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Iranian aircraft crash caught on new video
2009's crash of an Iranian military aircraft was a terrible loss of life and technology. Emerging this week is a new perspective of the crash, captured from the back of a C130 that happened to be refueling an F-4 Phantom in the area. In the video, you can clearly see the Iranian aircraft spiraling out of control and tumbling down to earth, a haunting image captured purely by accident.
The new footage gives some insight into what the final moments of any plane crash must be like, a dizzying array of motion, confusion and terror. It's enough to make one consider taking a long, quiet break from air travel.
[Editor's note: the scenes from this video are graphic]
[Via Gizmodo]
The new footage gives some insight into what the final moments of any plane crash must be like, a dizzying array of motion, confusion and terror. It's enough to make one consider taking a long, quiet break from air travel.
[Editor's note: the scenes from this video are graphic]
[Via Gizmodo]
Filed under: Iran, Middle East
Reader Comments (Page 16 of 16)
Steps Jun 5th 2011 2:44PM
Ok, I can't stand this anymore... I will not remark on the politics being discussed - it's not relevant. What I DO care about as an advocate of aviation is butchering the truth by so called "reporters" or "journalists" not consulting even a knowledgeable source, much less an expert.
The doomed aircraft is an IL-76, an Iranian Air Force, Russian built transport. It crashed because it had a mid-air collision with another (probably an Iranian F-5) at a higher altitude. It seems consistent with the story of a mid-air during a military display (fly-by) performed in September of '09. Typically, these aircraft will gather loosely in formations while they prepare to fly-by at specifically designated times. Apparently, another formation was above the planes in the foreground when the accident occurred.
Now for the facts displayed by the video. The Iranian Air Force IL-76 is clearly dismantled by the time it is visible in the video. Therefore, the accident had nothing to do with the Iranian Air Force F-4 and the transport the videographer is riding in (we can only presume it is a C-130 -which the Iranians do NOT use for refueling) Video frames :05-:10 show debris flashes and ground impacts (very faintly) at the F-4's 10:00 o'clock before the IL gets into view.
It is clearly an IL-76, not a TU-154. So the story about a Caspian Air Lines loss is erroneous. See frame :16. The deep dihedral of the IL-76 is clearly evident. The TU-154 has almost no dihedral at all. No, I don't see engines on the wing like an IL-76, but in a mid-air impact, the high mass of the engines along with the violent tumbling taking place leads me to conclude they have separated earlier, perhaps in the aforementioned frames.
The complete loss of the empennage is likely the cause of the loss of control. We cannot see the collision, but have to conclude that the other aircraft (reportedly an F-5) hit some part of the tail surface, probably the elevator - a critical flight control - causing a rapid pitch up or down, over-stressing the aircraft and causing catastrophic failure. It is possible that a fighter as small as an F-5 could have accidentally hit the IL so severely that the entire tail was taken off. (the US's XB-70 was loss similarly by a T-38 collision.) As to a bomb or missile, yes this is plausible, but not probable given the context...news about a mid-air and the low level "display" shot of the F-4.
The "smoke" is not smoke at all, but rather atomized fuel spilling from the wing tanks of the freighter. The aircraft is NOT visibly burning.
Jet wash can be a killer. Not by tearing airplanes apart though. The vortices are dangerous if a relatively lighter aircraft encounters them near the ground. The rolling motion can roll the light aircraft over and it may not have sufficient altitude to recover. BTW, Russian airplanes are built like tanks. Not to say fatigue, old age, misuse is not a factor, but they don't just fall out of the sky. Turbulence does not knock airplanes out the sky either. They hurt people within them when they or equipment are not buckled down. Yes, turbulence has hurt airplanes before, but only convective type within thunderstorms, where airplanes should never venture.
The F-4 will glide with the engines "out." A pilot pulls the throttles back to idle every time he descends for his return for landing, essentially gliding to a lower altitude. Yes, there is residual thrust at idle, but pulling an operating engine back to idle is the way pilots train for simulated single engine work. Twin engine failure in the F-4 is a different animal, however, because there is now way to sustain flight control. Three hydraulic systems are available, and what's called a RAT (ram air turbine), but the aircraft will not develop enough hyd pressure to assure a flare for landing as the airspeed decreases. So the approved method was a crew bailout.
