LX015 wrote:

Looks like there was no thrust at all at this point.
https://youtu.be/xBUKWtTJcaY

There appears to be some thrust - when it comes into frame, it appears to be flying backwards. (Almost as if it's in a spin.) I have never seen a plane do that before, personally. But just before it goes out of frame, it begins to change trajectory. It can't be being guided by airflow over the wings given its initial trajectory, so it has to be thrust that causes that change.

No idea what could have caused this, but I'd have to guess it was in a stall/spin before this video began, and we're witnessing the end of the sequence rather than the beginning.

MalevTU134 wrote:

N14AZ wrote:

Blankbarcode wrote:

Another survivor (40) succumbed to her injuries last night... The official death toll is now 112 and there is just one survivor left... Absolutely awful

Now, after seeing the video, it’s amazing that there were survivors at all. Very sad...

Makes me think the opposite. It seems to be a low speed low-energy crash. Of course, the smoke and fire is probably what killed most people onboard. But compare to TK at AMS, which had a lot more forward momentum, and "only" 6 deaths (if memory serves me right). No resulting fire in that crash, though.

It only seems low speed because the aircraft is moving toward the camera. The downward movement is still significant. Impact will have killed more than smoke on this one. Still looks like stalled right wing.

It doesn't really look like a VMC roll to me, that would have a tighter corkscrew sort of motion. It looks like a straight stall to me. It seems to be falling pretty quick by the time it crosses the camera, so it's tough to say what happened without seeing the incipient phase.

Did it ever get much higher, though, than what we see on this footage? Remember that the crash site is literally on the side of the runway. It doesn't look to me like it is falling from above what we see from the beginning of the footage.
I'm thinking (uncontrolled?) activation of right thrust reverser?

Second of three survivors of last Friday's accident died today in Havana, only one remains in critical condition at a Cuban hospital. More Aerolineas Damojh employees are coming out with pretty scary accounts of how this airline operated.

Can be read (in Spanish) here: https://elpais.com/internacional/2018/0 ... 31371.html

DUSdude wrote:

It only seems low speed because the aircraft is moving toward the camera. The downward movement is still significant. Impact will have killed more than smoke on this one. Still looks like stalled right wing.

Indeed. And falling flat in ground also gives very little space for any slowdown to occur gradually. Contrast this to, for instance, aircraft crashlanding in a forest, with speed gradually reducing as the trees hit wings, nose, and parts are shedded...

These people work fast...no matter how inaccurate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0HZvqYtUyM

727LOVER wrote:

These people work fast...no matter how inaccurate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0HZvqYtUyM

While that is ridiculous on many counts, there is an intersting comment in there from a person witnessing the accident. He/she says tne airplane hardly took off, swirved suddenly to the right, then to the left, and lost lift, landing on it's belly, with a light nose-down attitude. Seems to me the right turn is what we see in this video, although no sign of a left turn, before it crashes in the way the witness states.

Scary video. As the plane enters the view it appears to be crabbing to its right, then just loses it altogether. I wonder if they lost the right engine. Engine failure paired with hot conditions in a heavy or possibly overweight aircraft?
Just speculation on my part, sorry.
Just some observations from the video, but it does appear the gear are up, but due to the quality I’m not sure it will be possible to tell flap or slat position. Surely that will be relatively easy for investigators to determine based on the wreckage and the FDR.

As to the comment above about most deaths were probably from smoke and fire. I also disagree on that. Most deaths must have certainly been from impact trauma. Plane looks to be going slow since it’s headed towards the camera, but there is a LOT of force going on from an airborn 737 impacting the ground in such a manner.

RIP to those involved.

The video describes a stall / loss of control situation. But the important event happened earlier, when they entered the stall. Because in wrong configuration? Lose and engine and turn off the wrong one? A mere piloting mistake of flying the aircraft to a stall? Mechanical control problems? Weight balance or shifting cargo?

Assuming video real, this appears more than just low-lift such as from poor flaps config. The severe yaw seems to show significant asymmetric thrust, such as engine loss. Or even TR deploy...?
Is that possible on the 200 while in flight? I thought it required WOW and engine idle....? Any 73-2 drivers to opine?

