Another Airline Crash

[cmpbellsjc 2,961]

A few samples someone filmed from inside the aircraft, second video corresponding outside views.

I’m rather surprised that considering what was going on this person even had interest in filming with a raging fire.

 

 

 

[Oracle427 45]

14 hours ago, HighBypass said:

The human race is quite selfish, with just a thin veneer of civilised society holding it together. Most of us on here would like to think that we would evacuate a stricken plane in a timely manner, myself included. However, I've not been in that situation. Would I have the common sense to leave that valuable trinket in the hand luggage where it is? I would hope that common sense would kick in and tell me yes. I would hope that I do what I can to assist my family members if any are travelling with me.

Heck, it would be nice if we get chance to help others. Then again evacuating in a timely manner will help others still on the plane..

I agree, though I'm not 100% sure that selfish is accurate. I think that people in general are not trained or conditioned on how to react in real emergencies. They have no concrete plans in their minds about what they will do right now if something really bad happens. They may know, I have to leave, but how exactly, and where to, which way, how does that door open again? Why can't I breath? Maybe I should get my coat... Hey wait your turn!

Panic causes people to do very strange things. I have never experienced or witnessed panic except for on Sept 11th. I worked in tower 7 on the 34th floor and was at my desk from the start.

Initially receive thought it was a bomb or an amazing plane crash. No one knew what happened and no one knew what danger we were in. The sights and sounds were completely foreign. The huge hole in the side of the tower where the plane went in that was barely burning yet left is speculating for several minutes.

Confusion had set in. No one was thinking of evacuation and some had started to gather their belongings.

Next a senior manager suggested we should evacuate. That statement snapped everyone into action and we all started organizing ourselves to find the exit stairwell to head down 34 flights. For the time being everything was okay. I found myself with a 7 months pregnant colleague who I aided until we left the premises and made our way north on foot.

Things hit the fan when we reached the downstairs lobby. This was a 3 story glass facade with 2 banks of stairs and escalators facing directly at the World Trade Center. Things were no longer orderly as the press of humanity sought a way out. Unfortunately all the people exits faced the WTC. There was no way out as there was a lot of debris on the street and the doorways were blocked. The crowd was yelling, shoving and had no direction to go. We were frozen and confused once again, but panic had not yet set in. I asked my colleague to place her back against a large column in the lobby for protection whole I stood in front of her.

Within a minute or two the lobby lit up and I felt intense heat as if a hot oven had been opened right in my face. This was the fireball from the second aircraft filling the sky over our building 70ish stories above. I heard chilling screams and watched a mass of humanity reeling backwards from the glass lobby entrance. Debris started raining down and striking the glass. Panic began to set in.

I watched office workers begin to climb the sides of the stairs and escalators in an attempt to flee. A huge number of people started to rush on to the escalators while the building sector vainly tried to stop them and control the crowd. Suddenly one of the escalator tracks gave way and sent a wave of bodies washing back down head over heels onto the ground floor right in front of the glass entrance.

People stood up and immediately started fighting, fist fighting, with each other. The sector guards were being yelled at and physically assaulted. I could hear people yelling and pleading for a way out over the chaos.

I don't know for sure how long we were in that lobby, but eventually there was movement toward the west side and there were yells about an exit. That seemed to somewhat calm the crowd and everyone slowly started making their way to the small number of exits in the rear of the building.

Once outside most people froze again barely one block away from the buildings. I kept taking my colleague North away from the buildings for about 4-5 blocks and then we parted ways as she met with several other people she knew. I had no intention of going further away at that moment. Everyone around me was clearly as shocked as I was.

We were all fortunate that a firefighter that was sprinting toward the towers stopped to tell at all of us to get away from the area and move North as the towers were unstable and dangerous. He yelled at the huge crowd until we started moving and then resumed sprinting to the burning buildings just a few blocks away. I still wonder what happened to him.

