Why is the guy so eerily quiet on the YouTube video? You'd think that if you saw something like that happen right in front of you you would say "Hly ****" or something. No?
My son in the USAF says it looks like a dash cam on a security humvee. Apparently the driver had the discipline not to verbalize?
If this was caused by shifting cargo (as seems at least plausible) then its somewhat surprising to me.
These were military vehicles being shipped out, and you would think by now the various uniformed and civilian loadmasters and ground staff would have the necessary tools, equipment, and procedures in place to make sure that something like that never, ever happened.
Then again, Bagram is still technically a war-zone. Planes taking off from there have to sometimes perform a flight pattern designed to avoid ground fire or other hazards. Bagram is also almost 5000 ft above sea level, further complicating take off and landing operations.
I'll tell you my impression is that there are some, what I consider fly by night operators out there who push the limits. I'm not saying this operator is one of them. And I don't know how much in the way of USAF personnel vs Contractors were involved. When I functioned as a Flight Engineer on a B747 Cargo plane, one of my primary preflight duties was to walk the cargo hold and make sure everything was secured properly. I'm not sure who was doing the loading, and I'm not sure who did the flight inspection if it was done at all, but I think it can be surmised that if loading is not done properly, without proper oversight, this can be the end result.
Doesn't look like they tried to recover. Plane stalled and went into the ground. Don't see where they initiated a stall recovery. The nose coming down was a result of the stall. They did manage to get the plane level, but the plane was still stalled all the way into the ground.
I also support the cargo shift theory. Wasn't properly secured, pilots rotated, cargo went to the tail, pilots couldn't lower the nose( due to the severe rear CG), and then the plane stalled.
I mispoke. You are right in that the nose falling could be a result of the stall, but I'm under the impression that when the center of gravity shifts drastically to the rear, the nose can remain up as the plane falls to the ground. I admit to assuming they were pushing the nose down during this time, which they should have been doing to get back to a T.O. pitch (lowering the nose), but not to a nose low position.
Another scenario that plays out along these lines (but I'm not implying this is what happened, just used for example) is windshear near the ground. In those cases a stall, is caused by a weather condition (say a microburst), which puts the aircraft into something that can be described as an artificial situation, or at least a non-normal condition, an extreme downdraft. The pilots max the throttles and hold a T.O. Pitch. This is an attempt to keep the vector of the aircraft away from the ground. Going nose low like this plane did could have been the result of the stall or someone not well versed in stall recoveries close to the ground. More speculation- if they pushed hard rudder to roll the plane and get the nose down, at that point they may have been along for the ride.
possible that a sniper took out a pilot on takeoff causing it to nose up?
Unlikely- Two pilots, and aircraft trimmed for T.O. pitch, it would not naturally pitch up if controls were released.