As an aviator, it's a tragedy, period. I salute the crews who try to perform their jobs professionally, enemy or not.
Me?... 1000 hrs in US fighters (including the F-4); Iranian Team Intelligence Analyst, USCENTCOM; 15,000 plus, total time, airline Captain, Line Check Pilot.
My one opinion...As far as what air forces fly these aircraft, who sold whom the aircraft, in what era, and speculation about who shot whom down is a sad testament to the commentators' lack of historical knowledge and laziness to research.
starman Jun 6th 2011 1:18AM
Steps,
Thank goodness for some adult sanity in this converstation. May I guy you a beer some day?
Cheers,
Starman
denver Jun 5th 2011 7:53PM
I was wondering if anyone else was ever going to realize that there was something else taking place in earlier frames. But to me it almost appears to be moving very fast towards the other jets. At first glimpse you can just barely see a dark object, then the next frame and it is appears to be getting closer. The next frame it is much closer and then after that there is just a glimpse of what appears to be an explosion. After that you see the plane come back into view with the tail section missing. If you run it by frame you can see what I'm talking about. Then play it a little faster and you can see this object is moving much faster than the jet being fueled.
steps01 Jun 5th 2011 11:06PM
I still believe these frames you mention show debris from the collision which happens many seconds before we ever see the IL-76. These parts, probably large masses like engines, would fall much more quickly than the "fluttering" remains of the fuselage. The "explosion" you mention is what I believe to be these parts impacting the ground well behind the final impact site.
Isken Jun 5th 2011 10:42PM
C130 is a Cargo plane and not used as Refueling Tanker (too slow). Only Kerosine Carriers (KC) are used such as KC 10 known as on Douglas Commercial based on DC 10, and hopefully soon KC 45, based on Boeing 767 for fast flying fighter planes to refuel in the air.
What were we doing in air space of Iran in 2009, flying F4?
Steps Jun 5th 2011 10:59PM
"We" weren't there. These are all Iranian Air Force aircraft.
Isken Jun 5th 2011 11:06PM
I agree with Steps for almost everything said but the doomed plane is a Tupolev 154, you can clearly see there are no engines under the wings.
IL 76 have 4 on the wings, TU 154 have three engines at the back of the fuselage as copy of Boeing 727 (The Boeing 727 is a mid-size, narrow-body, three-engine, T-tailed commercial jet airliner).
Swept wings are farther back then IL 76 compared to the nose cone also the fuselage is lot narrower than IL 76.
Regards.
steps01 Jun 5th 2011 11:16PM
I definitely wouldn't bet my life on it, but in frame :15 and :16 you can see deep dihedral, and wings mounted on top the fuse (unless the aircraft is inverted...) Either way, it has much more dihedral that the TU has. Also I am speculating that if it is an IL-76, the engines have been ripped away from the wings in the impact/tumble it experiences before it comes into our view. Tragic, but fun to speculate...
starman Jun 6th 2011 12:58AM
Good lord people, isn't there an engineer out there how can answer some of these insane statements? We're doomed as a nation when 95% of our adults finished science studies in the 5th grade. I'm an physics major and a 35-year pilot having flown 60 different types from gliders to airliners. Here you go:
1. ALL AIRCRAFT CAN GLIDE. Look at the space shuttle. It looks like a brick, but it glides at about 5 to 1 (500 feet forward for 100 feet down). Just draw a vector diagram where gravity takes over for thrust (no calculus requred). Obviously the aircraft will descend, but ALL AIRCRAFT CAN GLIDE just as well as they can fly under power. Even helicopters (it's called autorotation). Tell your friends, "helicopters can glide!" They'll be impressed.
2. An F-4 probably glides about 10 to 1. A sleek, modern glider does as high as 60 to 1. I've flown them both, I know. Hell, a paper airplane is only about 10 to 1! Someone said an F-4 was 160-to-1...Damn, a tissue paper taped to a helium balloon couldn't do 160 to 1!
