Kenneth_2003 said:

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Auto pilot is great, but I think the fact that it's engaged for 99.5% of a flight is putting too many "technicians" in the cockpit and not enough "aviators."

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Without it I would have quit long before I did lol.

expresswrittenconsent said:

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TxAg20 said:

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It's either something I've always had or acquired through elementary school fights. I'm not sure which.

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jack reacher, is that you?

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Maybe Ender Wiggin?

Burnsey said:

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gomerschlep said:

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80sGeorge said:

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gomerschlep said:

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Was talking to one of our FW pilots today. The plane was on a totally normal approach at about 6500ft then made a nose down pitch. Hit the bay basically flying straight down. In a cargo aircraft my mind always jumps to unsecured payload or a cargo shift, but I don't think that could be so severe as to pitch straight down so suddenly.

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If CG shift is out then it sounds like loss of elevator control somehow, right?

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It's been mentioned on here before, but a CG shift would most likely take place and have the most detrimental effect on take-off, not during a standard descent. It sounds like whatever happened it was very sudden. I also don't really think it was intentional. If I was a pilot and wanted to commit suicide I would have crashed it into one of the large refineries nearby, not the bay.

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Don't fly with this guy.

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I'm not a pilot, and never said I was.

Have I missed any news... have the flight data recorders been found yet?

Probably been asked already but if this were carrying cargo that caught fire or exploded, could that have caused the crash, or would the pilots have had time to communicate that to ATC?

I spoke with an airplane mechanic today that works at IAH airport and he said he is guessing a water spout or mini tornado.

Don't kill the messenger just telling what he said. He said they have been told not to speak to any media.

EMY92 said:

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Depends on the cargo. An MRAP that broke free on takeoff took down a 747 very quickly when leaving Bagram. The nose went up and there was nothing that could be done to level the plane.

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Any chance of pushing nose down in this situation?

dradkins said:

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I spoke with an airplane mechanic today that works at IAH airport and he said he is guessing a water spout or mini tornado.

Don't kill the messenger just telling what he said. He said they have been told not to speak to any media.

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That makes sense as there was a frontal boundary moving thru the Houston area at the time of the crash. Was not a solid line of storms but there were storms scattered along the front as it past thru. Eerie timing.

AgLA06 said:

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EMY92 said:

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Depends on the cargo. An MRAP that broke free on takeoff took down a 747 very quickly when leaving Bagram. The nose went up and there was nothing that could be done to level the plane.

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Any chance of pushing nose down in this situation?

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That crash was unrecoverable if I'm reading Wikipedia correctly. Two things happened, 1) load shift making a pitch up stall and 2) load shifted cargo disabled the rear flight controls.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Airlines_Flight_102

dradkins said:

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I spoke with an airplane mechanic today that works at IAH airport and he said he is guessing a water spout or mini tornado.

Don't kill the messenger just telling what he said. He said they have been told not to speak to any media.

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I don't think they were anywhere near the squall line. And isn't a waterspout simply a tornado over water?

Damn. That looks bad.

danieljustin06 said:

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TxAg20 said:

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Looking at the storm this plane was looking to avoid, it could have been dissipating or in "gust out phase" which can cause severe wind shear. This is the storm phase that caused the L-1011 crash going into DFW years ago.

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This was my first thought. Possibly a microburst.

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August 1985. Delivering pizza that day not far from the airport, keeping up with the news over the radio during my delivery runs. I almost got hit by a fire vehicle (not service engine; Suburban type) apparently headed out to the scene before I knew anything about it. However, the Delta plane in that crash was only a few hundred feet off the ground when it hit the microburst.

What I thought was amazing about that crash was the news interviewed a passenger who survived. He was being carted off to an ambulance and the news guy asked him what he thought happened. The guy said something like, "I think we had a wind shear..." I had never heard of that before. But then again, I was only 18 at the time.

jabberwalkie09 said:

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AgLA06 said:

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EMY92 said:

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Depends on the cargo. An MRAP that broke free on takeoff took down a 747 very quickly when leaving Bagram. The nose went up and there was nothing that could be done to level the plane.

