fingers crossed

..

boobook said:

Absolutely bloody awful for their families in the US.
A report I heard is that the aircraft broke up in flight (hope not true)... but when a plane of that size falls out of the sky there can be little hope. RIP aircrew.

Now I hear that the Red Cross is being very tardy about distributing relief funds.....$5m. distributed of around $114m. collected with a cap of $10000/ home destroyed. I hope that is incorrect also.

Click to expand...

If the plane broke up in flight, it is not the first c-130 being used as a tanker for that to happen, it happen in 2014
[video=480,360]https://youtu.be/PExzHamjqHE[/video]

Mmm.... an hour spent on youtube indicates these C130 aircraft can be vulnerable........age and service hours can't be helping either, especially with water/fuel loads being carried.
The one shown by Manpa must surely be a victim of metal fatigue......not all that easy establish by normal visual inspections.

One youtube clip I watched (from dec.19) indicated the radio communications in these ex military aircraft leave much to be desired, hf frequencies mainly reliant on atmospheric skip. This could explain the very brief radio communication
Regardless, its still an awful outcome for all involved.

Having so much water slushing around in side can't be a good thing over time.

G'day

My condolences to the families of the air crew of the C130, I have always liked the Hercs and have flown many times in them, about 1980 we flew from Townsville to Perth in them as there was an airline strike and all the military personnel going on leave to WA got a lift on the mail run, we had an engine fire some time after leaving Brisbane, it was put out in flight and we returned to Brisbane on 3 engines, all good and no issue landing or anything, we waited some time to get on a replacement herc and then flew on to Sydney overnight, shot down to the cross to see what was going on and then back to the air base, then next on to Perth via all other raaf bases, it took two days to get to Perth from Townseville, we were allowed to go into the cockpit for a look and it was pretty amazing, although noisy and shaky I have always had faith in them in the air.

As stated maybe the configuration of being fitted with water tanks is the reason it broke up mid flight, as ordinarily they are a well liked and tough work horse, and have been used since I think from the sixties, maybe these ones are re fitted ex military planes so the air frames would be pretty old and could have unseen weaknesses, its hard to imagine that the wings could just come away like they did in the video :argh:

cheers

stayyerAU

Just devastating for the families of those 3 men coming from so far to help out. Same for all others lost in these fires. :brokenh: