I'm sure it will come out soon but it seems mechanical.

If I had to place bets I would play it on runaway pitch trim with the autopilot staying engaged until it couldn't manage it anymore then just said "peace out, your problem now" then at that point the pilots could not recover in time.

Remember the LOT 767 that ended up landing without deployed landing gear due to a circuit breaker flipped inadvertently? Could this have happened leaving an elevator trim in a locked position?

That was another wierd accident.

I know there are lots of circuit breakers but I could never see how given how long it takes to fly TATL they could not identify which had been tripped and rectify it.

The gimmicky shtick of "every airliner before the A320 is an unsafe piece of junk at all times, but the A320 and every airliner after it are Modern and Good" is tiresome at the best of times and quite inappropriate in a thread where we are discussing an event that killed three flight crew members.

Conversation consistent with loss of control is the NTSB's euphemism for "What the ****!!" In countless CVR transcriptions a pilot's last moments are punctuated with profanity and resignation as in Palm 90, a crash years ago in Washington D.C. "We're going down Larry."

That statement from NTSB is masterful, says something but still nothing. Back to biting my nails.

Like, the cause of loss of control? Reasons outside the crew's influence i.e., mechanical, or crew-related confusion? And did the crew communication about the loss of control start 18 seconds prior to the crash, or the actual loss of control?

18 seconds prior to the end of the tape. Which I think likely happened when you think it likely happened.

Well to me the NTSB release reveals a lot of information. Apparently crew were able to hear each other and the ATC, but the CVR picked up poor-quality audio. This points toward a catastrophic electrical failure somewhere between cockpit and the CVR unit in the tail. Perhaps undetected electrical fire? The issue ultimately spread to the flight instrument/control and lead to the loss of control in mere seconds.

I'm no expert here and I know this is speculation, but could the fact that the audio quality is poor during the final moments of the flight be meaningful? Surely the CVR under normal conditions has a good enough microphone that picking up voices doesn't require "advanced audio filtering." Does that suggest that there was some type of issue that was producing a lot of background noise? Or is it fairly normal that CVR audio is very poor?

seabosdca wrote:

The gimmicky shtick of "every airliner before the A320 is an unsafe piece of junk at all times, but the A320 and every airliner after it are Modern and Good" is tiresome at the best of times and quite inappropriate in a thread where we are discussing an event that killed three flight crew members.

I really can’t understand why that Dingus hasn’t been banned.

Stop quoting him people, that wat those of us that have him on our foes list can read this site free of his inane idiotic ramblings.

spudsmac wrote:

I'm sure it will come out soon but it seems mechanical.

If I had to place bets I would play it on runaway pitch trim with the autopilot staying engaged until it couldn't manage it anymore then just said "peace out, your problem now" then at that point the pilots could not recover in time.

Yeah, it's starting to look really similar to JT610 in terms of the sudden downwards trajectory at a relatively low altitude with only tens of seconds between the nose going down and impact, with the exception of being a 767 with no MCAS. That thread has a lot of people harping on runaway trim procedures, but in that case the pilots had no idea what they were fighting against. In this case the issue may have just arisen so suddenly the pilots didn't have enough time to process what was happening and react appropriately.

Or at this point, it could have been something they couldn't recover from, we will have to wait for more info.

Edit: come to think of it didn't the aircraft show evidence of bumping up slightly in altitude prior to its plummet? Was that possibly autopilot dis-engaging? The pilots trying to fight what was happening?

If it was caused but auto pilot disengaging then they should have maintained control. Unless one of the flight control cables broke.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

yoshua16 wrote:

If it was caused but auto pilot disengaging then they should have maintained control. Unless one of the flight control cables broke.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

I'm not a pilot, but looking up runaway trim procedures in Google : https://steemit.com/b737/@jeonbyeongcha ... stabilizer

(I guess that's for a 737 but I'm assuming this is similar to 767) it seems that an "aerodynamic runaway" could create this situation easily. Pilots, please provide input, I'm just an amateur doing a Google search!

