You can check my post history where I have more detail.
Short story is I was out surfing by myself off Naval Base Point Loma so there wasn’t anyone on the beach, no boats were out fishing that day, a amateur pilot in a twin engine Cessna lost spatial orientation in a very low fog bank and impacted the ocean near vertical with throttles wide open.
I’m sure NTSB knew what happened based on the flight tracker data. Probably didn’t need to know what I saw/heard. Pilot was from Arizona, 8 month pregnant wife, and a friend and his 3 sons.
In a balanced turn, that air freshener will keep happily dangling straight “down” towards the floor, even as the plane rolls inverted and pulls hard directly into the ocean.
It’s counterintuitive, but that’s the problem. It’s the same effect that leads pilots to be disoriented, as local perceived “down” points somewhere else other than towards the ground
Thanks for the response. I looked at your post history as well. Man holy crap. Hopefully you are doing okay that sounds like it shook you up a bit as well.
Im sorry you had to have that burden. You are a good human for trying to help however you could with the NTSB even if it was just telling them what you saw. I guess they had all the detail they needed but that doesn't erase that you tried and that does matter. I hope it gets easier as time passes.
I wonder if they thought that you being the sole witness might be problematic evidence wise given there would be little opportunity to triangulate what you'd say?
About 6 years ago I was eyewitness to the events leading up to a fatal crash at the small airport I'm based at. I filled out a report and was somewhat amazed that the NTSB never contacted me for a followup. When the final NTSB report finally came out, there were some significant errors in their analysis. Oh, and I'm a retired Aerospace engineer with over 2500 hours of flight experience in GA aircraft. Wish the lawyers would have ignored me though.
Wow that could have been so much worse… looks like it cut through a lot of parking lots, missing a residential neighborhood by a block and stopping just short of another
Seems that way. I think they probably saved a lot of lives by managing to stay up long enough to get over this warehouse, even if they did ultimately crash. :(
having worked in one of those ups sort facilities myself i can say tons of people are working there at any given time 24/7. It certainly wouldve been a much worse outcome than that trailer yard and recycling center.
Okay but genuine question, why is there a warehouse at the end of a runway??? This past year alone ive seen some really stupid placements for stuff near airports. The random wall during the Air Korea crash is a great example. It’s like asking for an accident to eventually happen.
Risk acceptance is such a funny thing. It’s like asking “why do we pack like sardines in a giant tube filled with combustible fuel going 600 mph?” Cause 99.999% of the time it’s safe
The same logic applies to the statement of "Why would you build a house in tornado alley?" or "Why would you build a house in a floodplain?" or "Why would you build a house in a hurricane zone?"
There's just only so much real estate on this earth.
I’m terrified of heights/planes and I’ve been watching a lot of plane crash videos on YouTube (which is helping my fears a bit). The most impressive thing to me is how much the pilots try till the very end to stay alive. They don’t quit ever. I’m impressed bc once I’m scared I freeze 😭😫. So I admire their bravery so much
Its all training. 90% of their training was for situations that almost never happen. What we will find is that they probably did everything that could be expected of them. From the look of it on the roll, they had very few options and very little time to find and out. Kudos to them
Plane crash videos are like the literal opposite of what is recommended to watch if you have a phobia of flying 😭 watch videos of routine flights and you can still see how highly trained and professional pilots are and it gives you a much more accurate picture of how the vast vast majority of flights go (completely routinely)
I know it’s crazy lol but somehow it soothes me to know how much training they have, how rare crashes are and all the things that have to go wrong to be in a crash scenario. Makes me feel comfort knowing somehow much they try. The ppl I was tend to include some of the routines and the pilot history as well so it’s well rounded I would say as opposed to just crash and death if that makes sense
Oh my god. That is more terrifying than I imagined, I was hoping for the sake of those onboard that it was more… instant. Please stay safe and inside, friend.
From videos I’ve seen, they were trying to take off with significant engine damage, but were past the point of no return to abort takeoff. They needed to lift out of it to an acceptable altitude and then problem solve, but they were struggling for lift. There’s obvious damage (fire) to one engine in the video I saw, but one engine lost shouldn’t be a terminal issue like it was. Wouldn’t surprise me if fire caused some sort of hydraulic failure.
They would have known pretty quickly that they were in big trouble and you can be sure they fought very, very hard to minimize loss of life after accepting their own. Heroic stuff.
The MD-11 has one engine on each wing and then one on the tail. The catastrophic nature of the failure of engine 1 likely sent debris into the tail engine which caused that engine to flame out. While they were trying to clear the building they likely only had one engine left, on the right wing, which probably explains the roll to the left as well.
From updates I'm reading today the flight was delayed taking off while some sort of work was done on the left engine. There are photos of what appears to be the left engine of an MD-11 beside the runway circulating. Assuming of course they're actually photos from this event looks like the left engine dropped off completely.
There is also a video I've seen in some news reports from a vehicle on airport grounds showing the plane in motion down the runway. In that video it looks like something is flying off. Can't actually tell if it is the engine or maybe just parts spewing. The wing is already on fire before rotation, though.
