B747 down in South America?

[mushroom]

Not to hijack the thread.. curious what a 200 fully loaded with flowers grosses at compared to a regular load of cargo? I use to see a lot of you guys at the hotel in JFK. Good group of guys..Best of luck!

Q powered -200's have a MTOW of 833K. But taking off out of BOG, you're lucky to be able to make it out of there much heavier than about 700+, especially if the temperature is getting a little warm.

Oh how fondly I remember the end of the runway rushing towards me, with all four engines right at peak EGT...

Also as can be expected, there is an engine out procedure there, briefed in the takeoff briefing, involving a turn off to the left (if taking off towards the north) with no more than 15 degrees of bank, and essentially flying down a valley while you clean up the flaps. Of course, the procedure is based on losing an engine at V1...so if those guys lost an engine at a thousand feet AGL or more as a news story implied (if they lost an engine at all), there would be a lot more decision-making going on as to where to go and what to do.

Speedy recovery to the crew (and former comrades from a different airline).

 

[Rally]

Does anybody know if the airplane crashed on the airport or on the way to the airport?

 

[Sampson]

Video

Follow this link to a video of the crash scene, the last part shows the whole scene.

http://www.semana.com/wf_InfoArticulo.aspx?idArt=113379

 

[hvydriver]

FWIW, on the "other" pilot board, a gent is saying one of his friends was on the flight, and that 3 of 4 engines failed. They suspect bad fuel. Another rumor to add to the fire. If so though, good job by the crew!

 

[Rally]

Holy crap.....Off airport at night, in a 747, in columbia. Talk a out lucky regardless of what happened to cause it.

 

[dsee8driver]

Flowers weigh next to nothing.

quote]

I beg to differ on this. I have flown many flowers and on previous life imported them. A pallet for the 8 of flowers can weigh between 2500 to 4k lbs depending. A problem in the old days we encountered was being overweight a few thousand lbs cause the Colombians would spray the pallets at times after the weigh in...

Good job on the crew surviving and condolences to the family on the ground..

 

[YV-135C]

i'm surprised nobody has questioned the actual weight of the cargo.Centurion has had issues in the past with discrepancies between actual and on-paper cargo loads on their10s.I..i hope the FAA/NTSB looks into this..

 

[Freddie Spencer]

Centurion

http://www.airdisaster.com/photos/n189ax/photo.shtml

 

[Zoneload]

McClatchy-Tribune
Published: July 7, 2008
BOGOTA, Colombia - A Valrico man was one of three South Florida crewmen who survived a Miami-bound cargo jet crash outside the Colombian capital early Monday that killed two people on the ground and injured five others onboard.
The crew of the Boeing 747-200 Kalitta Air jet reported a fire in one the plane's turbines two minutes after taking off from Bogota's El Dorado Airport at 3:50 a.m, said Martin Gonzalez, spokesman for Colombia's Civil Aviation Authority.
As they turned back toward the runway, the plane crashed into a wide grassy field near the town of Madrid and plowed into a small wooden home where two people — Pedro and Edwin Suarez — were killed. A third person who was sleeping in the house was treated for serious injuries in a nearby hospital.
The crew members were identified by Ypsilanti, Mich.-based Kalitta as U.S. citizens Joseph Kendall, 59, of Valrico; Steve Szynkowski, 28, McDonough, Ga.; Richard Dunlap, 65, Marietta, Ga.; Mohamed Shah, Coral Springs, 30; Bryant Beebe, 51, Big Pine Key.; Ivan Dankha, 49, Surprise, Ariz.; and Frank Holley, 45, Milton, as well as Dominican national Jimmy Herrera, 45, Miami.
Kendall suffered serious head wounds and internal injuries and underwent surgery, according to Nader Lujan, the director of the police hospital where six of the crew members were taken. Szynkowski apparently suffered a serious injury to the spine, he said.
Dankha and Holley were treated for minor injuries at a hospital close to the crash site and were expected to be released.
Hours after the crash, television images showed the still smoldering debris, which was spread out over a one-kilometer wide radius.
Civil aviation authorities said they had found the plane's black box and that it would be analyzed to determine the cause of the crash. The aircraft was thought to have fallen from an altitude of 1,650 yards, Gonzalez said.
The National Transportation Safety Board said Monday that it was sending a team of investigators to assist the government of Colombia in its investigation.
Local farmers rushed to the site as soon as the plane went down, but could not get close enough to help the injured because of the roaring flames, farmer Heli Dussan told the Colombian television network Caracol.
The Colombian Air Force responded to the crash and pulled the crew members from the mangled remains of the cockpit before dawn. Air Force nurse Laura Maria Linares told Caracol that she crawled into the cockpit through one of the windows and first tended to Kendall, who was in serious condition but conscious.
Kalitta was operating the plane for Miami-based Centurion Air Cargo. Centurion has an annual contract with Kalitta to lease an aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance, said Kalitta Vice President Pete Sanderlin.

 

[Jurasicpilot]

Flowers weigh next to nothing.

quote]

I beg to differ on this. I have flown many flowers and on previous life imported them. A pallet for the 8 of flowers can weigh between 2500 to 4k lbs depending. A problem in the old days we encountered was being overweight a few thousand lbs cause the Colombians would spray the pallets at times after the weigh in...

Good job on the crew surviving and condolences to the family on the ground..

Whew what an understatment! Flowers and produce are about the heaviest things you can carry.

 

[dutch747]

Flowers weigh next to nothing.

I'd be willing to bet that Kalitta's -200SF weigh the same as ours, 800K MTOW.