Jouhou wrote:

yoshua16 wrote:

If it was caused but auto pilot disengaging then they should have maintained control. Unless one of the flight control cables broke.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

I'm not a pilot, but looking up runaway trim procedures in Google : https://steemit.com/b737/@jeonbyeongcha ... stabilizer

(I guess that's for a 737 but I'm assuming this is similar to 767) it seems that an "aerodynamic runaway" could create this situation easily. Pilots, please provide input, I'm just an amateur doing a Google search!

I talked to a guy at work and said it could have been both mechanical and weather.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

Really surprising that no one here has mentioned that the NTSB statement today basically rules out foul play/suicide...

Is there any situation where a lightening strike could cause this downward trajectory ? Could also explain audio quality issues.

glideslope900 wrote:

Really surprising that no one here has mentioned that the NTSB statement today basically rules out foul play/suicide...

No one has mentioned it because it has not been ruled out.

TTailedTiger wrote:

glideslope900 wrote:

Really surprising that no one here has mentioned that the NTSB statement today basically rules out foul play/suicide...

No one has mentioned it because it has not been ruled out.

So what does “conversations consistent with loss of control” mean to you? To me, it means they literally lost control of the airplane for some reason.

If there was a criminal action, the NTSB would have worded that very differently and not come out with such a statement. It would have been something along the lines of “we believe there may have been foul play involved in the loss of Atlas 3591.”

glideslope900 wrote:

Really surprising that no one here has mentioned that the NTSB statement today basically rules out foul play/suicide...

wjcandee wrote:

RyanVHS wrote:

Ignore - somebody beat me to posting a link to the NTSB press release.

So it's a loss of control. Accordingly apparently not an intentional act. The reason for the loss of control is going to be the thorny subject of the investigation. The press release really doesn't tell us whether it was a human factors issue or a mechanical issue or a little of both.

It was immediately observed.

ikramerica wrote:

Is there any situation where a lightening strike could cause this downward trajectory ? Could also explain audio quality issues.

Since I already brought up JT610, I'll bring it up again. They had the same issue with that audio once they recovered the CVR. And that's brand new.

Something tells me the combination of loud automated warnings and confused pilots and probably loose items being flung around by the steep angle makes communications hard to make out.

glideslope900 wrote:

TTailedTiger wrote:

glideslope900 wrote:

Really surprising that no one here has mentioned that the NTSB statement today basically rules out foul play/suicide...

No one has mentioned it because it has not been ruled out.

So what does “conversations consistent with loss of control” mean to you? To me, it means they literally lost control of the airplane for some reason.

If there was a criminal action, the NTSB would have worded that very differently and not come out with such a statement. It would have been something along the lines of “we believe there may have been foul play involved in the loss of Atlas 3591.”

You would do well to read all of the posts in the thread. Someone already mentioned that that is the standard statement issued after preliminary CVR reviews. The FDR data has not been analyzed yet and they can't even hear much of what is recorded on the CVR. We will know the cause in due time. Until then, everything is still on the table.

TTailedTiger wrote:

glideslope900 wrote:

TTailedTiger wrote:

No one has mentioned it because it has not been ruled out.

So what does “conversations consistent with loss of control” mean to you? To me, it means they literally lost control of the airplane for some reason.

If there was a criminal action, the NTSB would have worded that very differently and not come out with such a statement. It would have been something along the lines of “we believe there may have been foul play involved in the loss of Atlas 3591.”

You would do well to read all of the posts in the thread. Someone already mentioned that that is the standard statement issued after preliminary CVR reviews. The FDR data has not been analyzed yet and they can't even hear much of what is recorded on the CVR. We will know the cause in due time. Until then, everything is still on the table.

This may be true but I certainly would not expect that statement if they had heard some nefarious action on the CVR.

ikramerica wrote:

Is there any situation where a lightening strike could cause this downward trajectory ? Could also explain audio quality issues.

There was no lightning in the area at the time.

TTailedTiger wrote:

glideslope900 wrote:

Really surprising that no one here has mentioned that the NTSB statement today basically rules out foul play/suicide...

No one has mentioned it because it has not been ruled out.

Your starting to push a few buttons my friend, too bad if you can´t read, but even on an enthusiasts site it is about time for a little respect for 3 fine aviators and their families!

cougar15 wrote:

TTailedTiger wrote:

glideslope900 wrote:

Really surprising that no one here has mentioned that the NTSB statement today basically rules out foul play/suicide...

