Boeing 747 Cargo Plane Splits In Two During Take Off

An American-owned Boeing 747 cargo plane crashed as it took off at Brussels airport on Sunday and broke apart, but the five-strong crew escaped without injury, airport officials said.

The jumbo jet came to rest at the end of the runway some 500 metres (yards) from housing in the Brussels suburb of Zaventem after the crash, which occurred at 1130 GMT.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[dgscol]

What has not been reported about this, is that the cargo belonged to Bush's friend Sam Fox, who was the Ambassador to Belgium. He probably is hated in Belguim, the cost of gas being about $10/gallon. He was also the guy who underwrote the expenses for paying the Texans who brought up the Swift boat issue against Kerry. His car and other belongings were in the plane, and it was headed for Bahrain - which is where all good Bush people go to collect their reward.

[FZliveson]

Connie Kalitta is a great businessman and has no trouble earning an honest dollar.
His drag racing teams are well-equipped and always competitive. That comes from making
the proper investment in high quality equipment, parts, crew and maintenance. That little
hobby is an offshoot of his airline business. Whatever it was that caused the loud noise, prompted
the well-trained crew to abort the takeoff and prevent loss of life. We'll have to see what the investigation reveals

[AmericaIsATerroist]

I flew for Kalitta in Michigan about 15 years ago. They were a good cargo operation. In my years with them, I never ran into anything questionable. Others I've flown for, not so much.

[domdella]

completely different headline, had they gotten about 10000 feet in the air

[Earl]

Running off the runway is what broke it. It didn't just break in half in the middle of its takeoff run.

[tasukibeth1]

This does nothing to help me with my fear of flying.

[Merckx]

Damn! I hate when that happens.

[clintfatigue]

Is that jet powered by nitro-burning super-charged Dodge Hemis?

[loki]

Wonder if this was another of the many 'Banded' flying wonders that frequent out skies. All airlines, all types of cargo, from human to freight are flying everyday with temp bands holding the fuselages together, that are only meant to be used to get the plane from point A to point of repair B. But they will keep these crates in the air as the money is more important than safety. I have a friend who is a inspector for one of the major American airlines. Its much more common than you would ever want to accept or believe. Longitudinal cracks around the fuselages, and you put a 6 or 8 inch wide aluminum band around the plane with rivets. Slap a little paint on it, give it a quick prayer, and out the door for 100,000 or more miles hoping nothing happens. Management demands it, AP mech is responsible for it, your life rest on a temp bandaid. Wonderful thing to know isnt it.

[11Bush]

I've been in the aviation business for 30 years, worked with several airlines and have have yet to see one of the temporary banded flying wonders you're talking about.

It isn't uncommon for an airplane to have external repair doublers (or patches) installed to repair damage. These doublers may can be permanent or temporary. A temporary repair must be replaced with a permanent repair within a specific time period. Either type of repair must be accomplished by using FAA approved data. In either case the strength of repair must equal that of the original structure.

And by the way, longintudinal cracks run fore and aft. The cracks that run around the fuselage are circumferential cracks.

Your credibility meter is currently reading "zero."

[MajorKong]

Flying cargo is dangerous. You're usually flying very heavily loaded aircraft in addition to carrying a lot of hazardous materials.

[sparkandy]

I unloaded freight from 767s for a while. Sometimes they'd be packed to the roof, from the belly up. And they do fly some dangerous stuff, like biohazard materials. Believe me, when I unloaded trucks the scariest hazmat I ever came in contact with was muriatic acid and paint. The planes I unloaded sometimes had body parts on them!

[MajorKong]

UPS had a DC-8 inflight fire last year and FedEx had a DC-10 burn up a few years ago. Luckily both crews were able to get the planes on the ground before the fire burned through something critical.

[Amennyc]

Thar photo bears an uncanny resemblance to the USA at the moment.

[HatingTheGame]

Well it did say "American-owned" -- probably the last thing we own. Everything else is either sold or pawned as debt.

[Javani]

Given the ultimate destination was Bahrain, I venture a guess the plane was overloaded with heavy American goods. Specifically, crates of bourbon.

[CrazyDemocrat]

It's important to drink plenty of liquids every day

[Henk]

More so the last eight years.

[LeonBNJ]

I am a member of a website that discusses airlines where there has been extensive discussion of this crash. Hopefully as as this was a cargo flight, happened at the airport's edge, the crew is all alive, the recording devices are all easliy available, an investigation should lead to some preliminary conclusions very soon. Adding to the 'stress cracks' causes is that this is an aircraft made in 1980 and a former owner (A Taiwan based airline) has a shady maintence reputation.
Something happened that caused the flight crew to abort their takeoff. An engine stall from mechanical problems, a bird flying into an engine; a variety of mechanical glitches or failures, improper guage readings; a mistake in a flap setting, a tail strike or some other operational mistake by the pilots; also possible is a shift in cargo as not properly secured or securing equipment failure.
Of course with the 'diplomatic' cargo aboard it brings out the conspiracy bugs out of the walls, as well as the NIMBY's in the area of the airport with this flight, and that is nothing new. Lets hope too that the Belgium, EC and USA investigators don't hide the truth due to the cargo that was aboard.

[NaziRegime]

Some points to note:

Kalitta Air is a US military contractor with big $ contracts for moving stuff between USA and Middle East. They aircraft are blocked by FAA from being tracked on Internet flight tracking tools.

This flight was a scheduled flight that stops over in Brussels for refuelling.

Most news reports say cargo type unknown.

A few report cargo was "mail and batteries".

The AFP one is saying Brussels TV reporting 1/2 the cargo was diplomatic, comprising stuff owned by the Ambassador to Belgium (Sam Fox) including a diplomatic vehicle.

I would say the break-up of the plane is due to cargo shifting and the end of the crash. The front of the plane came to a halt, and cargo further down shifted forward and was deflected up be stationary cargo in front, pushing the cargo though the top of the fuselage, snapping it. One of the close up photos of the plane show this.

So they flew the plane half-empty from the USA so Sam Fox could load his stuff during the stopover? Where is Sam Fox moving to, and has this move been announced? He was a guest of President Bush at the recent shindig in Israel, I recall.

[PatHelp101]

This was a CARGO aircraft. No passengers. I flew for Kalitta's (Connie Kalitta, drag racer) passenger company, American International Airline, as a F/A in the 90's, before they went all cargo. The movies "Air Force One" and "Executive Decision" used Kalitta'747's. Charter companies use old aircraft and cannabalize the ones that are no longer airworthy.

[RTIII]

This failure is the result of cycling - the number of times the airframe was pressurized and depressurized - cycles. It could have and should have been caught. A famous example was a Boeing 737 operated by a Hawaiian - um, Aloha? - Airlines back in, oh, about 1993 or so. Two flight attendants lost their lives as they were sucked out, as I recall, but the plane few on after the failure long enough to land safely. I'm guessing it's still in service somewhere.

There are already regulations on the books about the numbers of cycles an airframe can have before it goes in for major overhaul - basically a complete rebuilding. I'm not sure how many cycles it is but its on the order of 10,000 or perhaps 20,000. I can imagine that in Europe, where there are a lot of short-haul flights, an airframe could cycle several times a day and rack up a big number in not too many years...

Note that aircraft in service on long-haul routes like US to Europe - anything literally "over seas" - are much safer because they cycle fewer times before other major components need substantial time and attention - the Hawaiian failure was on a plane used for short trip island hopping...

[HumeSkeptic]

Most likely fatigue cracks from rivets grew, then became long enoth to link up. As you said, number of cycles is an issue, but also, possibly, corrosion. The same number of cycles might be OK in a benign environmenet, but too many in a coorossive environment.

Regardless, this is most likely an inspection and maintenance issue.

[11Bush]

How about waiting until the NTSB finishes its investigation?

[11Bush]

The Aloha incident was in 1989, only one flight attendant was killed, and the airplane was scrapped.