Re deaths from smoke and fire, dunno. The aircraft in the video abruptly inverted as it fell off the right wing. I think this was a high impact event, but no expert.

joejosh999 wrote:

Re deaths from smoke and fire, dunno. The aircraft in the video abruptly inverted as it fell off the right wing. I think this was a high impact event, but no expert.

Everything is relative, right?
Of course, there are very few deadly aircraft accidents where the aircraft hits at, say 20 knots...

In fact, a passenger aircraft of the size of the 737 cannot fly a lot slower that at takeoff (and landing). Therefore, accidents at takeoff and landing are almost always, per definition, low energy impacts, which are surviveable to 70% (I believe the statistics is thereabouts). Most victims in this type of crashes succumb to the smoke and the fire.
Of course this is not to say the energy is low compared to a car crash, but still...

High energy impacts are the likes of the Eurowings crash, where the aircraft hit a roughly vertical mountain wall at roughly 450 knots. In that crash, no piece recovered was larger than 3x3 cm. Compare that to the crash in question at HAV...

For a real high energy impact, see:

https://youtu.be/dn_fZZ74MQU

Well I believe they were finding body fragments in the trees. While it was certainly not hitting a mountain at 450 mph, it was dropping upside down from 100 or more feet. Those Gs are not surviveable, and certainly not comparable to a landing or TO incident.

joejosh999 wrote:

Well I believe they were finding body fragments in the trees. While it was certainly not hitting a mountain at 450 mph, it was dropping upside down from 100 or more feet. Those Gs are not surviveable, and certainly not comparable to a landing or TO incident.

Sorry, where did you see the upside-down part in the video?

It resembles the Trident crash in London in 1972. There was no fire,and it was a low energy impact, but still everybody died due to back and neck injuries (compression) By the way, the cause was premature retraction of the slats and a subsequent stall with the impossibility of recovering due to the T.tail.

F9Animal wrote:

[*]

Planejoe wrote:

AR385 wrote:

It looks more and more like a flaps problem. Either not set correctly for T/O or not set at all.

I’m surprised no one has brought this up before. It should be obvious if the flaps we set in the wreckage.
Anyone know?

This is also a strong possibility. I haven't seen any good pictures of the wings. Improper configuration for takeoff could play a role. But, most of the crashes caused by improper takeoff configuration usually dont get altitude like this one did. I will be very curious to hear the results of the crash investigation.

I have to ask, mainly due to my ignorance regarding Cuba. Do they have a program like the NTSB? Have they held any news conferences since the crash? Black boxes recovered? Also, does anyone know if Boeing will send someone to help the crash investigation?

I just saw someone posted another passenger passed away. That leaves only 2 survivors at this point? Thankful the plane missed the school!

Hi:
Cuban Civil Aviation Organization, was an ICAO’s founder membeer. And yes, they have as NTSB.
Rgds

Sorry. They have an NTSB TYPE structure for accidents organizations

I wonder if the NTSB will be helping in the investigation of the accident considering that that the aircraft was built in the Untied States.

Hi: The New York Times’ picture: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/worl ... id=article

Rgds

jonnyclam123 wrote:

I wonder if the NTSB will be helping in the investigation of the accident considering that that the aircraft was built in the Untied States.

This question was made, and answer, 10 days ago:


The land where the accident happened has to investigate. (In case of international waters, it's the country where the plane is registered.)

The country which has the duty to investigate can contract with NTSB, BEA, AAIB or any other investigation board to carry out the investigation. Or even the ICAO, if they don't trust any specific country.

The manufacturers of the aircraft and of the engines both send technical assistants.

Every nation from which passengers have been killed or seriously injured can send observers.

MalevTU134 wrote:

Did it ever get much higher, though, than what we see on this footage? Remember that the crash site is literally on the side of the runway. It doesn't look to me like it is falling from above what we see from the beginning of the footage.
I'm thinking (uncontrolled?) activation of right thrust reverser?

I am thinking the same... looks awful...

AR385 wrote:

It resembles the Trident crash in London in 1972. There was no fire,and it was a low energy impact, but still everybody died due to back and neck injuries (compression) By the way, the cause was premature retraction of the slats and a subsequent stall with the impossibility of recovering due to the T.tail.

