Hi all,
remember Liebensd posting this article: Air Guinee Express Boeing 737 crash in Freetown, Sierra Leone
Well today I found some very exclusive pictures in my mailbox!
http://coppermine.luchtzak.be/thumbnails.php?album=249
On this image you can see that the aircraft is very close to the active runway: http://coppermine.luchtzak.be/displayim ... ?pos=-3420
thanks to mister photographer to send me the pictures!
Air Guinee Express Boeing 737 crash - exclusive pictures!
Moderator: Latest news team
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TCAS_climb
- Posts: 413
- Joined: 04 Jan 2004, 00:00
Letter from one of the passengers:
At around 8:30am, we were told that the plane came from Conakry, Guinea but could not land because of "weather visibility problems" and had therefore headed back to Conakry. We waited until 1:25pm when an announcement was made that the plane had come back from Guinea and would be landing finally. The plane landed and we were placed on board. Almost immediately after the plane took off and was in mid air, we noticed that the left wing was on fire and the flames were climbing up towards the back windows. We then heard a big BOOM! sound and the plane started to twist up and down in the air until it crashed into some green plantations, continued at full speed before finally landing in a swamp with the plane still on fire and the now completely darkened passenger cabin reeking of the smell of kerosene and jet fuel. Your Excellency, we were later informed that the BOOM sound was the sound caused by one of the engines falling off in mid-air. I saw the site where the engine landed.
The distance from the point of impact where the engine hit the earth from the air and the final resting place of the plane was approximately 600 metres! Your Excellency, to continue my narration, please be informed that it was now pandemonium inside the plane with all passengers being terrified and shouting out for Jesus and Almighty Allah whilst struggling to break open windows and doors to escape from the fuelled plane which was on fire. All the windows were covered with mud and leaves and trees and we could not see anything outside until someone managed to break one of the windows of the emergency doors and we started to escape helter skelter from the plane.
Expecting the plane to burst into flames at any moment, we ran deep into the forest holding on to each other. To their credit, the Airports Authority and the Police started to drive towards the scene of the crash within seconds of the plane finally landing.
Considering the distance they had to drive, they took several minutes to finally arrive at the swamp and found all the passengers already escaped from the plane but in a complete state of terror, pandemonium and emotional distress not to talk of bleeding limbs and other injuries. Your Excellency, I have just been discharged from the hospital after four days. I left dozens of Sierra Leoneans still admitted in hospital.
Many of them have spinal, skeletal and other such injuries like internal organ problems. I am fortunate having suffered only a broken tooth and soft tissue injury. I give thanks to the Almighty that I can once again sit down in front of a computer doing what I have been blessed to do. Disseminate Information worldwide through the Internet for the attention of the International World. Your Excellency, most disappointingly one of the information I am going to disseminate is that, my government headed by you, is yet to make any official statement on the plane crash that had over 70 Sierra Leonean citizens on board.
Note: this was only a small part of the text, the rest can be found @ http://allafrica.com/stories/200408170491.html
At around 8:30am, we were told that the plane came from Conakry, Guinea but could not land because of "weather visibility problems" and had therefore headed back to Conakry. We waited until 1:25pm when an announcement was made that the plane had come back from Guinea and would be landing finally. The plane landed and we were placed on board. Almost immediately after the plane took off and was in mid air, we noticed that the left wing was on fire and the flames were climbing up towards the back windows. We then heard a big BOOM! sound and the plane started to twist up and down in the air until it crashed into some green plantations, continued at full speed before finally landing in a swamp with the plane still on fire and the now completely darkened passenger cabin reeking of the smell of kerosene and jet fuel. Your Excellency, we were later informed that the BOOM sound was the sound caused by one of the engines falling off in mid-air. I saw the site where the engine landed.
The distance from the point of impact where the engine hit the earth from the air and the final resting place of the plane was approximately 600 metres! Your Excellency, to continue my narration, please be informed that it was now pandemonium inside the plane with all passengers being terrified and shouting out for Jesus and Almighty Allah whilst struggling to break open windows and doors to escape from the fuelled plane which was on fire. All the windows were covered with mud and leaves and trees and we could not see anything outside until someone managed to break one of the windows of the emergency doors and we started to escape helter skelter from the plane.
Expecting the plane to burst into flames at any moment, we ran deep into the forest holding on to each other. To their credit, the Airports Authority and the Police started to drive towards the scene of the crash within seconds of the plane finally landing.
Considering the distance they had to drive, they took several minutes to finally arrive at the swamp and found all the passengers already escaped from the plane but in a complete state of terror, pandemonium and emotional distress not to talk of bleeding limbs and other injuries. Your Excellency, I have just been discharged from the hospital after four days. I left dozens of Sierra Leoneans still admitted in hospital.
Many of them have spinal, skeletal and other such injuries like internal organ problems. I am fortunate having suffered only a broken tooth and soft tissue injury. I give thanks to the Almighty that I can once again sit down in front of a computer doing what I have been blessed to do. Disseminate Information worldwide through the Internet for the attention of the International World. Your Excellency, most disappointingly one of the information I am going to disseminate is that, my government headed by you, is yet to make any official statement on the plane crash that had over 70 Sierra Leonean citizens on board.
Note: this was only a small part of the text, the rest can be found @ http://allafrica.com/stories/200408170491.html
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speedbird1
- Posts: 1194
- Joined: 08 Mar 2004, 00:00
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UltraSonic
- Posts: 77
- Joined: 13 Feb 2006, 00:00
ELAL lost engines in mid-air due to wing structural damage, overfueling -> weight -> structural damage -> engine pylon failure. ELAL wasn't to blame for this, airport services where.waldova wrote:When I read this story I believe it is a miracle that everybody survived and that the pilots managed to get the plane save on the ground (not without damage but who cares about that).
Losing engines reminds me of the Beilmer ramp in Amsterdam where the ELAL plane lost engines in mid-air too.
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foxtrot_lima_yankee
- Posts: 145
- Joined: 04 Nov 2005, 00:00
The El-AL engines that fell off were not due to bad maintenance. It is true that the engines were not well fixed to the wings. But that is not the main cause of engines 3 and 4 falling at the same time! Actually the plane stalled because of the overweight (caused as Ultrasonic said by overfuelling, but also by overcharge) while it was trying to gain altitude to try not to violate minimal flight altitude restrictions. That s why AMS tower and AMS departure exchanged a brief communication saying" the EL-AL 747 isn t climbing for an inch" after it took-off from AMS.
By stalling, an enormous pressure was exercised on the wings, by the engines that were trying to regain air from the front (as in a stall, air starts to enter from tha back engines, in the reversed direction as the usual flow direction), leading them to separate from the wing and fall into the water. The wings were severely damaged and the captain with ex-military pilot experience called a desperate "mayday" over the radio and a "we lost engine 3 and 4" call which was later interpreted by the investigating Dutch service as an engine fall-out to hide the fact that the plane was overloaded and that it stalled for this reason and that this implicated the both engines falling down.
By stalling, an enormous pressure was exercised on the wings, by the engines that were trying to regain air from the front (as in a stall, air starts to enter from tha back engines, in the reversed direction as the usual flow direction), leading them to separate from the wing and fall into the water. The wings were severely damaged and the captain with ex-military pilot experience called a desperate "mayday" over the radio and a "we lost engine 3 and 4" call which was later interpreted by the investigating Dutch service as an engine fall-out to hide the fact that the plane was overloaded and that it stalled for this reason and that this implicated the both engines falling down.