3. Airliners glide. The famous "Gimli Glider" was a Boeing 767 which was skilfully glided to a landing in Canada in 1983. Also, the pilots of an Airbus A300 or A330 (I think) did a successful glider landing in the Azores 10 years ago. Perhaps 14 to 1 glide ratio.
4. All aircraft create a wake (mostly wingtip vortices), directly proportional to the weight of the aircraft, and it's worst at slow speeds such as landing approach. The F-4 and the C-130 in this video together weight LESS than the crashing Tu-154. Wake from the filiming aircraft is not an issue. I've hit the wake of a B747 (500,000+ lbs) on downwind to land in Atlanta in a MD-80 (100,000 lbs) before, which was an invigorating ride for a few seconds, but far from a safety issue. Spilled some coffee though. Damn it.
5. If hitting the wake of another aircraft caused the fuselage to break in half like that Tu-154...we'd have 10,000 airline crashes per year! Thank goodness it's only a few crashes instead...(rarely caused by wake turbulence). I hit wakes every day. It's a non-issue unless you're in a significantly smaller plane following a big plane close to the ground, where you might not have time to recover from an upset. Anyone who says the C-130/F-4 wake caused this mishap is ignorant beyond belief.
6. The F-4 in this video is not refueling. Its' air refueling door is not open. It has no refueling probe. There is no tanker boom nor a drogue hose. The altitude is far lower than normal for refueling. This is a photo op. The aft door of a C-130 is open to take pictures of the F-4. That is all. This adds to my suspision that the video might be edited. Since the mission was a one-of-a-kind photo-op (not refueling), the odds of spotting such a singular event are even more remote (please reference freshman year probability and statistics class).
7. I doubt the published date. If Iran still has a flying F-4 after 30+ years of parts embargo, well, I doubt it. I suspect the F-4 video date is older.
8. Come on people, if you're going to bitch about "green energy" then go get a degree in engineering and MAKE green energy! Nothing is stopping you except that you dropped out of college after one year. If you're going to sit around and play on the computer and make the totally ignorant statement that the wake of a C-130 can cut the body of a TU-154 in half, or be on BP commercials and say "gee, we just need to make green happen," well, I just hope you don't vote. JOIN THE TECHNICAL WORKFORCE, OR SHUT UP.
8. The image of the crashing Tu-154 looks pretty convincing, but I'll leave it to the photo-editing engineers/experts to tell us if that is real.
9. UFOs are not real. Sorry. You're going to have to deal with it.
Cheers all. Have a nice night and go get a real education and start helping around here.
mitch Jun 6th 2011 5:24AM
what a grouch. zanax run out?
mitch Jun 6th 2011 5:33AM
google "turblence theory in air bus crash" know it all.
steps01 Jun 6th 2011 2:40PM
The findings of the failure of the American Airlines A300 vertical stabilizer was found NOT to be turbulence. The NTSB found the First Officer, who was flying the jet at the time, overstressed the vertical stabilizer by overusing the rudder controls (pedals). The flight probably encountered wake turbulence from the 747 that took off before it, but the upset could have been corrected with ailerons. Instead the FO used the rudder too aggressively, causing the failure. We (airline pilots) all now have included in our pilot operating manuals limitations on our aircraft based on this accident.
anthony P owens Jun 6th 2011 6:55PM
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mitch Jun 6th 2011 7:39PM
steps you are correct. its been awhile back since i watched that program on tv about the fin fail and now i remember they concluded it was pilot error. my appoligies to the board.
Hal Jun 8th 2011 12:03PM
The entire tail section is missing from the aircraft that is seen tumbling out of the sky. Jet wash from the Phanrom can not cause this. And how did the Iranian government get US Phantoms? I thought they bought their aircraft from Russia! I'm not sure these are Iranian aircraft because there are no markings on the Phantom.
Steps01 Jun 11th 2011 12:42PM
Check your history... Iran "bought" most all its military hardware from us (the West including Britain and France) during the Shah's reign. One of his sons even got his wings through U. S. Air Force, Undergraduate Pilot Training in the late 70's as did (do) many foreign nations.
In spite of the arms embargo, the Iranians have managed to keep many of the U.S. provided aircraft serviceable, although their combat effectiveness is deeply questioned.
The Phantom does have markings on the left wing although it is obscured.