Same-same but different. Very different, in fact. The Trident entered deep stall at roughly 1700 feet and fell helplessly from there. This 737-200 at HAV barely made 100 feet from the looks of it ("barely took off from the runway", according to witnesses). Also, the Trident made 162 knots when first entering the stall (it stalled 3 times within a few seconds), and I guess that forward motion was increased as it fell. This crash in HAV seems to have been that of an aircraft making a weird 180 degree turn, thereby losing most of its forward momentum at, maybe, 100 feet.
Both aircraft probably stalled, but the similarities end there.

MalevTU134 wrote:

AR385 wrote:

It resembles the Trident crash in London in 1972. There was no fire,and it was a low energy impact, but still everybody died due to back and neck injuries (compression) By the way, the cause was premature retraction of the slats and a subsequent stall with the impossibility of recovering due to the T.tail.

Same-same but different. Very different, in fact. The Trident entered deep stall at roughly 1700 feet and fell helplessly from there. This 737-200 at HAV barely made 100 feet from the looks of it ("barely took off from the runway", according to witnesses). Also, the Trident made 162 knots when first entering the stall (it stalled 3 times within a few seconds), and I guess that forward motion was increased as it fell. This crash in HAV seems to have been that of an aircraft making a weird 180 degree turn, thereby losing most of its forward momentum at, maybe, 100 feet.
Both aircraft probably stalled, but the similarities end there.

Of course. My intention was not to be too detailed. The point I was trying to make, is that these two aircraft experienced such a total loss of lift that they literally fell from the sky. The Trident had no forward motion as it was pancaking into the ground nose high. Literally, it "settled". It looks by the video this 737 did the same. It just settled into the ground with no forward motion. Sure, many things are different, starting with the aircraft, which are not similar, so the stall behavior must be different too. but the crash sequence seems similar. The issue becomes what can produce such a sudden loss of lift? In the Staines crash we know someone in the cockpit retracted the slats. In the case of the Global Air plane we don´t even know if the lifting devices had anything to do with it, but the manner in which they both came down is very similar.

Would a loss of Hydraulics make the lifting devices retract, specially the slats in a 737-200? If the aircraft was overweight (as per the history of the airline´s behavior told by the ex-employees seems to have been routine) and suddenly all lifting devices disappear, I believe the crash would be pretty similar to this one. Since the pilots would not know the wings were clean, they would keep raising the nose until a stall with no forward motion developed.

A thrust reverser engaging by itself would not produce this type of crash sequence. The plane would not suddenly loose all lift. Remember the TAM F-100 in CGH.

AR385 wrote:

MalevTU134 wrote:

AR385 wrote:

It resembles the Trident crash in London in 1972. There was no fire,and it was a low energy impact, but still everybody died due to back and neck injuries (compression) By the way, the cause was premature retraction of the slats and a subsequent stall with the impossibility of recovering due to the T.tail.

Same-same but different. Very different, in fact. The Trident entered deep stall at roughly 1700 feet and fell helplessly from there. This 737-200 at HAV barely made 100 feet from the looks of it ("barely took off from the runway", according to witnesses). Also, the Trident made 162 knots when first entering the stall (it stalled 3 times within a few seconds), and I guess that forward motion was increased as it fell. This crash in HAV seems to have been that of an aircraft making a weird 180 degree turn, thereby losing most of its forward momentum at, maybe, 100 feet.
Both aircraft probably stalled, but the similarities end there.

Of course. My intention was not to be too detailed. The point I was trying to make, is that these two aircraft experienced such a total loss of lift that they literally fell from the sky. The Trident had no forward motion as it was pancaking into the ground nose high. Literally, it "settled". It looks by the video this 737 did the same. It just settled into the ground with no forward motion. Sure, many things are different, starting with the aircraft, which are not similar, so the stall behavior must be different too. but the crash sequence seems similar. The issue becomes what can produce such a sudden loss of lift? In the Staines crash we know someone in the cockpit retracted the slats. In the case of the Global Air plane we don´t even know if the lifting devices had anything to do with it, but the manner in which they both came down is very similar.

