Classic British Flight Sim

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-20320666

Ian

Congonhas again...

Glad noone was seriously hurt...

Cheers,

Nick

Oo-er

What the heck had he tried to do.. takeoff again?

ATB
DaveB

I think he just ran off the runway with enough speed to semi fly...like an extreme long jump due to the rapidly falling terrain. More of a slow fall than a drop off.

Close call, a fire would have changed things in an instant.

Ah yes.. difficult to tell from that footage. Just did a quick Google Earth (as you do) and from the road he hit with the impact mark on to the runway end, there's a drop of around 9mtrs.. a few more down to the wall he stopped on. He still seemed to be going darned fast though.. fast enough for the aircraft to become airbourne as the ground fell away. As you say.. a fire would have changed everything wouldn't it.

ATB
DaveB

There is a Brazilian post which shows footage from a second or so earlier and shows what did happen. It looks as though at the very end of the runway there is a lip or ramp . The aircraft was launched into a heavily nose up attitude by this , and climbed perhaps 15 feet or so , and , presumably well and truly stalled , it then fell back with a terrible crash and broke up. Report suggests that the Captain was in fact seriously injured, so not perhaps as lucky as all that, bearing in mind that a vertical crash offers the highest chance of spinal injuries

apparently the brakes failed

Yes.. I read that too.

How many disaster films have we seen where an airliner is hurtling toward the end of the runway with something or other broke. They usually have working brakes though and stop an inch from catastrophe I can't say I've ever tried landing a real aircraft either with or without brakes so I don't really have any idea how long it takes to come to a stop without such aides. I know the VC10 crews at Brize ease off using the brakes to save on wear.. or they did anyway. Too many variables really. Looks like this little tinker may have a rather high landing speed on a rather short runway. Easy enough to stop with brakes but nigh on impossible without.

Looking at the film, I found it hard to believe that they all walked out. The Captain being injured doesn't surprise me.. anyone being injured for that matter.

ATB
DaveB

Here's a story about 35L ...
(although the Citation supposedly landed 35R)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCXC4FwFWW4

Cheers,

Nick

Deary me.. what a god-awful place it is. Thanks for that Nick.. it certainly explaines why he seemed to be going so fast.. the runway was so short!

ATB
DaveB