# National Air Cargo 747-400 crashes at Bagram AFB Afghanistan {April 30, 2013} **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 1, 2013, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-air-cargo-747-400-crashes-at-bagram-afb-afghanistan-april-30-2013/657167 "2013-05-01T01:53:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-air-cargo-747-400-crashes-at-bagram-afb-afghanistan-april-30-2013/657167/1 "2013-05-01T01:53:37Z")
[Caught on Video.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sUWC2jfjqI) Looks like a power on stall. Probably shifting freight took it out of CG. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-air-cargo-747-400-crashes-at-bagram-afb-afghanistan-april-30-2013/657167/2 "2013-05-01T02:01:40Z")
Wow, that is horrifying to watch. Isn’t freight always tied down to the cargo hold? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-air-cargo-747-400-crashes-at-bagram-afb-afghanistan-april-30-2013/657167/3 "2013-05-01T02:14:10Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > Wow, that is horrifying to watch. Isn’t freight always tied down to the cargo hold? Yes but if there was an improper or defective tiedown or more, you can have freight shift creating a chain reaction (large heavy object A comes loose, crashes into container B rupturing it and making its contents roll free; bounces back and crashes hard into not so large but still quite heavy object C and _its_ restraints can’t take both weights combined, something crashes through the floor panel and pinches a hydraulic line, etc.). Not enough altitude to have (m)any choices… Damn terrible way to go… ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-air-cargo-747-400-crashes-at-bagram-afb-afghanistan-april-30-2013/657167/4 "2013-05-01T02:22:17Z")
imagine a wheeled vehicle that breaks loose and simply drives over all the floor locks holding the pallets in place. Or someone didn’t bother to pull up the unused locks and the oneS holding the last position breaks loose. FYI, Pallets are aluminum sheets that freight is secured to and then loaded into the plane. There was a freight shifting incident in 1997 in Miami FL with a Fine Air DC-8 that brought the plane down. ---
**Author:** ![ducati](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cc9497/32.png) [@ducati](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ducati)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-air-cargo-747-400-crashes-at-bagram-afb-afghanistan-april-30-2013/657167/5 "2013-05-01T03:06:30Z")
That’s about 15 seconds of “Fuck me, fuck me, nose down you bitch!” hell for those guys. Terrible way to go indeed. ---
**Author:** ![ataraxy22](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ataraxy22/32/307_2.png) [@ataraxy22](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ataraxy22)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-air-cargo-747-400-crashes-at-bagram-afb-afghanistan-april-30-2013/657167/6 "2013-05-01T03:15:08Z")
The driver of that vehicle doesn’t even comment! ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-air-cargo-747-400-crashes-at-bagram-afb-afghanistan-april-30-2013/657167/7 "2013-05-01T03:16:41Z")
Given the airport they were certainly attempting the best climb-out they could achieve to avoid surface to air missiles. high angles of attack make load shifting that much more likely. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-air-cargo-747-400-crashes-at-bagram-afb-afghanistan-april-30-2013/657167/8 "2013-05-01T03:20:28Z")
Wow. That’s hard to watch ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-air-cargo-747-400-crashes-at-bagram-afb-afghanistan-april-30-2013/657167/9 "2013-05-01T04:20:13Z")
Holy shit! (Damn, the guy recording that didn’t even make a sound!) ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-air-cargo-747-400-crashes-at-bagram-afb-afghanistan-april-30-2013/657167/10 "2013-05-01T04:32:45Z")
I found out yesterday that my cousin was killed in an airplane crash in Afghanistan. I went to my folks’ place today to get an update and my dad asked if I’d seen the video. I hadn’t and we watched it. I’m not sure how I feel about it. My cousin and I used to be very close and, as mentioned, there’s a few seconds of stomach-dropping doom that is hard to watch but at the same time, it is a fascinating video. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-air-cargo-747-400-crashes-at-bagram-afb-afghanistan-april-30-2013/657167/11 "2013-05-01T06:25:21Z")