Would a loss of Hydraulics make the lifting devices retract, specially the slats in a 737-200? If the aircraft was overweight (as per the history of the airline´s behavior told by the ex-employees seems to have been routine) and suddenly all lifting devices disappear, I believe the crash would be pretty similar to this one. Since the pilots would not know the wings were clean, they would keep raising the nose until a stall with no forward motion developed.

A thrust reverser engaging by itself would not produce this type of crash sequence. The plane would not suddenly loose all lift. Remember the TAM F-100 in CGH.

Why wouldn't the pilots know that the slats/flaps have been retracted (if that was the case)? Surely there must be indicators for this, and stall warnings. Whether they can do anything about it with practically no altitude is another question.

Re the thrust reverser being activated: on the F100 with its engines mounted near the centreline, a thrust reverser doesn't create a big lateral momentum. This is a bigger issue in case of a wing-mounted engine.

For many reasons. the alarms may not have sounded (I´m inclined to think this is the case) Or the situation was such that they had no time to react. Or maybe they reacted but the lifting devices remained stuck. I don´t think such a rust bucket aircraft operated by a cowboy company would care too much for alarms that do not work. As for the F-100, thrust reverser deployment affects more depending if the thrust reverser is forward or behind the wing. As in the Lauda Air crash. As well as the position of the engines that you mentioned. The thrust reverser devices on the 737-200 are well behind the wing.

Without having an example in my head, I do think there have been a number of commercial crashes over the years where either warnings were ignored, they were misunderstood, or they were disabled.

Gonzalo, I respectully disagree. The airplane WAS a rust bucket and the airline WAS a cowboy company. Everybody knows that and it has been mentioned before in this thread. They certainly not were an AeroMéxico or a LAN plane. As for the respect of the crew, I don´t agree with your assertion, as they were as much a victim of this crash as was every person on board. I don´t see any "utterly bad taste" when one mentions the state of the aircraft and its company. Even if at the end those factors are not the reason and it has nothing to do with the cause of the crash, it is not disrespectful to mention the facts as they are.

I do resent your attempt to exercise censure.

Apprentice wrote:

Hi: The New York Times’ picture: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/worl ... id=article

Rgds

From the article:

Mr. Farinas said that Cuban officials even decided in the past against working with the Mexican company, Damojh Aerolíneas, also known as Global Air, after the flight crew that came with the lease got lost in the air on one trip. But they eventually reversed the decision, he said, “probably out of desperation.”

It doesn’t sound like they had the best crews, either.

PlanesNTrains wrote:

Without having an example in my head, I do think there have been a number of commercial crashes over the years where either warnings were ignored, they were misunderstood, or they were disabled.

LAPA at AEP

MalevTU134 wrote:

joejosh999 wrote:

Well I believe they were finding body fragments in the trees. While it was certainly not hitting a mountain at 450 mph, it was dropping upside down from 100 or more feet. Those Gs are not surviveable, and certainly not comparable to a landing or TO incident.

Sorry, where did you see the upside-down part in the video?

At the very end. You will see the left wing flip up and over, inverting the aircraft as it drops out of view. Even from 100 ft those Gs will likely be unsurvive-able.

joejosh999 wrote:

MalevTU134 wrote:

joejosh999 wrote:

Well I believe they were finding body fragments in the trees. While it was certainly not hitting a mountain at 450 mph, it was dropping upside down from 100 or more feet. Those Gs are not surviveable, and certainly not comparable to a landing or TO incident.

Sorry, where did you see the upside-down part in the video?

At the very end. You will see the left wing flip up and over, inverting the aircraft as it drops out of view. Even from 100 ft those Gs will likely be unsurvive-able.

Eeeh...3 persons did survive...
Kind of contradicts at least the unsurvivable part.
I honestly don't see it invert.
And there are witnesses talking about the plane landing on its belly with a slight nose-down attitude. (I know... witnesses are not always reliable...)

Trident crash the aircraft mushed in straight ahead. This aircraft fell off a wing and inverted. Very different conclusion though the causes may be similar.

Indeed hi impact crashes sometimes have a couple of survivors, often in the part of the aircraft that hit last, such as tail in a nose-down. Or smaller persons/children as de-celeration forces are less if the mass of the individual is less, plus being smaller the seat may provide some more protection.
But the notion that many survived this impact only to die from smoke/fire is nonsense.

