hell this thing blew up before impact. BROKE up, yes, blew up, hell no.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I know you know that, I just wanted to make sure that they know it.

There has been a lot of things happening with engines lately, both military and commercial. You have to wonder. I spent a better part of a year building up props and hanging engines on Herky birds. The T-56 is a solid engine with a good history. I've worked with them on E-2s and P-3s as well.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Noticed quite a few C-130 on ADS-B earlier so I don't think they're too worried about this being a fleet issue yet. Terrible loss for 16 families. Hopefully they find peace and patience while they await some closure on what happened.

a reply to: JIMC5499

If it WAS a J, they had the Rolls AE2100D3. Rolls has run into some issues with their Trent series lately. Makes me wonder if they're having the same problems. Thai grounded all but 2 of their 787s because of blade problems with the Trents. A blade failure on a turboprop would be nasty as hell.

a reply to: Caughtlurking

They won't until they at least have a preliminary idea of what happened. They can't even get in to the wreckage yet. They had to bring EODb on scene to secure it. They had a load of small arms ammunition and weapons on board they finally said.