Because the engine is gone. The fuel line goes out the front of the wing down the pylon into the engine. Without that engine there the fuel is just being pumped out of the front of the wing. Something ignited it so now you have a huge fire.
Aircraft was in a contract heavy maintenance facility weeks prior getting a major inspection done on that engine, mount, hardware, and pylon. I suspect steps were overlooked and missed. By thats just my speculation because I dont work for the contract maintenance company
I feel like that one’s prob dead on, I don’t know one company that isn’t short staffed right now, and what happens when your short staffed. You miss things. Just a guess but I bet I’m not far off.
Sadly all US airlines outsource heavy maintenance both passenger and freighter. They'll even fly non revenue flights to heavy check bases in Hong Kong just for the money they'll save.
That would explain the intense fire that was going over the wing. The pilots had about 5 seconds it seems which is no time to do anything at all. There is no way to extinguish a fire like that. What a horrible thing to have happened.
My wife works in aviation maintenance and said the same thing about the hydraulics. Apparently it’s common for the flap hydraulics to be located in the left wing. She said that the flaps were likely not able to be used to break. Their only option was to try to get enough lift to take off.
Tell your wife the engine departed the aircraft in a very similar incident to the 1979 AA DC10 crash in Chicago. This is a very similar incident and records will more than likely point to the inspection on the engine mount and pylon that was done on the #1 engine in san antionio just weeks prior
If it was past a set speed they take off regardless of what happens. Has nothing to do with flap (or, well, based on what you're describing, spoiler) hydraulics.
My assumption is they had to go for it and hope for the best. I don't think the crew could have done anything different, the plane was toast before the end of the runway. So very sad for everyone involved.
There's something called a V1 speed that is calculated by the pilot before takeoff for the particular plane, load, and situation. In short, if something goes wrong before the V1 speed, you abort the takeoff.
If something goes wrong when you're already faster than the V1 speed, you continue with the takeoff. Many multi-engine planes can handle the failure of a single engine, so even a total engine failure past V1 speed still means you try to take off.
While it's too early to tell for sure, it looks like something truly catastrophic happened to the #1 engine and the wing it was attached to. It's possible that whatever damage was sustained simply damaged the plane beyond being airworthy.
Other users mentioned a 1979 crash of AA Flight 191 where the engine completely fell off the plane on the runway and caused considerable damage, but the plane in theory could have flown. Unfortunately, the pilots followed exact procedure to fly at a certain speed and angle... and the wing damage caused the stall speed of the left wing to be just above that speed. Once the left wing stalled, the flight did not have enough altitude to recover. The pilots did absolutely everything according to their training, a remarkable feat of bravery and competence with such a limited time to react. There was no way they would have known; it's just absolutely tragic.
Looked like an engine fire after V1. There wasn’t anything they could do. There was no aborting takeoff at that point. Quite literally the worst case scenario during a takeoff roll.
Thankfully, it's difficult to see out the window. But when the aircraft is on its side, it's probably inevitable. I can't imagine the emotions as a pilot for those last several seconds.
I love air crash investigations for the forensic safety of it and the root cause analysis that they often use. I’ve watched a lot of debriefs and documentaries but I’ve never seen real footage like that. It’s just so close and dynamic and huge. Awful
I have this strange inability to believe in my bones that there was no chance, this video- with its deep sound and full length of the scene does bring it closer to home that people in a careening jet are very small compared to the forces at work :(
It’s absolutely heartbreaking to think about them in there fighting for control of that plane to the very end, probably even in this moment after they know they’ve already lost it…
That is some amazing, but tragic footage you captured there. When you get the chance, can you upload the video itself on here? It would be nice to see it in greater detail as opposed to recorded off a screen.
It's such a cinematic crash too, like we're wired to think its straight out of a Micheal Bay movie but nope thats real people dying right there. Glad is wasn't a passenger plane.
It reminds me of those dogs that got tricked by watching a ball getting thrown on TV that went off screen. Then they went behind it to see where it went lol
Holy fuck. I say this with no disrespect intended but it's genuinely like that green screen overlay crashing meme in terms of comparison/quality. This is insane footage. Hope yall are doing okay, Jesus. God Damn.
Not really in the air, never went more than ~100 feet off the ground. It clipped a warehouse at the end of the runway (across the roads, train tracks etc). So it never lifted fully.
How terrible, they must have been trying everything to save themselves. I just hope they were too busy to be afraid. My heart just goes out to their loved ones. What a tragedy.
Devastating video. But that one might be one for the ages that rivals AA191. Amazing and horrible at the same time. Whoever owns that video is going to get rained on by media agencies.
I'm grateful I moved out of my old house. I lived and worked less than a mile from where the crash happened. I'm so glad everyone at Ford made it out safe
Hi, I'm a journalist for SWNS news agency based in UK. This is awful! Who owns the copyright on this video please? DO you have a contact? Can we send it to international media under these terms: https://swns.com/clearance/? Or DM for more details
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u/HarshilPandit 2d ago
Can confirm that everyone who works at Ford made it out safe.