Watch the last moments of the video. The view is looking to the underside of the aircraft. Nose is to the let. Left wing is to the right and the side slip is so extreme the aircraft appears to be flying backwards. Left wing rises up and over as AC inverts.

joejosh999 wrote:

Indeed hi impact crashes sometimes have a couple of survivors, often in the part of the aircraft that hit last, such as tail in a nose-down. Or smaller persons/children as de-celeration forces are less if the mass of the individual is less, plus being smaller the seat may provide some more protection.
But the notion that many survived this impact only to die from smoke/fire is nonsense.

Except, this wasn't a "hi impact" crash.

joejosh999 wrote:

Watch the last moments of the video. The view is looking to the underside of the aircraft. Nose is to the let. Left wing is to the right and the side slip is so extreme the aircraft appears to be flying backwards. Left wing rises up and over as AC inverts.

Let's agree on that one of us needs glasses...
If anything, the left wing is lowered at the end, making the aircraft more level. No sign of the plane inverting. And from there, I guess it falls straight down...(when it is out of view)

MalevTU134 wrote:

joejosh999 wrote:

At the very end. You will see the left wing flip up and over, inverting the aircraft as it drops out of view. Even from 100 ft those Gs will likely be unsurvive-able.

Eeeh...3 persons did survive...
Kind of contradicts at least the unsurvivable part.
I honestly don't see it invert.
And there are witnesses talking about the plane landing on its belly with a slight nose-down attitude. (I know... witnesses are not always reliable...)

Only one survivor is still alive. If 99% of passengers die, it's effectively an unsurvivable crash.

Gonzalo wrote:

AR385 wrote:

Gonzalo, I respectully disagree. The airplane WAS a rust bucket and the airline WAS a cowboy company. Everybody knows that and it has been mentioned before in this thread. They certainly not were an AeroMéxico or a LAN plane. As for the respect of the crew, I don´t agree with your assertion, as they were as much a victim of this crash as was every person on board. I don´t see any "utterly bad taste" when one mentions the state of the aircraft and its company. Even if at the end those factors are not the reason and it has nothing to do with the cause of the crash, it is not disrespectful to mention the facts as they are.

I do resent your attempt to exercise censure.

Hi AR385, you’re free to disagree, as I am, no problem, I really appreciate we can disagree with mutual respect and always thinking this is just an aviation forum and not a boxing match. By the way the censure wasn’t my intention at all, just my opinion, which I sustain, regarding the cowboy qualification to a dead crew without having all the facts at hand. If the black boxes show the take off configuration warning alarm screaming for the whole take off roll ( a la LV-WRZ crash in Buenos Aires ), then I will recognize the crew was reckless and deserve the cowboy title.
Re the chance of the people on board to survive this crash, strange things happens, just remember the JAL 747 crashed near Tokio with 583 deaths and 1 survivor.
Rgds.
G.

Hello Gonzalo. Yes, it is very nice to be able to disagree and have a civil exposition of the argumentos on both sides. In this site, lt´s also very strange. But we´ve been doing it for years, you and I. Just a clarification. I never mentioned the crew being a "cowboy crew" What I mentioned is that the company that employed was a "cowboy company".

Regards.

Question: in the early moments of this tragedy, many of us were furiously trying to figure out which aircraft this was. There were a lot of departures at this time. Did the pilots of the other aircraft see this plane go down? Will they be interviewed?

Also, I wish that video were not cropped so tightly. Another 3 or 4 seconds after would have been useful.

I still can't quite tell what I'm looking at -- the plane looks like it's going backwards to me, and it looks like (if I'm right that it's going backwards), the left wing is up, and then slams downward, likely as the right wing impacts. I don't see an inversion.

This is just my conclusion/speculation on this video, but I think that the plane did get to an altitude before stalling or whatever happened, so I doubt the flaps were a cause. I would be extremely unlikely, but what if they retracted on the right side? It sure looks like a sudden event, so at this point it could be this, a thrust reverser deployment or a stall due to a high AoA or low thrust. Again, just my two cents.

What a horrible last few seconds.