No one has mentioned it because it has not been ruled out.

Your starting to push a few buttons my friend, too bad if you can´t read, but even on an enthusiasts site it is about time for a little respect for 3 fine aviators and their families!

I stated a fact. I said nothing has been ruled out. I said nothing about any of the crew members. If you can't handle that then there is always the option of closing your browser window.

SCFirefighter wrote:

ikramerica wrote:

Is there any situation where a lightening strike could cause this downward trajectory ? Could also explain audio quality issues.

There was no lightning in the area at the time.

I figured as much.

yoshua16 wrote:

If it was caused but auto pilot disengaging then they should have maintained control. Unless one of the flight control cables broke.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

Knowing nothing about how the flight cables are set up, I wonder if it's possible that a broken cable could result in a wings-level dive. Granted that the released video so far is poor, but from what I gather of witnesses, it seemed like more of a straight nose-dive, instead of a spin. Wings level seems to indicate some degree of control. What I have not yet done is to try to overlay the weather front, minute by minute, with the flight path. Some have posited that the crew was disoriented in clouds; however, the radar shows a defined front line, with seemingly relatively clear air around. If the crew was not actually in the front when the upset began, the visibility doesn't look bad. I live 200 miles east of the site. I was out of state when the accident happened, however, I recognize that front pattern because it has come over my house many times, and if you're not in the front, usually you're not socked in.

If they were in the front, then yes disorientation becomes a possibility. But then, also does the possibility of a hard spot of turbulence jamming or breaking something,

The video from the school (I think it was a school) is weird because the plane seemed to disappear. Some thought that was because the plane disappeared into low cloud cover. But to me, it looked more like an artifact of the camera setting. like it was set to record in bursts or something. The plane was already in the dive.

A question I have not yet seen well answered is: was the plane hitting the front at the moment of the loss of control? The radar seems to show that yes, it was close, but it's going to take closer examination that just trying to compare Flightaware and available Doppler maps.

glideslope900 wrote:

TTailedTiger wrote:

glideslope900 wrote:

So what does “conversations consistent with loss of control” mean to you? To me, it means they literally lost control of the airplane for some reason.

If there was a criminal action, the NTSB would have worded that very differently and not come out with such a statement. It would have been something along the lines of “we believe there may have been foul play involved in the loss of Atlas 3591.”

You would do well to read all of the posts in the thread. Someone already mentioned that that is the standard statement issued after preliminary CVR reviews. The FDR data has not been analyzed yet and they can't even hear much of what is recorded on the CVR. We will know the cause in due time. Until then, everything is still on the table.

This may be true but I certainly would not expect that statement if they had heard some nefarious action on the CVR.

The NTSB could very well have not heard anything nefarious.

While such communications were "consistent with a loss of control" during those sudden, last few seconds (which may not have necessarily been between all 3 voices present, the determination of which may be hindered by "poor" audio quality), such a statement does not necessarily conclude actual loss of control by all 3 present. What wasn't said (and/or what the CVR recording wasn't able to clearly capture) is just as important at this point as what the CVR recording captured.

The FDR findings, at this point, seem paramount.

There was a Houston meteorologist who laid the whole thing out on pprune, with maps and everything. His conclusion was that they weren't in anything that would have caused an upset. His post is there in the accident thread. I thought that it was clear that they were in IMC however, so likely no actual horizon. Could be wrong. I do know from the tower tapes that subsequent aircraft at least couldn't see the ground.

