News: Commercial Commuter Crashes off Miami

A commercial seaplane belonging to Chalk's Ocean Airways has crashed off the coast of Miami. Some eyewitnesses reported an explosion before the plane went down.



Several witnesses have reported seeing the explosion before the aircraft went down, and the FBI has sent field agents to investigate. After all the other threads here reference the possiblity of terrorist activity in relation to US airlines that may have been covered up by the government, this is a very intriguing story. It will be interesting to see how long it takes the media to quit quoting witnesses that reported an explosion.

Addtional News Source:

cnn.com

Related ATSNN story:

www.atsnn.com...


[edit on 19-12-2005 by snafu7700]

[edit on 19-12-2005 by snafu7700]

[edit on 12-19-2005 by Valhall]

Mod Edit: cap title (KL)

[edit on 19-12-2005 by kinglizard]

interesting that the NTSB would make this statement:

"I'd be very careful about witness statements," he told CNN. "When somebody talks about an explosion or black smoke, it may or may not turn out to be significant."

(from cnn source above).

hmm....a possible explosion reported by several witnesses not significant to the investigation. nope, that doesnt sound fishy at all.

Here is an update.

19 of 19 bodies recovered.

www.cnn.com...

It was a Grumman G 73 Turbine (Mallard0







Photo of actual crash scene:



- One Man Short


[edit on 19-12-2005 by One Man Short of Manhood]

From One Man's link.

The Port of Miami was shut down immediately after the crash, and some cruise liners were diverted from the area so they would not interfere with the rescue operation, Warr said.

The entire port of Miami was shut down? So as not to interfere with the rescue effort? Is this normal?

The port of Miami is fairly large from what I understand, still it seems to me there could have been mitigation to avoid the areas required to be clear for the rescue operation.

This is not my area of expertise, it just jumped out at me as sounding odd. Can anyone add some insight into this?

Edit: One other question - the number of people aboard has changed all day. does anyone know what the capacity of this type of aircraft is?



[edit on 12/19/2005 by Relentless]

Ok so were there any high ranking public officials on the plane, is the passenger list out yet?

For the record:

start.earthlink.net.../43a63e50_3421_1334520051219-1600415860

With many schools already closed in advance of the holidays and Christmas week traditionally one of the biggest times of the year tourism, the beach was relatively busy, and dozens of beachgoers saw the plane go down. Dozens more gathered to watch the rescue.

There were plenty of witnesses.

Sandy Rodriguez, 14, said he saw the plane flying low with white smoke trailing from it and flames coming from the bottom. The right wing then fell off as the plane went down, he said.

"It exploded in the air and one of the wings flew out of there. The other part of the plane was on fire and it just went straight down," said Maurice D'Giovianni, 42, a surfer who was in the water at the time.

They all seened to see the same thing.

for some reason the powers that be dont seem to think that this is conspiracy or terror related and have taken it off of atsnn.

the amatuer video of this incident is on cnn's main web site as i type this. it clearly shows the aircraft plunging into the ocean with the wing floating down directly above it, a ball of fire. this could only have happened with an explosion of some kind. whether or not it was because of foul play remains to be seen, but it doesnt look like any kind of a normal failure. for crying out loud, the wing is completely severed from the rest of the aircraft, which is completely intact except for the wing. only an explosion could do that.

and this story doesnt belong on atsnn? come on folks. i dont think the individuals who decided to move it to "other current events" read any further than the headline.

They are currently encouraging anyone with videos to come forward, and the wreckage is hoped to be retrieved by Tuesday. The investigation will initially focus on the aircrafts voice recorder and the the maintenance logs/operations records.

start.earthlink.net.../43a78fd0_3ca6_1552620051220-2052449221

I also found this to be interesting.

Chalk's is too small to fall under the federal guidelines that require passengers and their luggage be inspected by Transportation Security Administration screeners, said Dale Karlen, federal security director at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

Though I can't see the point in such a small target being blown up intentionally, most witnesses still report that the plane exploded before going down.

Ship traffic in and out of the port has been suspended indefinately at the moment.

Originally posted by Relentless

Chalk's is too small to fall under the federal guidelines that require passengers and their luggage be inspected by Transportation Security Administration screeners, said Dale Karlen, federal security director at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

Though I can't see the point in such a small target being blown up intentionally, most witnesses still report that the plane exploded before going down.

for exactly the reason you quoted above, IMHO. if you cant get to the big ones because the security is too tight, hit the small ones.

