National Airlines Flight 102

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
National Airlines Flight 102
Cargo Boeing 747-428 (BCF) of National Airlines clean.jpg

The crashed 747-428BCF (photo from 2012)
Accident summary
Accident type Loss of control in the initial climb
place Bagram Air Base , Afghanistan
date April 29, 2013
Fatalities 7th
Survivors 0
Injured 0
Aircraft
Aircraft type Boeing 747-428BCF
operator National Airlines
Mark N949CA
Departure airport Camp bastion
Stopover Bagram Air Base
Destination airport Dubai Al Maktoum
Passengers 0
crew 7th
Lists of aviation accidents

On April 29, 2013, crashed cargo aircraft of type Boeing 747-428BCF with the air vehicle registration N949CA the US National Airlines shortly after taking off from the US air base in Bagram from. The destination was Dubai Airport (Al Maktoum International Airport). All seven crew members were killed. The accident was then investigated by employees of the Afghan Ministry of Transport in collaboration with experts from the NTSB , the FAA and the aircraft manufacturer Boeing .

the accident

The crash was recorded by a dashcam filming through the windshield of a military vehicle. The video shows how the machine tips over from an extremely steep initial climb and goes into a deep stall. The aircraft can no longer be intercepted, hits the ground at a slow forward speed but at a high rate of descent and goes up in flames. Shortly after the crash, the Afghan Taliban claimed to have shot down the plane as part of a “spring offensive” that began on April 28, 2013. This claim is denied by experts; there is no sign of a kill on the footage.

root cause

The final report of the NTSB published in July 2015 names several factors as the cause of the accident. Due to inadequate load securing, the straps of the rear of the five loaded armored vehicles tore. This slid backwards, breached the rear pressure bulkhead and damaged two hydraulic systems. In addition, the rear bumper of the vehicle collided with the threaded spindle for the trim adjustment of the horizontal tail fin, so that it broke off. As a result, altitude control was no longer possible, which led to the excessive flight attitude and ultimately to the crash. The flight recorders located in the rear of the aircraft did not record any more data just a few seconds after taking off , as their supply lines had also been damaged during the load shift. Initially, it was assumed that the slipping of the cargo had shifted the aircraft's center of gravity so far back that it could no longer be steered. However, this thesis could be refuted by simulations, in which it was found that with intact height control, this situation could have been mastered even with the two failed hydraulic systems in the worst case. The broken threaded rod was therefore identified as the main cause of the crash.

The NTSB also determined that instead of the five military off-road vehicles of the 12-tonne M-ATV type, only one should have been loaded, which would have been secured with 60 lashing straps. However, all loaded vehicles were only secured with 24 or 26 belts each, even though the incorrect regulations of National Airlines required 32 or 46 lashing belts. The loading regulations of Boeing and Telair, the manufacturer of the loading system in the main deck, had not been adopted by National Airlines in their own manuals, which also contained incorrect methods for securing special loads. The Cougar armored car , which is even heavier at 18 tons and of which three were on board, should not have been loaded at all, as the maximum load on the cargo hold floor of the main deck was exceeded.

Prehistory of the aircraft

The machine was delivered to Air France in January 1993 as a passenger aircraft with General Electric CF6 engines . In November 2007 it was converted to a cargo plane (B747-428BCF). In October 2010 it was sold to Air Atlanta Icelandic , which leased the machine to National Air Cargo . As of July 2011, it was transferred to the property of National Air Cargo .

Representation in the media

In the Canadian television series Mayday - Alarm im Cockpit , the accident was recreated in the tenth episode of the 16th season as Afghan Nightmare (German title: Fatal Start in Afghanistan ).

Others

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Crash: National Air Cargo B744 at Bagram on Apr 29th 2013. The Aviation Herald , accessed on May 25, 2013 (English).
  2. ↑ Crash in Afghanistan: amateur video shows the crash of a Boeing 747. Spiegel Online , May 1, 2013, accessed on May 1, 2013 .
  3. ↑ a b Aircraft accident data and report in the Aviation Safety Network (English)
  4. ↑ a b Boeing accident in Afghanistan: A slipped cargo is said to have triggered a jumbo crash. Spiegel Online , May 2, 2013, accessed May 2, 2013 .
  5. ↑ Plane crash in Bagram airfield, Afghanistan. Accessed August 10, 2020 (English).
  6. ↑ How the 747 crashed in Afghanistan , CNN video about the crash (YouTube)
  7. ↑ Crash of a Boeing 747: Experts suspect a slipped load as the reason on spiegel-online.de with video; Online on the Internet: May 2, 2013
  8. ↑ Accident report on ntsb.gov (PDF; 2.6 MB)
  9. ↑ Flight International, September 29, 2015, p. 11: Unsafe load led to Bagram 747 loss (English)
  10. ↑ General information & flightlog on airfleets.net

Coordinates: 34 ° 57 ′ 36 ″  N , 69 ° 16 ′ 37 ″  E