MalevTU134 wrote:

joejosh999 wrote:

Watch the last moments of the video. The view is looking to the underside of the aircraft. Nose is to the let. Left wing is to the right and the side slip is so extreme the aircraft appears to be flying backwards. Left wing rises up and over as AC inverts.

Let's agree on that one of us needs glasses...
If anything, the left wiwng is lowered at the end, making the aircraft more level. No sign of the plane inverting. And from there, I guess it falls straight down...(when it is out of view)

Maybe you saw a different video.
But the one I saw, wing on the right is the left wing. Aircraft moving rightwards in the video, which since we are looking from below means the aircraft is leading w the port wing.

If you don't see that wing rise up and invert at the last moment, perhaps you were looking at some different video.
But the one I saw is fairly classic for an asymmetric thrust side-slip and invert. Such as when the left engine produced more thrust than the right.

OA940 wrote:

This is just my conclusion/speculation on this video, but I think that the plane did get to an altitude before stalling or whatever happened, so I doubt the flaps were a cause. I would be extremely unlikely, but what if they retracted on the right side? It sure looks like a sudden event, so at this point it could be this, a thrust reverser deployment or a stall due to a high AoA or low thrust. Again, just my two cents.

What a horrible last few seconds.

Some witnesses described a climb to about 2-300 feet and flight time of about 10 seconds. Roll left and then sharp right turn.....Could be flaps, and yes they could retract on one side (I think) if hyd pressure was lost on that side, but defer to 732 drivers. Maybe a simple V1 cut who knows. But they train for that and should be able to climb out?....That video did seem to show pretty asymmetric thrust however. It's hard to explain. An in-flight TR deploy would require a LOT to go wrong. That's unlikely but anything is possible.

The NTSB usually gives a public readout of the essence of the CVR and a summary of the FDR. Both should have been read out by now. Am I missing anything, or are the authorities here being surprisingly-quiet?

joejosh999 wrote:

MalevTU134 wrote:

joejosh999 wrote:

Watch the last moments of the video. The view is looking to the underside of the aircraft. Nose is to the let. Left wing is to the right and the side slip is so extreme the aircraft appears to be flying backwards. Left wing rises up and over as AC inverts.

Let's agree on that one of us needs glasses...
If anything, the left wiwng is lowered at the end, making the aircraft more level. No sign of the plane inverting. And from there, I guess it falls straight down...(when it is out of view)

Maybe you saw a different video.
But the one I saw, wing on the right is the left wing. Aircraft moving rightwards in the video, which since we are looking from below means the aircraft is leading w the port wing.

If you don't see that wing rise up and invert at the last moment, perhaps you were looking at some different video.
But the one I saw is fairly classic for an asymmetric thrust side-slip and invert. Such as when the left engine produced more thrust than the right.

I watched the vid over and over and I have to agree with you. The plane comes into the frame with the left side towards the camera. The right wing drops and in the last few moments the nose drops causing the plane to nose dive towards the ground. In the last few frames when the plane is at the tree line you can see the left wing going up and turning. You can clearly see it when playing the vid at 0.25 speed.

I'm not sure at what altitude the plane could have been but I don't believe it was a slight nose down belly landing considering how it dissapears behind the tree line.

Just my 2 cents

Given the facts:
- the AC followed a flight trajectory quite similar to that of the Spanair MD at MAD, albeit reaching a higher height because of wing-mounted engines
- Global Air’s well known record for poor maintenance
- There is only one state-run ground handling company in Cuba (ECASA if memory serves), and they are familiar with all the Boeing 737 variants
- The vertical stabilizer is “only” damaged by post impact fire, meaning a high vertical, low forward speed at impact, and the right roll seen on the video’s last frames

HYPOTHESES (in capitals, not wanting to be crucified), in no particular order:

Flaps/slats not configured for weight, runway and high temperature conditions, could also apply to takeoff speeds miscalculation
Uncommanded flap/slat retraction either on both wings or one side only due to mechanical failure. Could also apply to flaps being retracted before reaching a safe flight speed
Uncommanded ENG2 thrust reverser deployment, or lock pin failure allowing the reverser clamps to displace from stowed position into partially open

Given the ACs rotation and the vertical fin’s final resting position, it could be assumed that the surviving passengers were seated in the rearmost left side rows