It is very, very unlikely that this is in any way terrorism related. I'm also a pilot and although too early to speculate as to the actual root cause, it would seem that this is a fuel fire. Very possibly a fuel line separated early in the flight. The fuel tanks are in the wings and this would allow fuel to come in contact with the engine and ignite. The ensuing fuel explosion and fire would compromise the flight control cables in the wings. Combine the structural weakening from the fire/explosion with the pilot's frantic attempt to quickly land the aircraft and the structural exceedancies that would create and you have the forces necessary to separate the wing. At that point they were dooomed.

Originally posted by jtma508
Very possibly a fuel line separated early in the flight. The fuel tanks are in the wings and this would allow fuel to come in contact with the engine and ignite.

your scenario makes a fair amount of sense, but i still think it's possible that foul play is involved. as a pilot (private or commercial?), what do you think of this thread:

www.atsnn.com...

Originally posted by jtma508
It is very, very unlikely that this is in any way terrorism related. I'm also a pilot and although too early to speculate as to the actual root cause, it would seem that this is a fuel fire. Very possibly a fuel line separated early in the flight. The fuel tanks are in the wings and this would allow fuel to come in contact with the engine and ignite. The ensuing fuel explosion and fire would compromise the flight control cables in the wings. Combine the structural weakening from the fire/explosion with the pilot's frantic attempt to quickly land the aircraft and the structural exceedancies that would create and you have the forces necessary to separate the wing. At that point they were dooomed.

Good points. It's nice to have a pilot's perspective in this case. One more thing that I think we may be overlooking is the fact that this is 50+ year-old WWII-era plane. A plane that is used on a very regular basis, nonetheless. It'd be interesting to see how many flight hours are on that plane. I know I read somewhere that the company replaced the old piston-style engines with new Pratt & Whitney turbo props as well as updated the cockpit instruments.

With a plane this old that is being used so frequently, and in salt water on top of it all, I think that without top-notch maintenance its only a matter of time before there is some type of mechanical or structural failure.

I'm a big fan of seaplanes, especially the larger ones like the Grumman Albatross and this Grumman Mallard, so I hate to see something like this happen. I someday want to get my pilots license and fly seaplanes, hopefully owning one someday and maybe even a company of my own. I'm no expert in the subject but it seems to me that seaplanes of this size aren't made anymore, and haven't really been made in any real numbers since the 40's and maybe 50's. There are still small, Cessna-sized seaplanes being made but I think that's about it. So companies that want to get into this type of business are pretty much forced to fly these older planes. I really wish someone would come out with a modern and practical seaplane for civilian use that's large enough to hold more passengers than a Honda Accord.

They are now saying the plane crashed due to the wing falling off.

start.earthlink.net.../43a8e150_3ca6_1552620051221-1575631737

NTSB: Plane Crashed After Wing Fell Off

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. - Investigators plan to scour maintenance and flight records in search of evidence that could show why a seaplane's wing broke off during flight, causing the plane to plummet into the water, killing all 20 people on board.

Can anyone explain how a wing falling off explains the ball of fire we've all seen by now on the news? They seem to be totally ignoring this. A lot of witnesses reported seeing the wing separate after an explosion.

what they are saying is that the wing fell off causing the explosion, because the interior of the wing is where the gas is stored. i still dont buy it. this is the country's longest operating airline, and while they are using old equipment, i dont see a structural failure of this kind without some mitigating circumstance.

The first thing I thought was "Stinger". Especially after I heard the plane was fitted with jet engines.

So, the focus seems to be entirely focued on that wing now, but still no actual reports about how that caused the plane to explode.

Mark Rosenker, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, stopped short of saying the cracking was the sole reason the right wing fell off the 58-year-old plane Monday shortly after it took for the Bahamas.

But Rosenker told a news conference that the cracking should have been found and repaired, although it would have taken "a very serious" inspection to find it.


The cracks were in the main support beam that connected the wing to the fuselage. Rosenker said that if Chalk's officials had known about the cracking "they would have repaired it and we wouldn't be here today. I don't think they knew it."

www.local6.com...

By the way, this is actually from an interesting story about three men who were suppossed to be on that flight but said they didn't go due to a "funny feeling" about being on the plane.