Pound for pound i'd bet that there was more fuel than payload onboard.

Good luck to all the Kalitta guys out there. There are several ex zoners there...

This is hilarious.... I'm sure 160,000lbs of steel weighs a lot more than 160,000lbs of flowers!

-200SF MTOW is 830K for "R" model Pratts. Does anyone know whether this jet was "Q" powered or "R" power. I would think "R" since operating in Bogota.

Plus, it's a three hour flight from Bogota to Miami which would require about 70-80K fuel load.

Maybe you should try a little research before making such a statement.

Speedy recovery to the crew and best wishes to all at the Kalitta family.

 

[ABUSED PILOT]

AN UNFORTUNATE STRING OF EVENTS HAVE RECENTLY TAKEN PLACE. ALL THESE PILOTS THAT THINK THAT THEIR SH@t DOES NOT STINK ARE SADLY MISTAKEN. USAJET AND KALITTA HAS SOME OF THE FINEST AND MOST EXPERIENCED AVIATORS IN THE WORLD. THIS IS A TIME TO GET BEHIND OUR FELLOW AVIATORS AND NOT SLING MUD ON OTHER'S PEOPLE MISFORTUNE. GROW UP YOU FUC@@@G KIDS.

 

[Guam360]

This is hilarious.... I'm sure 160,000lbs of steel weighs a lot more than 160,000lbs of flowers!

-200SF MTOW is 830K for "R" model Pratts. Does anyone know whether this jet was "Q" powered or "R" power. I would think "R" since operating in Bogota.

Plus, it's a three hour flight from Bogota to Miami which would require about 70-80K fuel load.

Maybe you should try a little research before making such a statement.

Speedy recovery to the crew and best wishes to all at the Kalitta family.

Q's, 833,000

 

[dutch747]

Q's, 833,000

That's right... 833...630....590....

Only 7 months since I left the 74 and already brain dumped the basics.:cartman:

So the jet was "Q" powered in Bogota? Just want to be sure.

 

[unwashed]

Dutch it was a Q power aircraft.

 

[dutch747]

I guess that explains only loading 160K of cargo.

 

[Draginass]

Flowers weigh next to nothing.

I'd be willing to bet that Kalitta's -200SF weigh the same as ours, 800K MTOW.

Pound for pound i'd bet that there was more fuel than payload onboard.

Good luck to all the Kalitta guys out there. There are several ex zoners there...

Wow. What can you say. No clue at all.

 

[Draginass]

Sure. Kick us when we are down. We have had some rotten luck these last few months. No denying that. But all you 'these 747 otfits' bashers are just pissing me off. You make accusations with little to no information. The wreckage is still smoldering and you pricks are jumping all over us. Give me a break!

First of all, any criticism I have is directed to the supplemental cargo outfits as a whole, and certainly not Kallitta in particular. However, if the shoe fits wear it.

I don't think anyone on this board is jumping on the aircrews. For the most part, the freight dogs do yeoman's jobs of flying into and out of some of the most difficult and dangerous airfields in the world with old (and more often than we'd like to admit to, poorly maintained) aircraft. A freight dog sees more balanced field length takeoffs in one week than a major pax carrier pilot probably sees in a year. The experience level among the freight dogs varies widely from highly experienced captains to a pax commuter pilot going directly to a international 747 freight operation. The freight dog in supplemental cargo operations has very few crew duty day protections and is very very often pushed into 20 hour, or longer duty days. The Captains vary widely in quality from those who will do anything the DO pushes him into, to those who have some gonads and stand their ground.

The point is . . . there's been a rash of hull losses now among the supplemental freight carriers, including the Tradewinds rejected takeoff and overrun as a result of a catastrophic engine failure, the Kallitta hull loss in BRU due to an abort overrun as the result of an engine problem, and now another Kallitta crash on takeoff with resultant loss of life of two bystanders on the ground. In addition there have been several other serious mishaps in the supplemental industry.

Another poster mentioned "bad luck." For the most part I don't believe in bad luck when it comes maintenance. You make your own luck when it comes to maintaining your equipment.

And BTW, with regards to 747 supplemental operations, I've been there. I've done that both as a FO and Captain. I've worked for excellent ones that maintained their aircraft with integrity and skill. I've also worked for some that, to put it politely, did not.

I also know that these supplemental carrier aircraft are run extremely hard with a very high relative percentage of max power takeoff (much much higher than a major pax airline). Meticulous maintenance is essential and many supplemental outfits could hardly be accused of meticulous maintenance.

IMHO, the regulator agencies have been giving some supplemental carriers little scrutiny. It's time for them to do their jobs. If nothing else, the crews that trust their lives to the aircraft that these companies maintain should demand it.

 

[sf3boy]

What's the matter, didn't get hired by FDX? Go back to your Saab sh!thead.

As for the Kalitta team, best wishes. It's been a terrible month.

Good assumption on the not getting hired, but incorrect. Have not applied. Sorry. I am just tired of the elite pilots dogging the non elites. My point was that bad things can happen to any crew. All the carriers have proven that.

 

[metrodriver]

Bogota with flowers..... go down a 13000ft long runway at max power and rotate in the last 2000 ft of this runway. For those fortunate enough to never have been there, the elevation is 8600'. MTOW is about 100.000lbs below structural because of performance: runway length and climb. There is an engine-out procedure that takes you over the lowest terrain. I don't know if this has ever been test-flown or if this Kalitta crew was the first to test it. At a lot of these airports the terrain comes awful close with all engines running, I hope never have to find out how much closer after losing one.