While flying to Ft Bliss after a Qatar deployment, our plane suffered a hard landing in New Hampshire, http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20180727-1 I was seated just behind 1st class and just a few rows in front of where the fuselage buckled. What say the experts on the forces experienced causing that level of damage? Still waiting on checked baggage to get released pending completion of the investigation.
Wow, I hope everyone is OK. Were you or any other passengers injured?
No injuries, maybe some soreness but that could just be from being stuck in various planes for about 24 hours.
When it happened I thought we had blown a tire or something like that but then we saw the outside of the plane.
Who KNEW you could land a 767 in NH!!! :eek:
I’m glad that you, and all the other soldiers, are OK.
Glad you’re on the up and up. I do find it funny that they have photos from US Army WTF moments.
Glad you are home okay.
We were supposed to leave Qatar on the 25th, and get to Ft Bliss early on the 26th, we didn’t end up leaving Qatar until the 26th and didn’t get to Bliss until the 28th. Between being the NCOIC for the group and getting old and not being able to sleep on planes anymore, the only sleep I got between the 26th morning (Qatar time) and night time on the 28th (mountain time) was four hours of sleep on the 27th in Indiana at a hotel outside of an Air Force base.
From the incident report, it sounds like it was a charter flight? FRA-PSM isn’t something you see on the sandwich board signs often.
Why land in NH? It looks like the ER versions, which this seems to be one, would be able to do the Frankfurt-El Paso leg. Unless you guys were really heavy? Or this was a really tired older version of the 767.
I have only flown on 767s a few times. I know the longer versions of the 737 have issues because they can drag the tail on rough landings and take offs.
I just watch the faces on the flight attendants. They aren’t as concerned about not showing that something is up anymore. You can see in their faces when something aint kosher.
I would say we were pretty heavy, almost every seat was filled, most had weapons and not all bags were able to fit in the belly of the plane.
The folks at Pease were super nice and had tons of coffee and snacks for us.
I used to fly for Atlas, but was on the 747, not the 767.
I believe all of the pax 767 Atlas has are 300ER versions. Can go about 6k miles. Google says Hahn to El Paso is 5500 miles. Thats stretching it if you need alternate gas(you almost always carry an alternate on over water and then “re-dispatch” near coast in).
A lot of those stops are crew duty day stops. My guess(without knowing the crew schedule) is they flew from Qatar to Hahn to PSM, then another crew was scheduled to take the plane on to ELP.
I did one out of Kuwait City to Al Udeid then on to Ramstein. We got off, new crew on, and they were going on to Baltimore.
I heard a bit about this accident, but I cant share it since the investigation is on-going.
A buddy of mine who works in the aerospace industry thinks the hydraulics in the front strut failed causing it to bottom out with no resistance when the pilot pushed down through the ground effect the second time which was when we heard and felt the loud bang of the fuselage crumpling.
I’m definitely interested in finding out the final determination on this as this is the sort of stuff I’m currently going to school for. One thing I was looking for and didn’t see was distortion to the fuselage on the bottom, was expecting to see the metal stretched out on the bottom of it under where it crumpled. Maybe the paint just hid it though.
Thats not what I am hearing, but again, I wont comment on an ongoing investigation. Your comment about “the second time” is where the issue lies…
I am a trained accident/incident investigator and I dont want to speculate. BUT what I am hearing is it wasnt an issue with the airplane, well, until the airplane bent at least…
Been a while since I flew the 767… BUT… Based on the last two posts, my swag (complete swag)… You have to land the mains (rear wheels) then “fly” the nosewheel down. If you don’t fly the nosewheel down, it can hit really hard. If that happens, it won’t matter if there is fluid in the strut or not. That in is’t self can buckle the metal if it’s hard enough. If i had to bet $5, this would be my guess.
Or… It could have looked like this… Oops. https://youtu.be/Jw-aUVa3a0U
Either way, I’m glad no one was seriously hurt.
That looks an awful lot like how it felt. Am I correct in my belief that the airframe is considered totaled after something like that? Even if it is repairable I would imagine that it wouldn’t be cost effective for a 26 year old bird.
Shirley, you must be kidding…
From what I hear its more the first and not the second.
The flight data recorder will show exactly what occurred and will probably confirm what I am hearing from my buddies that are still there and still have contacts there.
That crease will buff right out, a bunch of upholstery however I’m sure is a total loss.
Maybe rjacobs has some insight, but charter/cargo operators do tend to operate birds at the “older” end of the spectrum, though I can’t imagine they’d put much money into fixing a 26 year-old 767 even if it was an option. The 300ERs are being dumped pretty regularly on the used market with less time on the frame. Just like with modern medicine, I’m more scared of operator error than whatever is the actual procedure and equipment used: Whether it’s an appendectomy or hurtling a huge metal tube laden with combustible liquid into to the air with me on it and landing it safely, the errors that occur are most likely on the human end.
To the OP, glad you ended up making it to your destination safely.