I still think that if you're in Texas and you hear hooves, you need to think Horses or Cattle not Zebras. Maybe less so in aircraft accidents since they generally have eliminated the horses and cattle, but not all of them. But we'll see. It's a weird accident because 767s don't just drop out of the sky. I hear they are predicable to fly, and relatively-forgiving. So maybe we will find that it was a series of weirdnesses. But I still aim for the less-weird over the weirder. I do think that if it was something straightforward and evident from the wreckage or the flight recorders, something, even a hint, would have leaked out somewhere. But nothing. Using Valujet as an example, by about this time, in the absence of the CVR, the NTSB had already identified the COMAT as a suspect, noted the presence of "empty" oxygen generators, understood that risk, perceived actual fire (not smoke) damage on the fuselage sections, and I believe had run their incredible simulation using oxygen generators and tires in a cargo hold. The CVR really just confirmed the rapid onset of unsurvivable fire that likely killed a lot of people during the 4 minutes or so in which the crew was trying to reach somewhere to land. And the most memorable thing to me: that when they asked to return, with the captain flying and the f/o on the radio, with mayhem in the cabin and people screaming about the fire, ATC asked what the problem was. The captain said "Fire" to the f/o. The f/o radioed "Smoke in the cockpit, smoke in the cabin." Her statement was correct; his less-definitive statement caused a lot of running down rabbit trails in the first few days afterwards. Straight-up "fire" would have aimed everyone more specifically at that. Nevertheless, taking the long view, and knowing that NTSB is going to do a thorough, comprehensive report, what happens in the first few days is not going to change much in the end. It might have prevented a lot of stupid media coverage about aircraft electrical systems and maintenance, and a lot of anxiety among travellers, and a lot of negativity about my beloved DC9s, but otherwise it didn't make a long-term difference.

CO953 wrote:

yoshua16 wrote:

If it was caused but auto pilot disengaging then they should have maintained control. Unless one of the flight control cables broke.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

Knowing nothing about how the flight cables are set up, I wonder if it's possible that a broken cable could result in a wings-level dive. Granted that the released video so far is poor, but from what I gather of witnesses, it seemed like more of a straight nose-dive, instead of a spin. Wings level seems to indicate some degree of control. What I have not yet done is to try to overlay the weather front, minute by minute, with the flight path. Some have posited that the crew was disoriented in clouds; however, the radar shows a defined front line, with seemingly relatively clear air around. If the crew was not actually in the front when the upset began, the visibility doesn't look bad. I live 200 miles east of the site. I was out of state when the accident happened, however, I recognize that front pattern because it has come over my house many times, and if you're not in the front, usually you're not socked in.

If they were in the front, then yes disorientation becomes a possibility. But then, also does the possibility of a hard spot of turbulence jamming or breaking something,

The video from the school (I think it was a school) is weird because the plane seemed to disappear. Some thought that was because the plane disappeared into low cloud cover. But to me, it looked more like an artifact of the camera setting. like it was set to record in bursts or something. The plane was already in the dive.

A question I have not yet seen well answered is: was the plane hitting the front at the moment of the loss of control? The radar seems to show that yes, it was close, but it's going to take closer examination that just trying to compare Flightaware and available Doppler maps.

One girl on my team would know better since she works in the 767 cable rigging. I've seen a little bit of it under the cockpit but that's all I've seen.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

glideslope900 wrote:

Really surprising that no one here has mentioned that the NTSB statement today basically rules out foul play/suicide...

Yep an supports something that happened awfully fast.

Are we satisfied that the dive happened long enough after the turn that the turn didn't factor into the dive?

glideslope900 wrote:

So what does “conversations consistent with loss of control” mean to you? To me, it means they literally lost control of the airplane for some reason.

Could a catastrophic shift of cargo cause such loss of control?
Follow-up questions: do we know what was the cargo? Are we sure this was a more or less standard assortment of Amazon parcels?

konrad wrote:

glideslope900 wrote:

So what does “conversations consistent with loss of control” mean to you? To me, it means they literally lost control of the airplane for some reaason.

Could a catastrophic shift of cargo cause such loss of control?
Follow-up questions: do we know what was the cargo? Are we sure this was a more or less standard assortment of Amazon parcels?

You did evidently not bother to read some of the gazillion posts here before jumping in with this?

TTailedTiger wrote:

The 767 will right itself if you simply just let go of the controls.

So it has the same function as the A310 in SU 593? There it happened that pilot actions led to the crash instead of helping to get out of the situation although one would expect differently. And that happened during a stall recovery.

N126DL wrote:

https://twitter.com/NTSB_Newsroom/status/1100183258539663360

I've stared at this piece of the wreckage for a good 10 clock minutes trying to figure out what part of the airplane it is from. Which 767 driver here can shed some light?

After nerding out on reading about 767 flight control systems I found something that might be it: flap power drive unit with most of it torn off but gearbox assy remaining, on a chunk of wheel well structure.