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Any chance of pushing nose down in this situation?

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That crash was unrecoverable if I'm reading Wikipedia correctly. Two things happened, 1) load shift making a pitch up stall and 2) load shifted cargo disabled the rear flight controls.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Airlines_Flight_102

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The MRAP broke through the pressure bulkhead and broke or dislodged the jack screw for the elevators. All control to the rear flight controls that handle pitch were severed. The plane in that crash was uncontrollable.

My dad was a witness on that one.

Wow that's crazy! When they said nose dive I wasn't thinking that extreme.

So ... we have a presumably intact aircraft dropping out the sky nose down.

Where does that leave us as far as viable theories?

Kenneth_2003 said:

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jabberwalkie09 said:

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AgLA06 said:

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EMY92 said:

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Depends on the cargo. An MRAP that broke free on takeoff took down a 747 very quickly when leaving Bagram. The nose went up and there was nothing that could be done to level the plane.

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Any chance of pushing nose down in this situation?

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That crash was unrecoverable if I'm reading Wikipedia correctly. Two things happened, 1) load shift making a pitch up stall and 2) load shifted cargo disabled the rear flight controls.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Airlines_Flight_102

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The MRAP broke through the pressure bulkhead and broke or dislodged the jack screw for the elevators. All control to the rear flight controls that handle pitch were severed. The plane in that crash was uncontrollable.

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Here's a better information source:
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/AAR1501.aspx

Stat Monitor Repairman said:

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So ... we have a presumably intact aircraft dropping out the sky nose down.

Where does that leave us as far as viable theories?

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Loss of control or intentional dive and I'm going to speculate intentional dive is very unlikely in that phase of flight.

What is not discernible in that video is if the aircraft is truly intact. A loss of elevator or horizontal stabilizer component(s) could cause the plane to nose over.

This video shows the plane in a steep descent well before the squall line.

GSPag` said:

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I live in Anahuac. No one has come forward claiming to have seen a water spout.

I was also in the squall line right before the crash. It was passing through Mont Belvieu. And it was moving NE. It came out of nowhere. Then was gone.

Canyon, I have seen that video. Amazing he has that info.

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I don't think it's that amazing. Flight Aware and other sites routinely track aircraft. For around $100 you can build an ADS-B receiver and track any ADS-B equipped aircraft within 100 miles or so, depending on antennae.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3105582/raspberry-pi-in-the-sky-how-to-build-this-awesome-115-airplane-tracker.html

Another site:

https://www.adsbexchange.com/

Yeah. That makes sense to me. Some component got pushed past its limit and catastrophic failure occurred.

Did the squall have something to do with it? My guess is more likely than not. The squall probably wouldnt cause the crash on its own, but it probably did push some specific component to fail.

That would be my best guess based on what we know so far.

I live on the west shore of trinity bay. I'm out of town but my but my wife said debris has started to wash up along our bulkhead.

I wonder if the crash investigators want any of the debris, or if they consider it unnecessary

They do. Sheriff's dept and search and rescue are actively in the area picking up the debris.

CanyonAg77 said:

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I wonder if the crash investigators want any of the debris, or if they consider it unnecessary

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I watch too many air disaster episodes. This crash seems strange esp if the black boxes don't yield any new info. They'll want every piece they can get

Quote:

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Sheriff Hawthorne appreciates the help and commitment of the Houston Police Department Dive Team pictured starting the grid search on hands and knees at the site of the crash of flight 3591 in Trinity Bay.

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Still looking for the FDR and CVR boxes.

I think it was the show Ultimate Disasters or something like that would show the wreck and then show how and what caused it. Learned that the FAA will take their time to determine this and will want every piece of evidence