C-5 Crash in Dover Delaware, Any Thoughts?

[trimtab]

I don't recall many C-5's crashing since they joined the Air Force. This plane was loaded with fuel for a trip to Spain, lost an engine after takeoff and landed ("crashed") far short of the runway. It held together pretty well, looking at the crash site photo, and amazingly enough, there was no fire. They must be built like a Nimitz class carrier. What do you think happened? Heavy, low and slow on approach with the possible loss of a second engine - or maybe pilot error as he/she misjudged the landing approach?

www.cnn.com/2006/US/04/03/c5.crash.ap/index.html

[jetmex]

I saw that on the news last night. Read in the paper this morning that there was the possibility of a birdstrike (or multiple birdstrikes) just after takeoff. I'm guessing the airplane was loaded somewhat higher than its' normal peacetime gross weight, so even losing one engine could have had some serious consequences. My guess is engine or engines out, too heavy, too low and too slow. Just ran out of airspeed, altitude and ideas all at the same time. He almost made it back to the runway, though.

I can only remember two other C-5 crashes: One in Vietnam in the mid 70s, and another in Germany in 1990 or so.

[JimCasey]

One reference I saw said there was bird ingestion. One engine failed immediately. The pilot initiated RTB, then two more engines failed on final. One engine will not fly a fully loaded C5. He did a nice job flying it all the way to the ground, tho.

[Grug - American Neanderthal]

Ooh, that will do it.

[jetmex]

An unofficial update from a friend of mine:

It was not a bird ingestion but a "reverser unlock" on the #2 engine that
started this. They lost a C-5 with all aboard a few years back in Germany
for the same cause. This crew however shut down the engine before an
actual unstow took place. The airplane was well over 700K gross weight
with FOB of over 300K. The airplane had the newest version of the C-5
flight deck with big panel glass. Unfortunately, only one of the three
pilots was really comfortable with the new equipment and FMS. (flight management system)
The crew decided because of their weight to fly their approach to the
longest runway, which unfortunately was only being served that day by a
Tacan (fancy VOR for you civilian types) approach. They also decided to
fly a full flap approach to keep the approach speed down. This isn't
prohibited--just highly discouraged. The recommended flap setting for a
three engine approach is Flaps 40. During the approach the crew became
worried about not having enough power to fly a full flap approach and
selected flaps 40--which they were now too slow for. Here's the point all
you glass cockpit guys should sit up and take notice about. The one guy
who was familiar with the new glass and FMS was also the one flying the
aircraft. He became distracted inputting the new approach speed in the
FMS. There was also some confusion about just who was flying the A/C
while
he had his head down updating the speed. Long story short--they got way slow and into the shaker, and actually stuck the tail into the trees and
it departed the aircraft first. The nose pitched down hard and the nose and
left wing impacted next snapping off the nose. Several cockpit occupants
suffered spinal compression injuries. The guys sitting at the crew table
behind the cockpit actually came to a stop with their legs dangling out
over the ground.

The miracle of this was the left outboard fuel tank was broken open and
none of that fuel managed to find something hot enough to ignite it and
the other 300k. Again, a bunch of very lucky people.

So I guess there really is a reason we bitch at guys for hand flying and
making their own MCP (mode control panel) and FMS inputs.

[Wayne]

There is a re consturction using the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder...

bottom line.....poor airmanship

-who ever was managing the thottles, throttled back a perfectly good engine and throttled up the dead engine resulting in a 2 engine approach ...none of the crew caught the error

-full flaps (100%) were selected early in the approach. The captain was unaware, and called for partial flaps quite some time afterwards...again nobody caught the error

-Angle of attack kept increasing, rate of descent kept increasing..nobody noticed nor commented.

Conversations indicate poor crm, poor leadership, failure to recognize the extent of the situation and take corrective action.

[trimtab]

Thanks for all the updates. Hard to imagine this could happen when emergency procedures for one in the bag, especially an inboard engine, is practiced enough I'm sure to be fairly routine.

[Grug - American Neanderthal]

I suppose one bad thing snowballed and once someone failed in their job, others followed suit with mounting confusion and stress. At least that would be my guess. In this case someone killed themself unfortunately.

[brianw517]

Why not take off at a weight within emmediate landing limitations, and then refuel in flight for the longer flights? Kind of like what the fighter pilots do, when taking off with a full load of weapons and have along distance to fly?