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.