I reflect on this a lot, and I make it a point to take my mind through the process of finding all the exits, making my way out and where I will go in case of a serious emergency where I may not be able to see or count on all the options. Your body can't go where your mind has not been. I learned that the people around you may be the biggest threat to your safety, and you may need to direct them in simple and clear terms to move to a specific saafe location to get them moving. Pleading for calm or help does no one any good it just sows confusion.

All that said, I have no illusions that any of this would have significantly changed the outcome of this particular crash. They were engulfed in flames right from the start and the cabin was supposedly compromised before the evacuation even started. Might another life or two have been saved if everyone moved faster and with a purpose? Some of the witness accounts suggest that could have been the case. Anyone that stopped to retrieve belongings likely did it because that is what one normally does when leaving a plane. Those people just haven't been properly conditioned to otherwise while under extreme stress. I hope never to have to test any of this in a real plane crash scenario. There is no means to get around a tube full of irrational panicked people and you just have to hope that the crew can maintain enough control over the situation to lead the evacuation.

[3Green 80]

Very sad...

RJ.

Edited May 9, 2019 by 3Green

[mabe54 17]

... struck by lightning, my foot...

I think the plane took it as much as it could but there are limits to everything. Piloting, not so good. 

Cheers,

[John_Cillis 2,406]

On 5/6/2019 at 11:06 PM, lzamm said:

They mostly are, which is why I don't particularly believe that version of events.

Having said that, this immunity depends on there being a low-resistance path for the current through the aircraft structure, the currents involved are enormous and it only takes a small resistance to create large electric fields and consequent problems.  This has been made harder with the advent of composite components, the composites themselves are normally made conducting but bonding to the remainder of the structure now becomes critical.  It's a problem that gets worse with age (not a factor in this case) but may also be the result of bad workmanship.

 

Aircraft, even GA aircraft, build up incredible static even without lightning, even with static wicks.  My CFI said he was knocked flat after a flight in my trainer when he touched the wrong part of the aircraft after the flight, the discharge wick on the landing gear had been bent out of place.   A lightning strike may or may not have caused an issue, I feel weather was most certainly involved and to nail Russian aircraft design just for the sake of being an armchair a/c mechanic is not always a good posture in an aviation investigation, just look at Boeing's issues, an American aircraft.

John

[threexgreen 3,139]

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/crashed-superjets-pitch-fluctuated-before-fatal-tou-458282/

[lzamm 143]

On ‎5‎/‎18‎/‎2019 at 3:51 AM, John_Cillis said:

Aircraft, even GA aircraft, build up incredible static even without lightning, even with static wicks.  My CFI said he was knocked flat after a flight in my trainer when he touched the wrong part of the aircraft after the flight, the discharge wick on the landing gear had been bent out of place.   A lightning strike may or may not have caused an issue, I feel weather was most certainly involved and to nail Russian aircraft design just for the sake of being an armchair a/c mechanic is not always a good posture in an aviation investigation, just look at Boeing's issues, an American aircraft.

John

No argument with any of that - and I'm certainly not into slagging off anybody, Russian or American.

If you have any argument with what I actually wrote - that modern aircraft systems are largely immune to lightning strikes (even though CFI's may not be ), that the said immunity is harder to achieve with composites, and that the said composites are very sensitive to workmanship issues - please let me know.

If a lightning strike is indeed implicated in this incident, it will be interesting to know why it had this catastrophic effect when it shouldn't have. 

 

 

[KevinAu 441]

1 hour ago, lzamm said:

 

If a lightning strike is indeed implicated in this incident, it will be interesting to know why it had this catastrophic effect when it shouldn't have. 

 

 

Well, the catastrophe occurred when the pilot made a high bounce on landing but failed to reject the landing from that. The lightning strike did not cause the flames. It was the pilot losing control of the aircraft and then breaking it in half on the third or fourth bounce.

With respect to the lightning strike, what they do need to look at is why the plane was not sufficiently protected to prevent the loss of enough avionics to cause the pilots to have to make an emergency landing under partial instruments, abnormal flaps and/or degraded flight controls.