Probably wrong but was excited to see something that might be a "maybe"

I did some calculation.

Starting at 6000 feet/2000 meter, the time in free fall to ground is 20,2 sec. This aircraft took about 18 sec from 6000 feet to ground. This means the G throughout the dive, from start to end, would have to be close to zero or slightly negative.

This seems to imply that the elevator/h.stabilizer must have been at average at approximately zero degrees angle of attack thus producing zero force.

I do wonder, if the jack screw for the stabilizer breaks loose, in which position will the aerodynamic forces put the stabilizer into? Would it "free float" into zero degrees AoA?

[quote="

Correct. The aircraft started descending from 6000ft at 18:38:48Z and the last recorded data point was roughly 1200' at 18:39:02Z - a timeframe of 14 seconds. At that point it was diving at a rate of 500 feet per second so a little more than 2 seconds to go from 1200ft to sea level. That leaves a total dive time of ~16.5 seconds, so I don't think it implies a lack of situational awareness.

See below for more detail.

[/quote]

Note that the plane apparently lost 1500' from 7500 AGL to 6100 AGL in one second (18:38:39 - 18:38:40), then stabilizes at 6100 AGL for 6 seconds (:40-:46) a slight drop of maybe 50-75 AGL for 1 second (:46-:47) then begins an increasing loss of altitude to impact with the ground over the remaining 15 seconds till the data cuts out at 1200 AGL. What happened to cause that first huge drop of 1500'. Weather/wind sheer/lighting strike ? Did something break electrically or mechanically or give false readings ? In any case there was something sudden at first, then ability to stabilize, then perhaps a secondary failure, an inability to control the aircraft, causing the final loss of altitude to impact with the ground. This may only be answered by the FDR and hope it provides them.

ltbewr wrote:

Note that the plane apparently lost 1500' from 7500 AGL to 6100 AGL in one second (18:38:39 - 18:38:40).

That would require over 1,000mph, wouldn't it?

1,500fps is 1,022mph roughly.

That might break something?

I am not sure if it has been asked or it has been posted but I am wondering what type of avionics were on this plane. Not at all sure what the cockpit looks like and if they had a reliable (and functioning) weather radar?

yoshua16 wrote:

If it was caused but auto pilot disengaging then they should have maintained control. Unless one of the flight control cables broke.

This may or may not have any bearing on 3591, but on UPS 6, it was apparent that the autopilot was able to maintain control of the aircraft whereas when they disconnected it, the pilots discovered that they had no manual control over the elevator due to (fire) damaged flight controls. They re-engaged the autopilot to regain control. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can chime in on this.

https://youtu.be/EfdrhtvzYZU?t=357
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPS_Airlines_Flight_6

Don’t believe the Flight Aware tracks or altitudes. They’re not accurate enough in these conditions. The simple speed being in excess of sound should tell you they’re useful.

GF

TTailedTiger wrote:

I stated a fact. I said nothing has been ruled out. I said nothing about any of the crew members.

You can always tell an ambulance chaser but you can't tell it much...

konrad wrote:

Follow-up questions: do we know what was the cargo? Are we sure this was a more or less standard assortment of Amazon parcels?

Yes, the NTSB release states: "The airplane was carrying cargo for Amazon.com Inc., and the US Postal Service from Miami to Houston."

https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-release ... 90305.aspx

Weather systems switching as fronts move over can do some pretty violent, strange, and sudden things. I was in a house when half a roof plus siding were torn off, along with two outbuilding damaged. I did not see or hear a thing, mother in law saw the damage happening to the out building, but likewise did not hear anything. No one else reported anything. No weather people saw or reported anything. My suspicions are that it was an incipient tornado which did not quite make full F zero status. At the time tornadoes were still assumed impossible in the Pacific NW.

If the accident happened and the front switchovers were at the time and altitude of the planes sudden vertical accelerations it probably is being looked at.

As a side note, a cruise ship was in the news yesterday for experiencing a sudden and unexpected 115mph wind gust which caused a severe list. I know it goes against logic of this aircraft's stability and performance characteristics, but I still would not be surprised to learn that some sudden and/or severe weather occurrence put this plane into an unstable dive. Or there was a mechanical issue toward the end of the flight and a sudden weather event was the straw that broke the camel's back per say. I'm just speculating like everyone else. We'll learn more soon enough.