Sorry to hear about your cousin. My background is air freight and it’s a 2 degrees of separation kind of business. A friend of mine is waiting to hear if his friend was on the flight. And according to this [cite](http://avstop.com/April_2013/national_air_cargo_boeing_747_crashes_just_after_takeoff_killing_all_onboard.htm)the pilots reported a load shift. “Although the Taliban have claimed responsibility for the downing of Flight 102, initial reports based on communications from the crew after takeoff indicate that the crash was caused by an accidental load shift which caused the aircraft to become unstable and eventually led to the loss of control by the pilots.” Not really anything you can do if the CG is so far off the elevator can’t compensate for it at full deflection. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-air-cargo-747-400-crashes-at-bagram-afb-afghanistan-april-30-2013/657167/12 "2013-05-01T10:37:54Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > Holy shit! > > (Damn, the guy recording that didn’t even make a sound!) Except when he sat on his dog, apparently? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-air-cargo-747-400-crashes-at-bagram-afb-afghanistan-april-30-2013/657167/13 "2013-05-01T13:39:39Z")
[QUOTE=Magiver] air freight…a 2 degrees of separation kind of business. A friend of mine is waiting to hear if his friend was on the flight. [/QUOTE] ☹ And here I am, with a friend waiting to hear if his brother was on that crew. \*\*jnglmassiv \*\*- I just don’t have the words right now to express my thoughts, but your cousin is in my thoughts. Who ever would have thought a small cargo carrier would be the focus of a two-degrees separation for so many of us? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-air-cargo-747-400-crashes-at-bagram-afb-afghanistan-april-30-2013/657167/14 "2013-05-01T13:47:39Z")
I sat next to a 747 cargo captain on one long flight, and had a fascinating conversation as he read through the routine flight and equipment updates. I finally asked him, “Does it make you nervous to fly back here?” and he just nodded. Chances are slim, but I sincerely hope he wasn’t on that doomed whale. As been said, very hard to watch. Almost on a 9/11 scale. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-air-cargo-747-400-crashes-at-bagram-afb-afghanistan-april-30-2013/657167/15 "2013-05-01T14:05:25Z")
How do you not even yell “holy shit!” when you see a plane that size obviously about to crash that close to you? That was crazy. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-air-cargo-747-400-crashes-at-bagram-afb-afghanistan-april-30-2013/657167/16 "2013-05-01T14:13:21Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > Except when he sat on his dog, apparently? 😕 Just before that he quietly whispers “oh fuck” as he pulls over apparently to turn around. Really, what else to be said? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-air-cargo-747-400-crashes-at-bagram-afb-afghanistan-april-30-2013/657167/17 "2013-05-01T16:33:13Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Just before that he quietly whispers “oh fuck” as he pulls over apparently to turn around. Really, what else to be said? If he’s not a pilot the whole thing is probably surreal. For pilots, the “aw fuck” comes earlier because they recognize it’s going to stall and then to see it actually stall. ---
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-air-cargo-747-400-crashes-at-bagram-afb-afghanistan-april-30-2013/657167/18 "2013-05-01T18:19:17Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > How do you not even yell “holy shit!” when you see a plane that size obviously about to crash that close to you? > > That was crazy. That was my thought. How can this guy be so crazy quiet watching something like that? That was the part that creeped me out. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-air-cargo-747-400-crashes-at-bagram-afb-afghanistan-april-30-2013/657167/19 "2013-05-01T18:31:13Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > That was my thought. How can this guy be so crazy quiet watching something like that? > > That was the part that creeped me out. I think the term would be “speechless”. It was such a traumatic event as to render someone temporarily silent. The words that eventually followed appropriately framed what was just witnessed. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-air-cargo-747-400-crashes-at-bagram-afb-afghanistan-april-30-2013/657167/20 "2013-05-01T19:49:27Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > That was my thought. How can this guy be so crazy quiet watching something like that? > > That was the part that creeped me out. I don’t imagine I’d have an attack of verbal diarrhea if I was witnessing something like that- probably just a fairly muted “Holy Crap!” or “Whoa!” or “Jesus!” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/national-air-cargo-747-400-crashes-at-bagram-afb-afghanistan-april-30-2013/657167.md?page=2)