When did "pilot suicide" evolve into a "reasonable" factor for causation?

Indeed it has occurred in the past, but for it to be considered a "logical" possibility to the degree it's spoken about in this thread is totally "overboard". Yes, you don't rule-out "anything"....it's all guesswork until the NTSB completes the jigsaw...but you also don't rule-in to such a degree as in this thread a nefarious action.

An immediate downward wings-level plunge is absolutely 100% perplexing. Sudden "violent" dislodging of cargo pallets seems exceedingly far-fetched, the plane was in a level descent. A weather factor as a "contributor"? Perhaps. A sudden flight-surface nose-down "hard over" with insufficient altitude to identify, remedy, & recover ought be the emphasis.

Interesting "factoid" residing in the fantastically improbable "file". The Egypt Air & the Lauda Air 767's came off the line right after one another & were the last 2 767-3's delivered in 1989 by Boeing.
24542
282 Boeing 767-300
SU-GAP
EgyptAir
Sep 1989 Written Off
--------
24628
283 Boeing 767-300
OE-LAV Lauda Air
Oct 1989 Written Off

Well my speculation would have two options:

1. The plane hitting CLAT, dropping the 1000+ feet in an instant, which ends up severely damaging some of the control surfaces, which leads a few seconds later into a full nosedive. Not sure how much G-forces the tail can take, but at least for AA587 the pilot managed to break the vertical stabilizer off just by being stupid, with no external involvement of anything. Could explain also why the CVR had bad quality, if wiring was damaged by some of the tail breaking off.

2. What if the windshield broke in for whatever reason? Direct hit by a couple of big birds or even a bigger drone? Would that automatically disengage the autopilot? If yes, it could also lead to the pilot leaning over the column making the plane dive? That would for sure create a lot of noise in the cockpit making it difficult to hear the conversation afterwards.

I guess we'll find out soon enough though.

NTSB says they plan to release a transcript of the CVR in the next week. Will be interesting to see that.

I have a question for those who work in aviation here. The NTSB says the audio quality of the CVR is poor and needs some enhancement. On this thread people have said by looking at the pictures that this is likely an original Siemens product which would date it over 20 years old. Do these old ones work like the cassette tapes of my youth in that they just erase and tape over old conversations? If that's the case, wouldn't the sound quality be expected to deteriorate over decades? Or do they not use magnetic tape to record?

Many years ago, when the 757 was new to the fleet, I rode in the jumpseat on a flight from MCO-IAH. We were still a bit away from the Houston/Bay area, and ATC told the crew to cross a waypoint at 10,000. Crew remarked we were pretty close to the waypoint to hit it at 10,000. Captain was flying, F/O was inputting numbers into the FMC. As the F/O hit execute, the 757 nosed over pretty steeply. Captain exclaimed whoa and pulled back on the yoke. Questions of what was going on followed. Tried it a couple of more times with the same result. Talk of going manual for the rest of the flight ensued. Then the F/O stated he messed up by putting in 1000 instead of 10,000. With the correct altitude of 10,000 entered, the 757 still nosed over a bit, but nothing like it had a few moments before. From the start of the nose drop to where it was figured out the incorrect altitude was entered, was about 30 seconds (?). The deck angle was pretty steep, lost some altitude, but we had some cushion above 10,000. Think we were at about 18,000 when it started.
And for those 'experts', this is not claiming this had anything to do with the Atlas Air tragedy. Just commenting on how things can go south quickly and decisions can make/stop a tragedy.

IAHWorldflyer wrote:

NTSB says they plan to release a transcript of the CVR in the next week. Will be interesting to see that.

I have a question for those who work in aviation here. The NTSB says the audio quality of the CVR is poor and needs some enhancement. On this thread people have said by looking at the pictures that this is likely an original Siemens product which would date it over 20 years old. Do these old ones work like the cassette tapes of my youth in that they just erase and tape over old conversations? If that's the case, wouldn't the sound quality be expected to deteriorate over decades? Or do they not use magnetic tape to record?

Based on the photos and captions on the NTSB Flickr account, despite the CVR being over 20 years old, it uses solid state digital recording:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ntsb/33406167018/